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1875 Heppenheimer & Maurer engraving depicting the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen on May 10, 1775, with the subtitle: "By what authority?" "In the name of the Great Jehovah & The Continental Congress." Digitized from engraving held in the N.Y. Public Library.

Mass. archives recovers Revolutionary War letter from auction

Catherine Saunders-Watson
Catherine Saunders-Watson
1875 Heppenheimer & Maurer engraving depicting the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen on May 10, 1775, with the subtitle: "By what authority?" "In the name of the Great Jehovah & The Continental Congress." Digitized from engraving held in the N.Y. Public Library.
1875 Heppenheimer & Maurer engraving depicting the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen on May 10, 1775, with the subtitle: "By what authority?" "In the name of the Great Jehovah & The Continental Congress." Digitized from engraving held in the N.Y. Public Library.

BOSTON (AP) – A letter announcing the victory at Fort Ticonderoga that went missing from the Massachusetts state archives six decades ago has been recovered after being spotted as part of a planned auction.

Massachusetts Secretary of State William Galvin said the 1775 letter from Joseph Warren was discovered in a Sotheby’s catalog of Revolutionary War manuscripts. The state negotiated the letter’s return.

At the time, Warren was a doctor and president of the Provincial Congress that sat in Watertown, Mass. In the letter, he said he had just learned that Col. Benedict Arnold had captured Fort Ticonderoga, N.Y., and forts at Crown Point and St. John’s in the Lake Champlain area, which reduced the threat of British attack from Canada.

Warren died the same year in the Battle of Bunker Hill.

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AP-ES-02-10-11 1252EST

ADDITIONAL IMAGE OF NOTE

1875 Heppenheimer & Maurer engraving depicting the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen on May 10, 1775, with the subtitle: "By what authority?" "In the name of the Great Jehovah & The Continental Congress." Digitized from engraving held in the N.Y. Public Library.
1875 Heppenheimer & Maurer engraving depicting the capture of Fort Ticonderoga by Ethan Allen on May 10, 1775, with the subtitle: "By what authority?" "In the name of the Great Jehovah & The Continental Congress." Digitized from engraving held in the N.Y. Public Library.