September 26, 2018 O'Connor's Americana Collection
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 9/26/2018
FRANKLIN, William to [Thomas Wharton], autograph letter signed (hereafter ADS), Burlington, NJ, 11 DEC 1769. 4 pp. Bifolium. Sheet separated along central (vertical) fold line into two pages.
Governor William Franklin of New Jersey responds to Wharton's letter of the 8th which had included two enclosed letters from Sir William Johnson, Superintendent of Indian Affairs, and William's father, Benjamin Franklin. Franklin discusses correspondence received from Indian trader William Trent and one Dr. Evans and reveals that Colonel George Croghan, Deputy Indian Agent under Sir William, has been to Burlington and settled charges for surveying done for Franklin, Johnson, Trent, Samuel Wharton (Thomas's brother), and the Burlington Company, relating to mortgages purchased from Croghan, including extensive acreage in present-day Otsego County, New York. Franklin notes that he spoke to Trent about the proportional increase over 1600 dollars to be paid to the "Indians" [Six Nations of the Iroquois] if a particular tract exceeded 100,000 acres as anticipated, as well as the method of collecting payment from the various parties involved in such tract purchases and land patents. He notes that Sir William applied for a patent "of a Mile on each Side the [Susquehannah] River" and that "one Outhouse's Patent" infringes somewhat into that of the Burlington Company. This letter is related to two subsequent letters by Franklin to the same, written later that month and now in the William Franklin Papers at the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia.