251

Henry Knox

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles / Autographs Start Price:NA Estimated At:1,500.00 - 2,000.00 USD
Henry Knox

Bidding Over

The auction is over for this lot.
The auctioneer wasn't accepting online bids for this lot.

Contact the auctioneer for information on the auction results.

Search for other lots to bid on...
Auction Date:2014 Jul 16 @ 18:00 (UTC-05:00 : EST/CDT)
Location:236 Commercial St., Suite 100, Boston, Massachusetts, 02109, United States
ALS - Autograph Letter Signed
ANS - Autograph Note Signed
AQS - Autograph Quotation Signed
AMQS - Autograph Musical Quotation Signed
DS - Document Signed
FDC - First Day Cover
Inscribed - “Personalized”
ISP - Inscribed Signed Photograph
LS - Letter Signed
SP - Signed Photograph
TLS - Typed Letter Signed
LS signed “H. Knox, Secretary of War,” three pages on two adjoining sheets, 8 x 12.5, October 19, 1789. Important letter to to New York Governor George Clinton. In part: “I am directed by the President of the United States to request that your Excellency would be pleased to order an exact List to be made out agreeably to the form herein enclosed…of all the Military Invalids to whom pensions have been granted and paid by the State of New York in pursuance of the resolves of the late Congress of the United States…I have also to request…a return to be made out of the Officers widows or orphans (if any) who have received from the State of New York the seven years half pay stipulated by the resolve of Congress of the 24th of August 1780—This return to state the rank, and time of the officers death—the amount of the annual pension paid to the widows or orphans, and the years for which it has been paid.” Intersecting folds with small edge separations, tape-repaired separation to adjoining fold (partially affecting a few words of text), and a couple trivial edge tears, otherwise fine condition.

This letter dates to the very first year of the establishment of America's federal government, with George Washington's inauguration as president occurring on April 30, 1789. An early act of Congress under this new government was to centralize the distribution of pensions for veterans of the Revolution, which was enacted in September 1789, transferring the responsibility from each individual state government to the federal government. Under this new system, the secretary of war—in this case, Henry Knox—became the principal executive officer concerned with the national pension administration. This is the reason behind Knox's request that Governor Clinton transmit a list of New York's pensioners. At the end of the war in 1783, it had been George Washington who pushed most strongly for the establishment of a pension system, granting officers and their families half-pay for life, acknowledging the great importance of the sacrifices made by those who secured America's freedom.