Washington, George | A 1774 letter to his Loyalist friend Jonathan Boucher concerning his grants in the trans-Appalachian Ohio lands

Washington, George

Autograph letter signed (“Go: Washington”), one page (232 x 188 mm) on a bifolium, Mount Vernon, 15 February 1774, to the Rev. Mr. Jonathan Boucher in Prince George County, autograph address and reception docket on verso of integral leaf, remnants of black seal; rebacked, fold separations closed with transparent tape on rebacking, browned, shipped with marginal loss costing much of the g in Washington’s signature, larger loss to margin of integral leaf.

Washington writes to his close friend—and the tutor of his stepson John Parke Custis—about the frustrations of engaging someone to lead an expedition to validate his claim to lands in Ohio territories granted for his service in the French and Indian War:

“Before Mr Beall deliver’d me your Letter of the 10th [this letter has not been located], which came to hand later than I expected (under a supposition of his willingness to undertake my business on the Ohio) I had conditionally agreed with Mr Vale Crawford for this purpose; who you must know, had Imbark’d in a Courting Scheme (in this neighbourhood) and, as I conceiv’d the task of pleasing a Master & Mistress, equal to that of two Masters, I made a point of his settling this business some how or other with the Lady—before he undertook mine; and this he did unfavourably to his wishes, the very day Mr Beall came here & was at liberty for me.

“I should have mentioned this to you by Mr Beall, but was a good deal hurried just at that time by sevl Person’s on business, who chanc’d to fall in here just as he did. Mrs Washington Desires me to thank you for your kind congratulations on her Son’s Marriage; & with Complimts to Mrs., Miss Boucher, & yourself in which we both join. …”

Valentine Crawford was expected to lead such an expedition of workers to Washington’s lands on the Great Kanawha, but he was delayed, first by the romantic entanglement Washington references, and then by the outbreak of hostilities between Virgina settlers and the Shawnee and Mingo people in the trans-Appalachia region of the colony. Once this conflict, called Dunmore’s War, was resolved, Washington dispatched George Young on a similar journey in April 1775. 

By that time, Boucher was probably planning his return to England: despite his friendship with Washington, he was an ardent and outspoken Loyalist. The black mourning wax used to seal this letter was probably a memorial to Washington’s stepdaughter, Martha Parke Custis, who had died at the age of seventeen some eight months earlier.

REFERENCES

The Papers of George Washington, Colonial Series, ed. Abbot & Twohig, vol. 9, pp. 440–441 (text from a photocopy at the NYPL)