Description:

Connecticut Colonial

Connecticut Council of Safety Clothes Continental Army

 

JAMES WADSWORTH, Autograph Document Signed, Pay Order to Joseph Trumbull, January 13, 1778, Lebanon. 1 p., 8" x 6." Some browning on fold; small tear on fold; repaired with tape on verso; text clear and dark. From the Library of Charles I. Forbes, purchased in 1954.

 

Complete Transcript

                                                                        Hartford January 13th 1778

Gentn

            Draw on the Treasurer in Favour of Colo Joseph Trumbull for the Sum of five Thousand Pounds to replace the Monies by him advanced to Mr Alexander Rose & Company to procure Cloathing for the Continental Army to be in Account

                                                By Order of the Governor and Council of Safety

                                                                        Attest James Wadsworth Clerk

To the Comtee of Pay Table

[Endorsement:

£5000.0.0

            Recd Jany 13th 1778 from Comtee of Pay Table their Ordr on Treasr in favr Colo Jos. Trumbull for the abovesd Sum of five thousand pounds

                                                                        ? James Wadsworth

 [Docketing:

Ord. / Governr & Council / £5000. in favr Colo / Jos. Trumbull / Jany 13, 1778

 

Historical Background

On January 13, 1778, Governor Jonathan Trumbull (1710-1785) and Council of Safety members Jabez Huntington, James Wadsworth, Roger Sherman, William Hillhouse, William Pitkin, Benjamin Pain, Abraham Davenport, Nathaniel Wales Junior, and William Williams met in Hartford. Among the business conducted, the council voted “that an order be drawn on the Committee of Pay-Table in favour of Colo. Joseph Trumbull for the sum of five thousand pounds…to procure cloathing for the continental army.”

 

On January 26, 1778, the Continental Congress ordered the payment of five notes totaling $110,666.66 to Alexander Rose “for the payment of cloathing, purchased in the state of Massachusetts-Bay” by Samuel A. Otis “for the use of the army.” Otis, a Boston merchant and deputy clothier for Massachusetts, purchased the clothing under the authority of James Mease, Clothier General for the Continental Army from February 1777 to July 1779.

 

 

Joseph Trumbull (1737-1778) was the son of Connecticut Governor Jonathan Trumbull and graduated from Harvard College in 1756. He served in the Connecticut House of Representatives from 1767 to 1773. He served as commissary general for the Connecticut forces from April to July 1775, when Congress appointed him as Continental commissary general. He resigned in August 1777. Congress appointed him to the Board of War, on which he served from August 1777 to April 1778, when he resigned due to sickness. He died of disease in July 1778.

 

James Wadsworth Jr. (1730-1817) was born in Durham, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1748. He studied law and was admitted to the bar. From 1756 to 1786, he served as the Durham town clerk, taking over the position held by his grandfather. From 1759 to 1785, and in 1788, he was a member of the General Assembly of Connecticut. When General George Washington called for reinforcements in January 1776, Wadsworth as a colonel led one of four regiments of Connecticut militia in response. In December, he was promoted to brigadier general and placed in charge of a brigade. In March 1777, he took one-fourth of the brigade to defend the coast from New Haven. From 1777 to 1780, Wadsworth was a member of the Council of Safety, which functioned as a sort of war board in support of Governor Jonathan Trumbull. After the war, Wadsworth served as a member of the Continental Congress (1784), State executive council (1785-1789), and Connecticut State Senate (1786-1787), and as State comptroller (1786-1787). In 1788, he opposed ratification of the U.S. Constitution, believing it gave too much power to the federal government.

 

Alexander Rose (ca. 1733-1807) was a merchant in Charleston, South Carolina, in business from at least 1768 to 1799.

 

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