November 7-8, 2018 Edged Weapons, Armor, & Militaria
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 11/7/2018
Deed Indenture between Geoge Croghan and Joseph Wharton, dated Philadelphia, 21 October 1780, manuscript on parchment sheet, approximately 18 x 21 inches, double-signed and sealed [wax now missing] by Croghan and witnessed by Robert Morton, William Powell and Miers Fisher, in which Croghan transfers ownership of "a certain large Tract of Land....on the South Side of the River Ohio opposite to the Mouth of French Creek or Beef River, thence down the said River on the South Side thereof opposite to the Mouth of Big Beaver Creek ....said George Croghan for and in Consideration of the Sum of five Hundred Spanish Mill'd Silver Dollars to him in Hand paid at the time of the Execution hereof....Doth give, grant...and confirm to the said Joseph Wharton...all that Tract of Land hereinabove set forth...." Ill with gout and heavily in debt, Croghan sells one of the Wharton brothers his last major parcel remaining from a 10 July 1775 purchase of 6 million acres along the Ohio between the Allegheny and Beaver Rivers. This purchase was made "in Council" at Fort Pitt, with "Kayathsuda, Tiandenago, Guitogunt, Oquuceguago, Tegurahogo, and Saguone, Chiefs and Sachems...Representing the Six United Nations" on one part and Croghan on the other. A transcribed copy of the 1775 deed poll, in ink on a parchment sheet approximately 12 x 21 inches, is attached on top of the 1780 Indenture, secured by cloth tape at the left margins. On the recto, the deed poll and subsequent sale to Wharton in 1780 is witnessed and signed by by Miers Fisher and Samuel Fisher. Croghan, once famous as fur trader, Deputy Indian Agent for the Crown, and later, as Patriot and chair of Pittsburgh's Committee of Correspondence, died at his home in Passyunk Township outside of Philadelphia, less than two years later, largely forgotten by his contemporaries, on 31 August 1782.
From the Walter O'Connor collection.