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Lot 264
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Bunker Hill Pay To Company That Defended Boston in "the Late Boston Alarm" One Month After
Bunker Hill Pay To Company That Defended Boston in "the Late Boston Alarm" One Month After
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Revolutionary War
Hartford, CT, July 25, 1775
Bunker Hill Pay To Company That Defended Boston in "the Late Boston Alarm" One Month After
MDS

Manuscript document signed by Thomas Seymour as "Thos. Seymour," and Oliver Ellsworth as "Oliv: Ellsworth," for the Committee, 1p, 8.25" x 5.75", Hartford, July 25, 1775. Endorsed and docketed at verso. Flattened folds, creases, and wrinkles. Uneven edges. A few isolated areas of ink splatter, not affecting legibility. Very minor scattered discoloration. In near fine condition.

An order for payment to a contingent of Connecticut militiamen who had just taken part in the Battle of Bunker Hill, just one month after the historic battle. To Treasurer John Lawrence, Esq., in full:

"Sir, Pay to the Select Men of Chatham or order the Sum of Twenty Eight pound ten Shilling & Eight pence mony in Bills - it being the am't of what is allow'd Capt. Silas Dunham & Company for Time & Expence in the Late Boston Alarm as per acct. & charge the same to Acct. of the Colony of Connect:

Hartford July 25th: 1775
£28.10.8
To John Lawrence Esqr. Treasurer."

At verso:

"Hartford 25 July 1775
Rec'd of Treasurer Lawrence Twenty Eight pounds Ten Shillings & Eight pence.
Silas Dunham / Select man."

The Pay-Table handled the military finances for the colony of Connecticut during the American Revolution. Also known as the Committee of Four, its members at different times included Oliver Ellsworth, Jedidiah Huntington, William Moseley, Hezekiah Rogers, Jesse Root, Thomas Seymour III, William Pitkin, Fenn Wadsworth, Eleazer Wales, Ezekiel Williams, John Chenward, Oliver Wolcott, Jr., and Samuel Wyllys.

Thomas Seymour III (1735-1829) was born in Hartford, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1755. He married Mary Ledyard, with whom he had seven children. He received appointment as King's Attorney in 1767 and served as State's Attorney after the Revolutionary War. Commissioned as a captain of militia in 1773, he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel in 1774 and led three regiments of light cavalry in support of the Continental Army in New York during the summer of 1776. The General Assembly appointed Seymour in April 1775 to be one of the Committee on the Pay Table. He represented Hartford in the Connecticut General Assembly at eighteen sessions between 1774 and 1793 and served as Speaker five times. He served in the Connecticut Senate from 1793 to 1803. He also served as mayor of Hartford from its incorporation in 1784 until his resignation in 1812.

Oliver Ellsworth (1745-1807) was born in Windsor, Connecticut, and entered Yale College in 1762. At the end of his second year, he transferred to the College of New Jersey (Princeton), from which he graduated in 1766. He studied the law for four years, gained admission to the bar in 1771, and in 1777, he became the state's attorney for Hartford County, served on the Pay-Table Committee, and helped manage Connecticut's war expenditures during the Revolutionary War. In 1777, he was also named a delegate to the Continental Congress from Connecticut, a position he held until the end of the war. He served on the Supreme Court of Errors in Connecticut from 1785 and later on the Connecticut Superior Court. In 1787, voters selected Ellsworth as a delegate to the Constitutional Convention, where he helped draft the Constitution. He left the convention before signing the final document but worked for its ratification. He served as one of the first two U.S. Senators from Connecticut from March 1789 to March 1796, when President George Washington nominated Ellsworth as the third Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, a position he held from 1796 to 1800. After traveling to France as a special envoy to end the Quasi-War, he resigned from the Court in December 1800 because of illness.

John Lawrence (1719-1802) served as treasurer of the colony and then the state of Connecticut for twenty years from 1769 to 1789. During the Revolutionary War, he was also commissioner of loans for the United States.

The Battle of Bunker Hill occurred outside British-occupied Boston early in the Revolutionary War. The British sent several of their best generals to put down the burgeoning American rebellion. The generals concluded that an attack on Cambridge must be mounted as soon as possible. Before the plan could be put into effect, rebel spies in Boston had learned of it. About 1,200 American militiamen, armed with picks and shovels, advanced to fortify Bunker's Hill. Neither a British artillery bombardment nor a frontal assault by 2,400 British soldiers under the command of General William Howe (1729-1814) could dislodge the Americans. The main American position of 1,600 men turned back two more advances by British troops who were in tight formation and burdened by heavy packs. Howe then ordered his soldiers to drop their packs and rush forward in a bayonet charge. By the time they reached the American redoubt, the rebels' supply of powder had given out. The resulting American retreat became a near rout. Howe, though, decided against pressing on toward Cambridge and stopped the pursuit. The British won at a horrible cost. The battle had destroyed the British myth that Americans could not stand against the regulars. Manuscripts such as the one here offered, with a direct association to the Battle of Bunker Hill, are exceedingly rare.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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  • Dimensions: 8.25" x 5.75"
  • Medium: MDS

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