Apr 15, 2021 - Sale 2564

Sale 2564 - Lot 148

Price Realized: $ 1,375
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,200 - $ 1,800
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1777.) Pass issued to a Loyalist family to depart for British-occupied territory under Washington's order. Manuscript document, 3 x 8 3/4 inches; minor foxing, faint dampstaining and wear to left edge affecting a few letters. Np, circa January-February 1777

Additional Details

This pass was issued in compliance with George Washington's 25 January 1777 order that all Americans take an oath of loyalty to the United States. He granted a one-month exemption for crown loyalists to relocate to British-held territory. The pass reads in full:

"Joshua Sulice of New Rochele is permited to pass to Long Island or within the enemy lines near New York, agreable to the orders contained in His Excellency General Washington's proclamation dated Jan. 25th 1777, and he is also to carry with him his wife, children, mother, sister, wearing apparel of himself & family, six beds & necessary beddings, one week's provisions and domestic accounts."

We cannot determine whether Joshua Soulice (1722-1799) of New Rochelle, NY and his family actually used this pass to settle on British-held Long Island, but we know he was back in New Rochelle by 1790, and was buried there in 1799. However, at least one member of his family, his brother Daniel Soulice (1726-1820), was an active Loyalist who settled in Nova Scotia after the war. We know of no similar Loyalist exit passes at auction.