Very Rare Printed Presidential Check Signed by Franklin Pierce: He Purchases Coal for the White House

One might have thought, what with the Kansas-Nebraska Act and the Gadsden Purchase, that things were sufficiently hot for President Pierce in the White House in the fall of 1854 - but heating his home took more than national outrage. Indeed, the installation of central heating and the White House’s first bathtub with hot running water, required fuel for the new coal-burning furnaces in the basement beneath the oval Blue Room. Here, with this very rare printed check, signed as president, Pierce buys coal from Washington coal merchant William T. Dove.

Check Signed, as President, partially-printed and accomplished in autograph, drawn on Riggs & Co. in the amount of two hundred thirty-seven dollars and eleven cents, payable to William T. Dove; 1 page, oblong narrow duodecimo, Washington, September 19, 1854.

Of exceptional rarity; one of the five rarest of all presidential checks.