The Book
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North Carolina's much-traveled original Bill of Rights.
A break-in
Near the close of the Civil War, as General Sherman blazed his path to the sea, an unknown infantryman rifled through the abandoned North Carolina State House. The soldier was hunting for simple Confederate mementos—maps, flags, official correspondence—but he wound up discovering something far more valuable. He headed home to Ohio with what would become one of the holy relics of our republic: an original copy of the Bill of Rights, handwritten in looping script on a tall piece of sheepskin parchment in 1789.
A surreal journey
That smash-and-grab theft kicked off the bizarre and unlikely journey of an artifact many historians believe to be priceless. Lost Rights: The Misadventures of a Stolen American Relic follows every twist in that epic passage, beginning with the Indiana businessman who purchased the looted parchment for five dollars and continuing, more than a century later, into the exclusive realm of very expensive old things—a rarefied world few ever glimpse. The parchment appeared in the back halls of Sotheby’s and other elite auction houses, dazzling everyone who saw it. But the antiquities dealers all wrestled with the same dilemma: How do you sell a stolen multimillion-dollar treasure?
Untruths and consequences
One man thought he had finally figured out a way: Wayne Pratt, a renowned antique-furniture dealer and celebrated appraiser on the television program Antiques Roadshow. Pratt and his business partners—a highly volatile real estate developer and a politically connected Washington lawyer—hatched an idea that would allow them to buy the document for a modest sum and flip it for $5 million. But a historian’s discovery inadvertently tripped up their scheme—setting off a series of events that climaxed with a pack of FBI agents, a trap set on the 32nd floor of a Philadelphia office tower, and a singular act of betrayal.
