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PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
WASHINGTON, George. Autograph letter signed ("G:o Washington"), AS PRESIDENT, to James Henry, Mount Vernon, 20 November 1790. 1 page bifolium, staining along right edge, signature clear and bold.
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WASHINGTON, George. Autograph letter signed ("G:o Washington"), AS PRESIDENT, to James Henry, Mount Vernon, 20 November 1790. 1 page bifolium, staining along right edge, signature clear and bold.
A LAND SALE AND A BELATED ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF "MY PUBLIC SERVICES"
Enjoying a first-term escape from New York at his home in Mount Vernon, President Washington tends to the transfer of a deed of property to his Custis in-laws, and then makes a five-years overdue acknowledgment of a letter praising his Revolutionary war service. "I availed myself a few days ago of the presence of Mr. B. Bassett to re-acknowledge before him & Doctr Stuart the original conveyance from me to the [now] decd Mr. Custis of the Land of which you are possessed by purchase from him in the King & Queen County." Henry wrote to Washington about this back in 1785, requesting documentation about the transfer of title, and going on to praise Washington's wartime service--only to get no reply. "This reacknowledgment," Washington continues, "in the opinion of professional men is all that is necessary to give validity to the Deed, and all that is proper for me to do under the circumstances which exist.... I beg you to be assured of my sensibility for the polite & flattering terms in which you have been pleased to express yourself of my public services in your letter of 2d June 1785 which I am ashamed to add ought to have been acknowledged long ago, but which one circumstance or another prevented until it had escaped me altogether..."
A LAND SALE AND A BELATED ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF "MY PUBLIC SERVICES"
Enjoying a first-term escape from New York at his home in Mount Vernon, President Washington tends to the transfer of a deed of property to his Custis in-laws, and then makes a five-years overdue acknowledgment of a letter praising his Revolutionary war service. "I availed myself a few days ago of the presence of Mr. B. Bassett to re-acknowledge before him & Doctr Stuart the original conveyance from me to the [now] decd Mr. Custis of the Land of which you are possessed by purchase from him in the King & Queen County." Henry wrote to Washington about this back in 1785, requesting documentation about the transfer of title, and going on to praise Washington's wartime service--only to get no reply. "This reacknowledgment," Washington continues, "in the opinion of professional men is all that is necessary to give validity to the Deed, and all that is proper for me to do under the circumstances which exist.... I beg you to be assured of my sensibility for the polite & flattering terms in which you have been pleased to express yourself of my public services in your letter of 2d June 1785 which I am ashamed to add ought to have been acknowledged long ago, but which one circumstance or another prevented until it had escaped me altogether..."