1782 Revolutionary War Pay Document – Signed by Jedidiah Huntington, Oliver Wolcott Jr & Eleazer Wales

Item Details

Connecticut, State of Connecticut, 1782, Document

Used

Original October 17, 1782 State of Connecticut Pay-Table Office document. Authorized payment of 48 shillings to a soldier’s name I cannot read clearly. Printed along the bottom John Lawrence Treasurer. The document is signed by Eleazer Wales and Oliver Wolcott Jr from the committee. On top of those is the signature for Jedidiah Huntington. *In 1782, John Lawrence served as the Treasurer of Connecticut. During the Revolutionary War, the state handled military finances through the Pay-Table (Committee of Four). Eleazer Wales served as a prominent member of this committee, signing state promissory notes and pay orders alongside Lawrence. In 1782, Oliver Wolcott Jr. left the Continental Army to begin a distinguished career in public finance. He started working for the Connecticut Committee of the Pay-Table, an agency responsible for tracking military spending and settling Revolutionary War debts until 1784. Brigadier General Jedidiah Huntington is an overlooked yet very interesting patriot leader from Connecticut who grew up with Benedict Arnold, fought in several battles, and became close to General Washington toward the end of the war. Washington had kept Huntington’s and other brigades in the Hudson Valley in 1781 and 1782 simply because the threat remained of attack by General Clinton out of New York and up the Hudson or close-by into New Jersey. By the fall of 1782 the army was again in its winter quarters. West Point was under the command of Maj. Gen. Henry Knox, and joining him with three Connecticut regiments was Huntington. The soldier might have been under his command. 5 ¼” x 6 ½”. Signed on the back by the payee and two others…likely witnesses. Folded, otherwise very good See scans. Signatures have not been authenticated.