Lot 191

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Lot 191
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Oliver Ellsworth 1777 Pay Order Signed by Constitution Architect and Chief Justice
Oliver Ellsworth 1777 Pay Order Signed by Constitution Architect and Chief Justice
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Description:

Oliver Ellsworth 1777 Pay Order Signed by Constitution Architect and Chief Justice

OLIVER ELLSWORTH, Document Signed, Pay Order for Col. Solomon Willes, April 1, 1777, Hartford, Connecticut. 2 pp., 8.25" x 6.25". Expected folds; short tears along one fold, not affecting text; very good.

In this pay order, Oliver Ellsworth and Ezekiel Williams of the Pay-Table order the treasurer of Connecticut to pay Colonel Solomon Willes £17..1s..1d and charge it to the state.

Complete Transcript
Sir
Pay Colo Solomon Willes, or order, the Sum of Seventeen pounds one Shillings & one penny being for wages omitted & short last in settlement of the Pay Roll for his Company in Colo Douglass Regt 1776 & Charge the State. Hartford April 1st 1777.
£7.8.5 Ezl Williams }
O Ellsworth } Comtee
}
Jno Lawrence Esq. Treasurer

[Endorsement on verso:]
Recd April 1 1777 of Treas Lawrence Seventeen pounds One shilling and one penny in Money Contents
⅌ Solomon Willes

[Docketing:]
No 6627 / Order / Colo Soln Willes / £17.1.1 / Datd 1 April 1777 / Auditd Sept 1, 1777 / J. Treadll

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, Jedidiah Huntington, William Moseley, Hezekiah Rogers, Jesse Root, Thomas Seymour III, Fenn Wadsworth, Eleazer Wales, Ezekiel Williams, John Chenward, Oliver Wolcott Jr., and Samuel Wyllys.

Willes served in the regiment of Colonel William Douglas. During the landing of British troops at Kips Bay in New York City on September 15, 1776, Douglas's troops retreated in disorder. General George Washington encountered some of the troops and flogged them with his riding cane, exclaiming, "Are these the men with whom I am to defend America?" Douglas's regiment also participated in the Battle of White Plains six weeks later.

Solomon Willes (1731-1807) was born in Connecticut and enlisted in the French and Indian War as a private, rising to the rank of first lieutenant during the war. He became a judge of the Tolland County Court and served as a member of the General Assembly for twenty-three sessions. He married Elizabeth Lathrop in 1763, and they had seven children. During the Revolutionary War, he served as a captain, lieutenant colonel, and colonel in Wyllys' Regiment and Chester's Regiment.

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 married Abigail Wolcott in 1772. In 1777, he became 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 and created with Roger Sherman the Connecticut Compromise between large and small states. 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.

Ezekiel Williams (1729-1818) was a merchant from Wethersfield, Connecticut. He served as sheriff of Hartford County from 1767 to 1789 and was a member of the Committee of the Pay Table beginning in 1775. He also served as a deputy commissary of prisoners for Connecticut. His son Ezekiel (1765-1843) married Abigail Ellsworth (1774-1860), the oldest daughter of Oliver Ellsworth.

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.

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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