POPKIN JOHN Autograph Letter Signed as Major of the 3rd MA R

Sale 2483 - Lot 50

Price Realized: $ 562

?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price

Estimate: $ 800 - $ 1,200

POPKIN, JOHN. Autograph Letter Signed, as Major of the 3rd MA Regiment, to Major General Benjamin Lincoln, discussing conditions in Boston and angling for a promotion. 1 page, 13x8 1/4 inches; heavy staining in upper corner affecting two letters, uneven toning, jagged 2-inch seal tear in margin, pair of tastefully repaired 2-inch closed tears passing through text. Boston, 26 June 1777

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John Popkin (1743-1827) had served as a Massachusetts artillery captain at Bunker Hill, and here angles for a promotion from Major General Lincoln. He begins with a discussion of recruitment and other conditions in Boston: "Most of the recruits for the several regiments raised here are marched excepting Colo. Lee's & Jackson's which I am inform'd are to tarry here at present & who recruit very slow. The mercantile interest seems to have got into the hands of strangers here, or rather, we have griping pedlars instead of honest merchants, the civil authority weak, & policy mostly confin'd to particular interests."
Moving on to a discussion of his own ambitions, Popkin notes "I am now in Colonel Greaton's regiment, which I hear is at Fort Constitution near Peekskill, where I expect to be in fifteen days; should be glad they were at h'd quarters. As soon as I got home from the Jerseys, Colonel Crane asked me to take the Lieut. Colonelcy in his regiment, which was agreeable to me, & the whole corps of officers were consenting, & which place I am yet fond of filling; but it seems it would not answer. Whether my incapacity or bad services were the reasons, I cannot tell. Colo. Crane is determin'd if possible, that I shall come in yet, to whom I must refer your honor.' Popkin became the Lieutenant Colonel of the 3rd Continental Artillery under John Crane the following month.