CHIEF JUSTICE OLIVER ELLSWORTH - AUTOGRAPH DOCUMENT SIGNED 07/05/1776 CO-SIGNED BY: ELIJAH BEACH - HFSID 28595

 

OLIVER ELLSWORTH: JULY 5, 1776
Payment to a captain for a regiment being raised to fight in Canada, ordering the "colony" of Connecticut to be charged, a day after the colony became a state.
Autograph Document Signed: "O. Ellsworth" as member of the Committee, 1p, 8x6½. Hartford, 1776 July 5. To John Lawrence, Treasurer of Connecticut. In full: "Pay Capt. Elijah Beach, as Paymaster of his own Company now raising for Continental Service in Canada - Eight Hundred & Fifty two pounds - & charge the Colony". On verso, Manuscript DS: "Elijah Beach". In full: "Recd 5 July 1776 of Treasurer Laurence Eight Hundred Fifty Two pounds being the Contents". Ellsworth, who had moved to Hartford in 1775, served on the Pay-Table, the Connecticut Committee of Four that handled all of the military finances for the colony of Connecticut during the American Revolution. Unknown to him, the 13 American colonies had declared their independence from England a day earlier in Philadelphia. In the autumn of 1775, the Continental Army invaded Canada. By November 1775, Montreal was occupied by the American Army. At the time of U.S. independence, CAPTAIN ELIJAH BEACH, who has endorsed this document on the verso, was raising a company of soldiers to fight in Canada against the 10,000 British soldiers who had begun arriving in May. Outnumbered, the Americans were forced to retreat. Plans to invade Canada again were never carried out. Ellsworth later served in the Continental Congress (1777-1784), was Connecticut's first U.S. Senator (1789-1796) and became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1796-1800). While Senator, Ellsworth was Chairman of the committee that drew up the Judiciary Act of 1789 that organized the Federal judiciary, and it was Ellsworth who submitted to the Senate floor the amendments to the Constitution that became the Bill of Rights. Light show through from verso. Overall, fine condition.