(AMERICAN REVOLUTION) Pay list for an integrated company at

Sale 2483 - Lot 77

Price Realized: $ 5,250

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Estimate: $ 6,000 - $ 9,000

(AMERICAN REVOLUTION.) Pay list for an integrated company at Dorchester in the Siege of Boston. 1 page, 12 1/2x7 1/2 inches, with docketing on verso, signed by 35 soldiers (some by mark); folds, minor dampstaining, pinhole at intersection of folds, edges uncut. Dorchester, MA, 9 February 1776

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This document contains the signatures of 35 patriots who were participating in the Siege of Boston. Not long after this date, Knox arrived with captured cannon from Ticonderoga and the Continental Army seized Dorchester Heights, leading to the British evacuation from Boston on March 17. These soldiers served under Colonel Jonathan Ward in the 21st Continental Regiment. The header reads "rec'd of Capt. Luke Drury the full of all our wages as officers & soldiers in his company in Colo. Ward's Reg't in the Continental Army for the months of November & December last . . . likewise rcd all the money due to us for milk, peas & Indian meal & ration money to carey us home in full, as witness our hand."
Many of the Massachusetts regiments contained soldiers of color. Among the soldiers listed here is "Forten Byrnee," who signed with a mark. More generally known as Fortune Burnee, he was raised in the Hassanamisco Nipmuc community of Grafton, MA, and had been a minuteman at Lexington. His father, who had the same name, was described in at least one source as a "free Negro." Joseph Anthony, who signed his own name, is believed to have been Fortune's Nipmuc half-brother and was described in one source as a "mulatto"; he died in 1777. See Forgotten Patriots: African American and American Indian Patriots in the Revolutionary War, page 100 and 104.