Letter George Washington wrote in New Jersey sells for $24K at auction
GARNET VALLEY, Pa. (CBS) -- A letter written by George Washington in the winter of 1780 sold for thousands of dollars in a down-to-the-wire online auction.
Briggs Auction in Pennsylvania said the letter was dated Jan. 5, 1780, and written while Washington was at his winter encampment in Morristown, New Jersey.
He was writing to Col. Stephen Moylan in Connecticut, who headed up the Fourth Continental Light Dragoons, discussing commissions to be made for different officer positions in the regiment.
It was signed: "I am dear sir, your most obedient servant, George Washington."
While this bit of correspondence is rather down to business, the Library of Congress has records of many of Washington's other letters to Moylan concerning the dragoons, which were a lightweight horse-mounted unit. About two and a half years before the January 1780 letter, Washington wrote to Moylan to express concern about the Fourth Regiment's uniforms - red coats.
"Their appearance has convinced me fully of the danger which I always apprehended from the similarity of their Uniform to that of the British Horse," Washington wrote. The uniforms got changed.
Moylan's family donated many of the letters to the Society of the Cincinnati, but the letter auctioned Friday is the only one that remained in the Moylan family.
Briggs said the seller's maternal grandfather was Philip Moylan Lansdale, a descendant of Stephen Moylan and Thomas Lancaster Lansdale, both of whom served as officers under Washington in the war.
Stephen Moylan was an Irish American whose family sent him to Europe to evade British laws forbidding Roman Catholics from receiving an education. Once he finished school, he worked for his family's shipping firm in Europe, later immigrating to Philadelphia in the fall of 1768.
He was a merchant whose business suffered from British disruption of trade leading up to the Revolutionary War. He was soon recommended to serve as "Muster Master General" by Pennsylvania Delegate John Dickinson and later served as Quarter Master General prior to heading up the dragoons.
Bidding ended a little after 12 p.m. Friday, with bid records showing two bidders neck-and-neck in the closing minutes.
The letter sold more than $10,000 above the estimated going price of $10,000 to $15,000.