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May 9, 1780 Revolutionary War Manuscript Document Signed, Major Jonathan Bigelow Account for Clothing & Items for Notable Connecticut Continental Army Officers

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May 9, 1780-Dated Revolutionary War Manuscript Document Signed, Major Jonathan Bigelow, Hartford (Connecticut), 4-pages Account for Clothing and other items for various notable Continental Army officers, Very Fine.

This extensive historic 4-page account (2 sheets filled out on both sides) was kept by Major Jonathan Bigelow at New London (CT.) for clothing and other items being consolidated accounts for various notable Revolutionary War officers. Dates range from 1778 and 1779, the Document is Signed and dated by Major Bigelow, Hartford, May 9, 1780. The notable Connecticut Officer’s accounts named include:

1. Timothy Hosmer, Surgeon, Surgeon in the Sixth Continental Regiment.

2. Captain Epaphras Bull of the Light Dragoons.

3. John Colonel Chandler

4. Major David Humphreys

5. Major Roger Alden

6. Major General John Ellis

Major Bigelow first served as a volunteer under Benedict Arnold at Ticonderoga in May 1775. He was a Captain in an independent company, Connecticut Artillery, January to December of 1776. Served subsequently as Major in the Connecticut Artillery military and he also supplied uniforms to the military officers in the State of Connecticut.

Bigelow was taken prisoner by the British on July 8, 1777 in the West Indies. He was sent to New York under a flag of truce to negotiate an exchange of Capt. Judd of the Antelope for Capt. Manly of the Hancock. He was commissioned a Major in 1778 and appointed to oversee the manufacture of clothing for the soldiers of the Continental Army, and the same year appointed by the Governor and Council to purchase cloth suitable for officers in Connecticut. He held other positions of trust, according to Howe's Bigelow genealogy, which does not specify. Major John Bigelow received a letter from General George Washington and another from Alexander Hamilton. Both of these letters were in regard to the garments he was providing the Continental Army soldiers of the Revolutionary War.

Overall, a clean laid period paper, being well written in deep brown ink, accounting of major Connecticut Continental Army units from Connecticut during a heated period of the Revolutionary War, some minor edge irregularities and chips not affecting any written text.


Major David Humphreys: David Humphreys was born in Derby, Connecticut, the son of the Reverend Daniel Humphreys and Sarah Riggs Bowers Humphreys. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree at Yale University in 1771 and a Masters degree in 1774. He taught school briefly from 1771 to 1773 in Wethersfield, Connecticut and then became a tutor in New York from 1773 to 1776.

With the outbreak of the Revolution, David Humphreys joined a New York Militia regiment in 1776, and later rose in the 6th Connecticut Regiment to the rank of Brigade Major. He successively became an aide to General Putnam (in 1778), General Nathaniel Greene (in 1780), and General George Washington (from June of 1780 to the end of the hostilities), attaining the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

Simeon Belding/Belden, Deputy-Quartermaster-General under Nathaniel Greene

Major Roger Alden: Roger Alden (February 11, 1754 - November 5, 1836) graduated from Yale in 1773, and served in the American Revolutionary War as an aide to General Nathanael Greene. He served as a lieutenant in the Connecticut Line, and was promoted to captain of the Second Connecticut Regiment on September 1, 1779. He continued to serve in the Continental army until February 10, 1781.

Alden studied law in the office of William Samuel Johnson (1727-1819) and served as deputy secretary to the Continental Congress from 1785 until 1789, when he joined the State Department as chief clerk to the domestic department. He worked as an agent of the Holland Land county from 1795 to 1825 and as ordnance storekeeper at West Point from 1825 until his death.

Major General John Ellis: John Ellis was a Revolutionary War soldier enlisting 16 July 1779 for service in the Continental Army. He served in Capt. Bradley's company, Col. Rossiter's regiment; Capt. Mean's company, 12th Regiment; Capt. Porter's company, Col. Rossiter's regiment; Capt. Ebenezer Smith's company, Col. Calvin Smith's regiment; discharged in 1783. After the war he was Adjutant of Danforth's Regiment, New York Militia, 1796, Brigadier General, Onondaga County Militia, 1811.

Timothy Hosmer, Surgeon, Surgeon in the Sixth Continental Regiment. During the Revolutionary War, he took charge of the West Division hospital at a camp site north of Albany Avenue and west of Mountain Road on the slope of Avon Mountain in 1779, after General Israel Putnam's troops departed for Danbury.

After the war, in 1784, Hosmer requested the State of Connecticut to pay money due to him for service in the years 1777-1779, including the duty at the West Division camp. It was still due to him in 1790. In 1792, Hosmer was a Founding Member of the Connecticut Medical Society.

Captain Epaphras Bull Light Dragoons: Epaphras Bull was one of a party constituted as a "Committee of War" for an expedition against Fort Ticonderoga and Crown Point. Under the command of Colonel Ethan Allen, Epaphras Bull took part in the surprise attack and capture of Fort Ticonderoga, on May 10, 1775. While awaiting the arrival of more men to take Crown Point, Col. Allen appointed Epaphras Bull to take charge of some of the prisoners and escort them to Hartford. In November, 1776, Epaphras Bull was appointed Commissary of Prisoners of War in Connecticut.

In the same year, he was made Captain in the Connecticut Light Horse Militia. In May, 1777, the State Legislature appointed Esekial Williams, Esq. as Commissary, succeeding Epaphras Bull who was then serving in the Continental Army as a Captain of the Second Continental Dragoons, having been so appointed on January 10, 1777. This cavalry regiment, under the command of Colonel Elisha Sheldon and known as "Sheldon's Horse," was one of the most colorful cavalry regiments of the War of the Revolution. Under Colonel Sheldon, Captain Bull served in the victorious campaign against British General John Burgoyne at Saratoga. He also led a portion of the Second Dragoons at the battles of Trenton and Princeton.

In August and September, 1778, Captain Bull was assigned surveillance of ship movements in Long Island Sound. In a series of eight letters to General George Washington, he apprised the General of the arrival and departure of British war ships and transports within or near the Sound. This reconnaissance was conducted from points on the coast below White Plains, N.Y. This, combined with other intelligence, assisted General Washington in assessing his original objectives at New York City and in recognizing the strengths and objectives of the British. On August 1, 1779, Capt. Epaphras Bull was appointed Major of the 1st Continental Dragoons. He died September 30, 1781 at Williamsburg, Virginia of wounds received at the Siege of Yorktown.

John Chandler (1736-1796) of Newtown, Conn., served as the lieutenant colonel of Col. Gold Selleck Silliman's Connecticut militia regiment from June to December 1776 and as colonel of the 8th Connecticut Regiment from January 1777 to March 1778 until his resignation on 5 March 1778.

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Lot Number: 131
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