Oliver Ellsworth
Hartford, CT, October 27, 1777
Oliver Ellsworth Writes and Signs Pay Order for Post Rider 1777
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OLIVER ELLSWORTH, Autograph Document Signed, Pay order for Ebenezer Loomis, October 27, 1777, Hartford, Connecticut. 2 pp., 8.375" x 6.25". Expected folds; general toning; very good.

Oliver Ellsworth of the Connecticut Committee of the Pay-Table signed this order, instructing Connecticut Treasurer John Lawrence to pay Ebenezer Loomis ?2 for post riding. Loomis (1730-1799) was from Lebanon, Connecticut.

Complete Transcript
"Sir,
Pay Mr Ebenr Loomis Forty Shillings for Post Riding as ? Acct, & charge the State.
Hartford Octr 27th 1777.
?2
}
O Ellsworth } Comtee
}
To Jno Lawrence Esqr
Treasr"

[Endorsement (on verso:]
Recd 27 Octr 1777 of Treasr Lawrence Two Pounds Contents
? Ebenezer Lomis

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, William Pitkin, Fenn Wadsworth, Eleazer Wales, Ezekiel Williams, John Chenward, Oliver Wolcott Jr., and Samuel Wyllys.

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.

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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8.375" x 6.25"