Oliver Ellsworth
Windham, CT, January 24, 1776
1776 Oliver Ellsworth Signs Pay Order!
MDS

OLIVER ELLSWORTH, Manuscript Document Signed, Pay order for Elisha White, January 24, 1776, Windham, Connecticut. Also signed by Nathaniel Wales Jr. 2 pp., 6.625" x 4.375". Expected folds; general toning; very good.

Justice of the Peace Oliver Ellsworth signed this order, instructing Connecticut Treasurer John Lawrence to pay Elisha White ?2.1.8 for travel to deliver a message from the governor to members of the assembly. White continued to perform this service throughout 1776, as he again delivered a notification from Governor Jonathan Trumbull to the representatives in November 1776. White endorsed this pay order over to merchant Jabez Huntington, who collected it on May 4, 1776.

Complete Transcript
Windham Janry 24th 1776
Sir,
Pay To Elisha White or order out of the Coloney Treasury Two pounds one shilling & Eight pence Lawful money for his Travel 125 miles To notify the Members of the Last Special assembly by order of The Govr, & Charge the acct of sd Coloney
?2..1..8
Nathel Wales Jur Justice Peace
Olir Ellsworth Juste Pace
To John Lawrence Esqr
Treasurer of the Coloney of Connecticut

[Endorsement 1 (on verso):] pay the Contents to Jabez Huntington Value Recd.
Elisha White

[Endorsement 2 (on verso):] Recd 4 May 1776 of Treasr Lawrence Two pounds one Shilling & Eight pence being the Contents
? Jaz Huntington

Historical Background
The Connecticut General Assembly met on December 14, 1775, in New Haven. It passed several laws and made several military appointments before adjourning on December 28. Among the acts they passed was one for raising and equipping one-quarter of the militia of the state ?to stand in readiness as minute men for the Defence of this and the rest of the United Colonies,? as Governor Jonathan Trumbull wrote to General George Washington on January 1, 1776.

Between meetings of the Connecticut General Assembly, Governor Trumbull and a small Council of Safety directed the revolutionary government of Connecticut. They met at the governor's home in Lebanon on January 5, 1776. Their focus in much of January was on raising and equipping a regiment to invade Canada. The message that Elisha White delivered to the members of the General Assembly may have been about that regiment or about three additional regiments to be sent to General Washington at Boston.

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.

Nathaniel Wales Jr. (1722-1783) was born in Windham, Connecticut, and established a law practice there. He served as moderator of the town of Windham for eighteen annual terms between 1755 and 1782, sheriff of Windham County (1755-1757), agent, surveyor, representative to the assembly (26 terms), and justice of the peace (22 years).

Jabez Huntington (1719-1786) was born in Norwich, Connecticut, and graduated from Yale College in 1741. He was a merchant and made a fortune in the West India trade. He was a delegate to the General Assembly from 1750 to 1764, serving as speaker from 1760 to 1764. He was elected to the Governor's Council in 1764 but resigned in 1765 over the enforcement of the Stamp Act. As the owner of a large amount of shipping, he suffered heavily during the Revolutionary War. In September 1776, he was appointed a major general with David Wooster, and when Wooster died in battle in April 1777, Huntington was placed in charge of the entire Connecticut militia. He was forced to resign under the strain in 1779.

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.

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6.625" x 4.375"