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(AMERICAN REVOLUTION--1778.) Testimony that Alexander Hamilton pummeled a creditor and then threw heavy stones as the man fled. Autograph Document Signed by Samuel Doty, and witnessed on verso by David Colden, 3 1/2 x 8 1/4 inches; folds, minor wear, mount remnants in left margin. Np, [26 February 1779]
A man named Samuel Doty here testifies to extraordinary abuse at the hands of Alexander Hamilton, then serving as General Washington's aide-de-camp: "This is to certify that in somtime August 1778 I went to ask for money for my imployer to Cor'l Ambleton (crossed out to read) Hamilton and the said Cor'l beat me with his fist wile I stood. I run and gump over the fense and he hove stones at me of 6 or 8lb whate." On verso, David Colden asserts that on 26 February 1779, "Samuel Doty appear before me and made oath that what is within written and subscribed by him is true." We can find no evidence of this epic beating in the historical record, nor can we determine whether Doty was collecting money owed personally by Hamilton, or by the Continental Army. Although no location is given, the names of both Samuel Doty and David Colden appear on a 1776 loyalty oath in Queens County, NY. In August 1778, Washington and Hamilton would have been at headquarters in West Point.
