Editor's note: This article is a part of a series reviewing Utah and American history for KSL.com's Historic section. MOUNT PLEASANT, Sanpete County — As Lynn and Joan Varah sifted through various items in their garage a summer day in 2015, one particular pile of old materials in the corner of the garage caught their eye.

Inside the pile were hundreds of aging letters and documents. Unsure what it was, they enlisted to help of their friend, David Foster, a small business owner and an amateur genealogist, who spent the next few weeks digging into the pile. Soon, he realized the documents were something special.

As it turns out, among the pile was a rare copy of “The American Crisis,” a pamphlet written by influential philosopher Thomas Paine in December 1776 and read to Continental Army troops stationed at Valley Forge as an attempt to boost morale during the Revolutionary War.

The document, authenticated this week, has since been shipped to New York, where it will be put into a catalog in March and sold at the Swann Auction Galleries’ Americana auction on April 12. The rare document could fetch anywhere from $50,000 to $75,000, if not more, Rick Stattler, director of the Americana department for the gallery estimated.

So how did one of the most important writings from the Revolutionary War era end up in rural Utah?

“It’s the crazy part,” Lynn Varah told KSL.com. “Something that old from way back there ended up in a little bitty town like this.”

A crazy journey

Paine, who more famously wrote “Common Sense,” a pamphlet used to advocate the American Colonies breaking free from Great Britain's rule, released the “The American Crisis” on Dec. 23, 1776. Gen. George Washington found the essay inspiring and read it to his troops stationed at Valley Forge, according to ushistory.org. Within two days of the printing, Washington led his troops across the Delaware River for a surprise attack on the British.

At some point, whether during the war or after, a first edition of the “The American Crisis” ended up in Thomas Wallin’s hands, and Wallin had written his name on a cover of the document. Wallin was a postmaster and tavern owner who lived in New Egypt, New Jersey, and was about 24 years old when the pamphlet was written, according to Foster’s research.

He said it was likely Wallin fought in the war based on his age at the time the document was written but added that remains unknown. He died in 1835.

Also during the 1830s, members of his family joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and, either his daughter, Sarah, or his granddaughter, Margaret McKean, brought the document to Utah, Foster said. The pamphlet was discovered along with about 200 to 300 letters either written or received during McKean's life.

How the pamphlet ended up in a garage in rural Utah is also unclear. The items, Varah supposed, had been left untouched for several decades and belonged to his brother-in-law, who died in the 1990s. Foster said the pamphlet had been in Salt Lake City before it was moved down to Mount Pleasant.

“It’s amazing it survived,” Foster said. “It came across the country probably in a pioneer wagon — it’s possible it came two or three decades later when the railroad was connected — but just to survive all of that, and then it was lost for a while … nobody knew really what it was for so many years and then it just popped up in the most unlikely of places.”

Heading to auction

When Foster realized what he had, he contemplated keeping it but decided he should contact the Varahs and tell them about the discovery. The Varahs were stunned.

“I just couldn’t believe I was holding something that old,” Lynn Varah said.

They agreed to sell it and split the profits. In Foster’s research, he found a second edition of the pamphlet found in Albany, New York sold for $125,000 in 2014. So he reached to the gallery that sold that edition, Swann Galleries, and told them he believed he had another copy of the rare document.

Stattler and his team were immediately interested. When it arrived in New York this week, he said there was “no doubt” that it was authentic.

The version found in Utah is also rarer. There were only four previously-known copies of the original edition, while there’s 12 of the second run, according to Stattler.

“This original printing is definitely scarcer,” he said. “They are both extremely rare and important but this is, what I believe to be, the earliest.”

However, there were some reasons it expects it to sell less than the copy found in Albany. First, the copy found in Utah has just the first two parts of the pamphlet, while the Albany version had all three.

Second, its condition is also worse than copy sold in 2014.

“It looks like it was carried on a wagon train out west — which, apparently it was,” Stattler said, with a slight snicker. “That’s probably the most interesting thing about it. It was carried across the country and I think that’s just a very compelling artifact.”

You never know what you’ll find

Varah wanted to know more about Paine and “The Crisis” after finding out what was in his garage all those decades.

“It’s the thrill of it," he said. "It makes you think about what happened back then. And it makes you think if it hadn’t been — what Thomas Paine did and it turned the army around — we wouldn’t have a country."

Amazed by the story, he was also happy about how much the document is worth. He then chuckled as he figured he might finally buy himself a new fishing pole with the money that comes in from the sale.

Looking back at it now, Foster notes it’s an example that holding onto things may just pay off in the end.

“Who knows what’s in anybody’s garage, right?”

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