[Rarebooks] Siege of Boston (Revolutionary War) Handwritten Receipt

[Ezra Tishman]

Brown, Daniel . SIEGE OF BOSTON 1775: HANDWRITTEN RECEIPT FOR SUPPLIES DELIVERED. Cambridge, Mass.


MA, 1775. Small oblong (4 1/2" x 8 3/8) handwritten receipt on single (half?) sheet of paper. Clean and clear, with an irregular
cut on top edge. Slightly wrinkled; Creases down center and across. Paper lightly tanned, slight brown stain near foot. Script
easily readable. Very good    $225

Transcription: "Cambridge Nov 13, 1775 Rx from Capt Sam McClellan on Capt. Jeremiah Wadsworth and of Ezra Wilson ten
Barre of Wheat Flour weighed including the tare Twenty Seven Hundred one Quarter and fourteen pounds for Joseph
Trumbull Esq Comy Gen. [signed] Dan Brown”

Math cipher at foot of receipt, checking noting quantities of goods. On reverse, an additional cipher and inscriptions "Wilson Re Cambridge 10 [Barre]”. and "125.”

This handwritten receipt is from Captain Ezra Wilson, acting on behalf of Captain Jeremiah Wadsworth, for Continental troops
stationed outside of Boston,and is sent in care of Joseph Trumbull, the Commissary General for the Army. Wadsworth is
reputed to have personally profited from his purchases of provisions for the Continental Army.

The receipt acknowledges that the Continental Army, stationed in Cambridge, Massachusetts during the Siege of Boston,
received a delivery of 10 barrels of wheat flour weighing 2,739 lbs. Early in the war, the government official Jeremiah
Wadsworth served on a committee responsible for provisioning the Continental Army in Connecticut. Joseph Trumbull, also
named in this receipt, served as the Commissary General. 

The Siege of Boston lasted 11 months, from April 19, 1775 to March 17, 1776. Resource supply was a central issue on both
sides of this protracted military engagement. War-time artifact that documents the logistics of army provisioning during the
opening phase of the American Revolutionary War; after the goods listed in the receipt were delivered on March 13, 1775, it
would be another four months before the British would finally give up their eight-year occupation of Boston.


https://www.dropbox.com/s/q42h2iahb98eem3/Photo%20Jan%2002%2C%2018%2043%2023.heic?dl=0 <https://www.dropbox.com/s/q42h2iahb98eem3/Photo%20Jan%2002,%2018%2043%2023.heic?dl=0>

https://www.dropbox.com/s/yxtnjxpiral07je/photo%20jan%2002%2C%2018%2042%2059.heic?dl=0




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