Pay Order Issued to William Samuel Johnson and signed by him and Oliver Wolcott Jr. - Connecticut Revolutionary War Bonds
Inv# CT1109State of Connecticut Pay Order issued to William Samuel Johnson and signed by him on back. Also signed twice by Oliver Wolcott Jr. on front.
Oliver Wolcott Jr. (January 11, 1760 – June 1, 1833) was United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1795 to 1800 and governor of Connecticut from 1817 to 1827.
He was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, son of Oliver Wolcott, Sr. and Laura Collins Wolcott. He graduated from Yale University in 1778, later studying law at Litchfield Law School and being admitted to the bar in 1781.
Wolcott was appointed in 1784 as one of the commissioners to mediate claims between the United States and the state of Connecticut. After serving as state comptroller of Connecticut from 1788-90, he was named auditor of the federal treasury, and became Comptroller of the Treasury in 1791.
He was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by George Washington in 1795 to succeed Alexander Hamilton; as Secretary, he was Washington's intermediary in getting the Collector of Customs for Portsmouth, New Hampshire to ship a runaway slave-woman back to Mount Vernon if it could be done quietly; it could not be, and she remained there. He resigned in 1800 due to unpopularity, and a particularly vitriolic campaign against him in the press in which, among other things, he was falsely accused of setting fire to the State Department building.
In 1799, as Secretary of the Treasury, he designed the United States Customs Service flag.
Wolcott was one of President Adams' so-called "midnight judges", appointed to the second circuit bench on almost the eve of Jefferson's inauguration in 1801.
From 1803 to 1815 he operated in private business in New York City, afterwards retiring to Litchfield. He was elected governor in 1817 as a "Toleration Republican", following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather, and serving ten years in the post. His tenure was noted for the economic growth and moderate policies that attended it. Additionally, he presided over a convention that created a new state constitution in 1818.
Wolcott died in New York City and is interred at East Cemetery in Litchfield. Prior to his death, Wolcott had been the last surviving member of the Washington Cabinet.
The town of Wolcott, Connecticut was named in honor of Oliver Jr. and his father Oliver.
William Samuel Johnson (October 7, 1727 – November 14, 1819) was an American Founding Father and statesman. Before the Revolutionary War, he served as a militia lieutenant before being relieved following his rejection of his election to the First Continental Congress. He was notable for signing the United States Constitution, for representing Connecticut in the United States Senate, and for serving as the third president of King's College, now known as Columbia University.
William Samuel Johnson was born in Stratford, Connecticut, on October 7, 1727 to Samuel Johnson, a well-known Anglican clergyman and later founding president of King's (Columbia) College, and Johnson's first wife, Charity Floyd Nicoll. Johnson received his primary education at home. He then graduated from Yale College in 1744, going on to receive a master's degree from his alma mater in 1747 (as well as an honorary degree from Harvard the same year).
Although his father urged him to enter the clergy, Johnson decided instead to pursue a legal career. Self-educated in the law, he quickly developed an important clientele and established business connections extending beyond the boundaries of his native colony. He also held a commission in the Connecticut colonial militia for over 20 years, rising to the rank of colonel, and he served in the lower house (1761 and 1765) and upper house (1766 and 1771–1775) of the Connecticut Legislature. He was a member of the colony's Supreme Court (1772–1774).
Johnson was first attracted to the Patriot cause by what he and his associates considered Parliament's unwarranted interference in the government of the colonies. He attended the Stamp Act Congress in 1765 and served on the committee that addressed the king ,arguing the right of the colonies to decide tax policies for themselves. He opposed the Townshend Acts passed by Parliament in 1767 to pay for the French and Indian War and supported the non-importation agreements devised by the colonies to protest taxation without representation.
Johnson lived in London from 1767 to 1771, serving as Connecticut's agent in its attempt to settle the colony's title to Indian lands. He sharply criticized British policy toward the colonies. His experience in Britain convinced him that Britain's policy was shaped more by ignorance of American conditions and not through the sinister designs of a wicked government, as many Patriots alleged. As the Patriots became more radical in their demands, Johnson found it difficult to commit himself wholeheartedly to the cause. Although he believed British policy unwise, he found it difficult to break his own connections with the mother country. A scholar of international renown, he had many friends in Britain and among the American Loyalists. As the English author Samuel Johnson said of him, "Of all those whom the various accidents of life have brought within my notice, there is scarce anyone whose acquaintance I have more desired to cultivate than yours." He was also bound to Britain by religious and professional ties. He enjoyed close associations with the Anglican Church in England and with the scholarly community at Oxford, which awarded him an honorary degree in 1766.
Fearing the consequences of independence for both the colonies and the mother country, Johnson sought to avoid extremism and to reach a compromise on the outstanding political differences between the protagonists. He rejected his election to the First Continental Congress, a move strongly criticized by the Patriots, who subsequently removed him from his militia command. He was also strongly criticized when seeking an end to the fighting after the Battles of Lexington and Concord, he personally visited the British commander General Thomas Gage. The incident led to his arrest for communicating with the enemy, but the charges were eventually dropped. He felt that the American Revolution was not necessary and that independence would be bad for everyone concerned.
Once independence was achieved, Johnson felt free to participate in the government of the new nation, serving in the Congress of the Confederation (1785–1787). His influence as a delegate was recognized by his contemporaries. Jeremiah Wadsworth wrote of him to a friend, "Dr. Johnson has, I believe, much more influence than either you or myself. The Southern Delegates are vastly fond of him." In 1785, the Vermont Republic granted Johnson a town in the former King's College Tract in thanks for representing the interests of Vermont before the Continental Congress. The town of Johnson, Vermont, the former Johnson State College, and Johnson Street in Madison, Wisconsin bear his name.
In 1787, Johnson played a major role as one of the Philadelphia Convention's delegates. His eloquent speeches on the subject of representation carried great weight during the debate. He looked to a strong federal government to protect the rights of Connecticut and the other small states from encroachment by their more powerful neighbors. He supported the New Jersey Plan, which called for equal representation of the states in the national legislature.
In general, he favored extension of federal authority. He argued that the judicial power "ought to extend to equity as well as law" (the words "in law and equity" were adopted at his motion). He denied that there could be treason against a separate state since sovereignty was "in the Union." He opposed prohibition of any ex post facto law, one which made an act a criminal offense retroactively because such prohibition implied "an improper suspicion of the National Legislature."
Johnson was influential even in the final stages of framing the Constitution. He gave his fullest support to the Connecticut Compromise, which foreshadowed the final Great Compromise, with a national legislature with a Senate that provided equal representation for all states and a House of Representatives based on population. He also served on and chaired the five-member Committee of Style, which framed the final form of the document.
In her 1966 book, Miracle at Philadelphia, Catherine Drinker Bowen calls Johnson "the perfect man to preside over these four masters of argument and political strategy i.e. fellow committee members Alexander Hamilton, Gouverneur Morris, James Madison, and Rufus King.... His presence on the committee must have been reassuring; the doctor's quiet manner disarmed."
The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the Revolutionary War and the American War of Independence, was initiated by delegates from the thirteen American colonies in Congress against Great Britain over their objection to Parliament's taxation policies and lack of colonial representation. From their founding in the 1600s, the colonies were largely left to govern themselves. The cost of victory in the 1754 to 1763 French and Indian War and the 1756 to 1763 Seven Years' War left the British government deeply in debt; attempts to have the colonies pay for their own defense were vigorously resisted. The Stamp Act and Townshend Acts provoked colonial opposition and unrest, leading to the 1770 Boston Massacre and 1773 Boston Tea Party. When Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts upon Massachusetts, twelve colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress to draft a Petition to the King and organize a boycott of British goods.
Fighting broke out on 19 April 1775: the British garrison at Boston was harassed by Massachusetts militia at Lexington and Concord after destroying colonial Assembly powder stores. In June the Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington to create a Continental Army and oversee the capture of Boston. The Patriots sent their Olive Branch Petition to the King and Parliament, both of whom rebuffed it. In response they invaded British Quebec but were repulsed. In July 1776, Congress unanimously passed the Declaration of Independence. Hopes of a quick settlement were supported by American sympathizers within Parliament who opposed Lord North's "coercion policy" in the colonies. However, after the British were driven out of Boston the new British commander-in-chief, General Sir William Howe, launched a counter-offensive and captured New York City. After crossing the Delaware Washington engaged and routed Hessian forces at the Battle of Trenton and the British at the Battle of Princeton. After British General Burgoyne surrendered at the Battles of Saratoga in October 1777, Howe's 1777–1778 Philadelphia campaign captured that city. Washington retreated to Valley Forge during the winter of 1777–1778 where Prussian allied General von Steuben drilled the largely untrained Continental Army into an organized fighting unit.
French Foreign Minister Vergennes saw the war as a way to create an America economically and militarily dependent on France, not Britain. Although talks on a formal alliance began in late 1776, they proceeded slowly until Patriot victory at Saratoga in October 1777. Fears Congress might come to an early settlement with Britain resulted in France and the United States signing two treaties in February 1778. The first was a commercial treaty, the second a Treaty of Alliance; in return for a French guarantee of American independence, Congress agreed to join the war against Britain and defend the French West Indies. Although Spain refused to join the Franco-American alliance, in the 1779 Treaty of Aranjuez they agreed to support France in its global war with Britain, hoping to regain losses incurred in 1713.
In other fronts in North America, Governor of Spanish Louisiana Bernardo Gálvez routed British forces from Louisiana. The Spanish, along with American privateers supplied the 1779 American conquest of Western Quebec (later the US Northwest Territory). Gálvez then expelled British forces from Mobile during the Battle of Fort Charlotte and the Siege of Pensacola, cutting off British military aid to their American Indian allies in the interior southeast. Howe's replacement, General Sir Henry Clinton, then mounted a 1778 "Southern strategy" from Charleston. After capturing Savannah, defeats at the Battle of Kings Mountain and the Battle of Cowpens forced Cornwallis to retreat to Yorktown, where his army was besieged by an allied French and American force. An attempt to resupply the garrison was repulsed by the French navy at the Battle of the Chesapeake, and Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781.
Although their war with France and Spain continued for another two years, Yorktown ended the British will to continue the war in North America. The North Ministry was replaced by Lord Rockingham, who accepted office on the basis George III agreed to American independence. Preliminary articles were signed in November 1782, and in April 1783 Congress accepted British terms; these included independence, evacuation of British troops, cession of territory up to the Mississippi River and navigation to the sea, as well as fishing rights in Newfoundland. On September 3, 1783, the Treaty of Paris was signed between Great Britain and the United States, then ratified the following spring.
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