Landmark Books in All Fields
ItemID: #102245
Cost: $9,200.00

Minutemen document - Signed

American revolution

"CERTAIN UNITS OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA WERE DESIGNATED AS MINUTEMEN…": PAY RECEIPT SIGNED BY 11 MASSACHUSETTS MINUTEMEN IN 1775 JUST A WEEK BEFORE THE BATTLES OF LEXINGTON AND CONCORD

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION). Minutemen document signed. Newbury [Massachusetts]: April 11, 1775. One sheet of paper, 6-1/4 by 5-3/4 inches, manuscript in ink on recto and verso. $9200.

Very scarce and desirable receipt signed by 11 minutemen in Newbury, Massachusetts, on April 11, 1775, an intriguing artifact of the Revolutionary War era.

The document reads "Received of Capt. Gerrish by the hand of Mr. Eliphalet Kilbon the sum affixed to our respective names in the within, Newbury, April 11, 1775" and is signed by John Cheney, Oliver Goodridge, Abraham Sawyer, Abner Woodman, John Carneige, Jedediah Currier, Nath. Pearson, Nathan Adams, Jacob Hale, John Noyes, and Enoch Boynton. Several of these names are penned on the verso, in a uniform hand, with payment amounts noted next to each man's name.

Massachusetts was officially declared to be in a state of rebellion in February, 1775. In late March of 1775, John Hancock, president of the Provincial Congress of Massachusetts, "declaring that the people of Massachusetts were threatened by a powerful army, formally called upon them to prepare to defend themselves to the uttermost. Certain units of the Massachusetts militia were designated as minutemen, and instructed to go into swift action in the event that Gage's troops came out of Boston on the offensive" (Alden, A History of the American Revolution, 173). The British garrison attempted to act on its orders to disarm the rebels and arrest their leaders, especially Hancock and Samuel Adams, which led to the Battles of Lexington and Concord on April 19, 1775, scarcely more than a week after this particular pay receipt was signed.

Faint fold lines, mild edge-wear, archival tape reinforcement in three places on verso. An extremely good and scarce Revolutionary War document.

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