1777, Exeter, Hampshire, Joseph Stacy, Keeper Of The Loyalist Prisoners Pay
Item History & Price
| Reference Number: Avaluer:61345 |
This item is a wonderful, original document dated 1777, Exeter, New Hampshire, payment to Joseph Stacey, Jail Keeper, for boarding various prisoners, building cabins for prisonersand other expenses...signed by Joseph Stacy at lower right. Document is 8x13, overall very good condition.During the last three months of 1776 . over 231 Loyalists, mostly from Albany and Dutchess counties, were exiled from New York to New Hampshire. Others were sent to Massachusetts, Conne...cticut, and Pennsylvania. There were not prisons enough in New York to hold all those under arrest, and the committees for detecting conspiracies thought that by sending them away from their homes and scattering them abroad many conspiracies might be prevented, and the possibilities of organization much lessened.They came in small parties under guard, and on arrival at Exeter were delivered tothe State Committee of Safety for disposal. The commanding officer of each guard bore a list of the prisoners in his charge, and on these lists those considered by the New York committee as the most dangerous were marked for close confinement, and were committed to jail in Exeter, Dover, and Amherst.While officials in New Hampshire were willing to take the prisoners, the New Hampshire Council had some misgivings about their guilt. “Their clamours of being sent here without an examination at home and consciousness of their innocence which they assert, has had considerable influence among the people . . . And as a great number of them make such protestations of their not being sensible of their having ever given occasion for any person to suppose them unfriendly to the American cause, we wish an impartial inquiry might be made into their characters, ” wrote council President Meshach Weare.30Please view the other historical and Civil War related documents I'll be listing this week.SEE SCAN.I now accept PAYPAL but PREFER other forms of traditional paper payment. Buyer pays shipping(usually FREE within the US and $12 for International), payment must be received within 5 days.
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