Sep 28, 2017 - Sale 2455

Sale 2455 - Lot 20

Unsold
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1775.) Group of 6 receipts issued to Minuteman captain Jacob Gerrish. 6 manuscript documents, various sizes and conditions, some unevenly toned with moderate edge wear. Vp, April 1775 to January [1776] and June 1778
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Additional Details

Jacob Gerrish (1739-1817) of Newbury, MA was a captain of a company of minutemen who answered the Lexington alarm in April 1775, and went on to serve as an officer in the Continental Army and the Massachusetts Militia through 1779. The earliest document in this lot is dated 17 April 1775--the day before Paul Revere's ride and two days before the Battle of Lexington. An order to deliver three gallons of rum to Jacob Gerrish, addressed by Nathaniel Adams to Abraham Adams and receipted on verso, it would seem to be one of the last acts of Gerrish's civilian life before the war began. Next comes an 8 July 1775 receipt to "Capt. Jacob Gerrish by the hand of Silas Adams, six shillings lawfill money." Gerrish had assumed the title of Captain and was in Cambridge for the siege of Boston. A 28 September order is dated "Prospect Hill" in what is now Somerville, overlooking Boston. It is a request from Eliphalet Poor, apparently one of Gerrish's soldiers, to turn over a portion of his wages to a third party. A similar 24 November order is signed by Benjamin Poor, requesting payment to Nathaniel Adams. Another is dated "Cambridge, Jan'y 2 1775" was clearly misdated in 1776, as Gerrish is named as Captain and is on the front north of Boston rather than at home. It lists his personal purchases of a handkerchief, knives and forks, a pepper box and a mug from a local merchant. Finally comes a receipt dated in Winter Hill (now Somerville) from 14 June 1778 for "sundries delivered out of the states store" by Gerrish, by then a militia colonel. with--a 1789 memoranda from Lexington.