Description:

Revolutionary War

Rare Pay Order for African American Soldier Serving in the Continental Army

 

AFRICAN AMERICAN REVOLUTIONARY WAR SOLDIER. Eleazer Wales, Document Signed, Pay Order for Job Leason, December 5, 1782, Connecticut. 2 pp., 7.5" x 6.25"  Expected folds; very good.

 

Complete Transcript

                                                                        Pay-Table-Office, Decemr 5th 1782

SIR,

PLEASE to secure to Mr Job Leason the Payment of Six pounds ten shillings and six pence being the Balance found due to him for Service in the Continental Army in ye year 1780.

   Agreeable to Act of Assembly---and Charge the State.

   £6..10..6

                                                                        Eleazer Wales  } Committee.

John Lawrence, Esq; Treasurer.

3:5:3

 

[Endorsement:

Recd two notes in the name of Job Leason for the Contents

                                                                        Abram Clark

[Docketing:

6277  Order / Job Leason / £6..10..6 / Decemr 5, 1782

 

Historical Background



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, Oliver Wolcott Jr., Hezekiah Rogers, Jedidiah Huntington, William Moseley, Fenn Wadsworth, Eleazer Wales, and Samuel Wyllys.

 

In this rare pay order for an African American soldier, Eleazer Wales instructs the state treasurer to pay Private Job Leason six pounds, ten shillings, and six pence for the balance due him for his service in the Continental Line in the first months of 1780. By the time of this order, Leason had reenlisted in another Connecticut regiment, in which he served until the end of the war.

 

 

Job Leason (1756-1828) lived in Windham, Connecticut, and served in Colonel John Chandler’s Regiment of the Connecticut Line from April 1777 to April 1780, when he was discharged at Springfield, New Jersey. The regiment saw action in the Battle of Germantown, the siege of Fort Mifflin, and the Battle of Monmouth. He reenlisted in the spring of 1781 in a regiment commanded by Colonel Isaac Sherman, and then transferred to a regiment commanded by Colonel Ebenezer Huntington. He was discharged at West Point, New York, in July 1783. He married Rosanna, twenty years his junior, and they had no children. After 1808, he was feeble and was unable to do any work except basket making. By 1818, he was “very poor and destitute of property” and in need of “assistance for his support.” He began receiving a pension of $8 per month beginning in April 1818. Early in 1828, Leason appointed an agent to obtain a land warrant for his services as a soldier, but Leason died on May 28 before receiving the land grant.

 

Eleazer Wales (1732-1794) was born in Windham, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1753. He initially studied medicine and practiced for a time before being licensed to preach in Windham County. He received a master of arts degree from Dartmouth College in 1779 and lived in Hartford. From 1780 to 1785, he was a member of the Committee of the Pay-Table for Connecticut, and he also served as a justice of the peace.

 

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

 

 

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