Description:

Revolutionary War


Thomas Mumford, Revolutionary War Assemblyman, Provisioner, and Privateer!

 

2pp receipt 2x signed by Thomas Mumford (1728-1799), a Connecticut state assemblyman who helped provision Connecticut with war materiel during the Revolutionary War. Signed as "Thos. Mumford," first at the bottom of the first page, and second at the top of the second page. Docketed verso. Cream watermarked paper in very good to near fine condition, with expected paper folds and a few closed tears, measuring 8.375" x 13. From the Collection of Norman Boas of Seaport Autographs and purchased at Christie's December 5, 2017 sale.

 

Thomas Mumford, a Connecticut state assemblyman, submitted this itemized invoice to Connecticut Treasurer Jonathan Lawrence on April 22, 1782. Mumford requested £24.9.4 for attending 12+ Council of Safety meetings between July 1781-April 1782, and for travel expenses between Hartford, Lebanon, Norwich, and Groton, Connecticut.

 

Mumford was a merchant from Groton, a thriving community located at the mouth of the Thames River, in southeastern Connecticut. The Mumford Family was locally influential and had established a lucrative shipping trade with the West Indies. Mumford easily transitioned to privateering after the Revolutionary War began. He co-owned vessels like the Fanny and the Hancock that captured British warships up and down the Eastern Seaboard and in the Caribbean. It was perhaps his very public brand of patriotism that marked Mumford's home for special destruction during Benedict Arnold's raid on nearby New London in 1781.

 

Although less glamorous than privateering, Thomas Mumford also represented Groton at the Connecticut State Assembly, a position he had held since 1773. So too did Mumford attend Council of Safety meetings. This agency was tasked with supplying troops with “every matter and thing that should be needful.” In a similar fashion, Mumford had been selected as Connecticut agent of the Secret Committee of Congress. In these ways, Mumford helped procure essential items such as gunpowder. Connecticut was also the “Provision State” of other colonies, heavily relied upon to provide them with food, livestock, arms, and ammunition.

 

Jonathan Lawrence served as treasurer before, during, and after the American Revolution, when Connecticut was first a colony and then a state.

 

Provenance: Ex-Christie's December 5, 2017 sale; Ex-Norman Boas, Seaport Autographs

 


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