FEDERALIST POLITICS, MADEIRA, AND WASHINGTON’S ONLY WOUND IN THE WAR.

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 12/7/2023

November 1788 letter by Abraham Ogden (1743-1798,) then living in Newark, noted New Jersey lawyer, member of the state legislature, commissioner to the Indians of Northern New York, etc., to Nicholas Low of New York requesting a shipment of Madeira. During the war, Ogden resided in Morristown, where he frequently hosted Washington during the army’s winter encampments there (1777 and 1779/80.) Family tradition held that Washington took a liking to young Thomas Ludlow Ogden (born 1773) and was accidentally wounded in the wrist by the boy while playing at fencing, constituting his only wound during the war, something elevated (jokingly or not) to an assassination attempt by those familiar with the loyalist sentiments of the boy’s grandfather, David Ogden. Nicholas Low was a merchant, developer, and Federalist politician serving in the state assembly 1787-89 and attending the 1788 state constitutional convention. Ogden wishes him luck in his “winter campaign in Albany” and hopes that “Federal men & measures may crown our wishes in the new Government.” PROVENANCE: Ex-Lattimer Collection. CONDITION: Excellent. Slight foxing left edge.

Item Dimensions: 16" X 12"