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September 28, 2005: New Jersey Purchases Important Books and Manuscripts
"The documents had been in the private collection of the descendants of Robert Barclay, New Jersey's first royal governor, for more than 300 years until they were purchased about 10 years ago by Jay T. Snider, a wealthy Philadelphia businessman and former president of hockey's Philadelphia Flyers. Snider, in turn, had them auctioned by Christie's.
"It is great, absolutely great that we got them," said Joseph J. Felcone of Princeton, a prominent rare-book and manuscript dealer who alerted the state to the auction and did the bidding at Christie's. "What is important is what would have happened if we had not gotten them. It would have been just unthinkable if individual collectors had bought and separated them."
