PROPERTY FROM THE CHARLES E. SIGETY COLLECTION
[REVOLUTIONARY WAR.] MASSACHUSETTS BAY. Engraved document signed by Treasurer Henry Gardner and counter-signed by T. Davies and R. Cranch, 1 January 1780. 1 page, oblong (5 x 10 3/8in.), elaborately engraved, “State of Massachusetts” at top, decorative design along edges. Docketed on verso and endorsed by Daniel Brown.
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[REVOLUTIONARY WAR.] MASSACHUSETTS BAY. Engraved document signed by Treasurer Henry Gardner and counter-signed by T. Davies and R. Cranch, 1 January 1780. 1 page, oblong (5 x 10 3/8in.), elaborately engraved, “State of Massachusetts” at top, decorative design along edges. Docketed on verso and endorsed by Daniel Brown.
MASSACHUSETTS SENDS ITS QUOTA OF SUPPLIES TO THE CONTINENTAL ARMY in this promissory note to Lieut. Daniel Brown, to pay him £750 by 1 March 1781, “in a greater or less sum,” accordingly as certain specified quantities of corn, beef, sheeps wool and sole leather “shall then cost more or less than One Hundred and Thirty Pounds current Money, at the current prices of said Articles. This sum being Thirty-two Times and a Half what the same quantities of the same Articles would cost at the prices affixed to them” according to the 1777 “Act to Prevent Monopoly and Oppression.” That statute fixed prices for a wide range of common goods, from “cod fish and haddock, guts and gills out” to “cord wood from the country,” and urged “all good people to conform themselves thereto, as they would avoid the Contempt of their Fellow-Countrymen, and the Penalties” specified in the Act. A 1779 Act, also mentioned in this promissory note, allowed the State to determine “the current prices” of goods to be supplied as “this State’s Quota of the Continental Army, agreeable to the recommendation of Congress…”
MASSACHUSETTS SENDS ITS QUOTA OF SUPPLIES TO THE CONTINENTAL ARMY in this promissory note to Lieut. Daniel Brown, to pay him £750 by 1 March 1781, “in a greater or less sum,” accordingly as certain specified quantities of corn, beef, sheeps wool and sole leather “shall then cost more or less than One Hundred and Thirty Pounds current Money, at the current prices of said Articles. This sum being Thirty-two Times and a Half what the same quantities of the same Articles would cost at the prices affixed to them” according to the 1777 “Act to Prevent Monopoly and Oppression.” That statute fixed prices for a wide range of common goods, from “cod fish and haddock, guts and gills out” to “cord wood from the country,” and urged “all good people to conform themselves thereto, as they would avoid the Contempt of their Fellow-Countrymen, and the Penalties” specified in the Act. A 1779 Act, also mentioned in this promissory note, allowed the State to determine “the current prices” of goods to be supplied as “this State’s Quota of the Continental Army, agreeable to the recommendation of Congress…”
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