Mar 25, 2021 - Sale 2562

Sale 2562 - Lot 281

Price Realized: $ 4,000
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 2,000 - $ 3,000
(MILITARY--AMERICAN REVOLUTION.) Pair of pay documents for Black soldier Samuel Pomp. Pair of party-printed documents completed in manuscript, 6 1/2 x 7 inches and 4 x 8 1/2 inches; folds and minor wear. Hartford, CT, 1780 and 1782

Additional Details

The earlier of these two documents is a pay order receipt, "Received . . . to secure the Payment of twenty-eight pounds . . . being the Balance due to Sam'l Pomp on the first Day of January last." It was signed by Eben Ledyard "in behalf of s'd Pomp" in Hartford, CT on 23 October 1780. The docketing on verso explains that the payment was for Pomp's service in the 1st Regiment.

The second document is a pay bond: "The State of Connecticut doth owe unto Samuel Pomp who hath served in the Connecticut Line of the Continental Army, the sum of Three Pounds . . . which sum shall be paid to him or his Order at this Office" in June 1787 "with Lawful Interest thereof." It is signed by Peter Colt as treasurer, Hartford, 1 June 1782. The army which defeated the British was determined, but not well funded. Soldiers (white and black) were often paid with nearly worthless paper money, or in bonds--a promise that they would be repaid for their service after the war.

Samuel Pomp served for 7 months at the outset of the war in 1775 in the 6th Connecticut Regiment under Colonel Samuel Holden Parsons, a unit which helped capture Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point.