Nov 17, 2016 - Sale 2432

Sale 2432 - Lot 30

Price Realized: $ 1,625
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 700 - $ 1,000
(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1778.) Allen, Ira. Letter sending two British prisoners to be exchanged. Autograph Letter Signed as assistant justice for Vermont, and twice co-signed by fellow assistant Jonas Fay, to Ezekiel Williams as deputy commissary for prisoners in Hartford, CT. One page, 13 x 8 1/4 inches, docketed on verso; folds, moderate wear. (MRS) Bennington, VT, 23 September 1778

Additional Details

Ira Allen (1751-1814) was one of Vermont's founding fathers, and a member of the Green Mountain Boys along with his brother Ethan. Here he sends two British prisoners, Jonathan Nicholson and Stephen Bethel, who had been captured at Lake Champlain, and had been held in Vermont "by reason of sickness." Allen read in the newspaper that the Continental Army "had not been able to collect the number wanted for the present exchanged" and thus "hereby permit them to pass to Hartford . . . unmolested, and there to put themselves under your immediate direction." Provenance: sold by Joseph Rubinfine to the consignor, June 1999.