Description:

JOHN HANCOCK
(1737-1793) American Revolutionary politician and first signer of the Declaration of Independence, President of the Continental Congress and two-time Governor of Massachusetts. Superb association D.S. as Governor, 2pp. legal folio, Boston, Jan. 31, 1785, a finely-worded judicial appointment of Samuel Osgood to serve as Justice in the Court of Common Pleas. In part: "...there shall be held and kept within each of our Counties...a Court of Common Pleas, by four substantial , discreet and learned persons of the same County, and they or any three of them shall be a Court...there shall be from time to time a suitable number of Special Justices of the Courts of Common Pleas, qualified as the same law directs...We therefore reposing special trust and Confidence in the learning, integrity and ability of the Hon'ble Samuel Osgood Esq'r of Andover...[appoint him] to be one of the Justices of our Court of Common Pleas in the County of Essex...". Folds, with part of the paper covering wax seal lost, otherwise in very clean and fine condition with an excellent signature by Hancock. SAMUEL OSGOOD (1747-1813) was an American merchant and statesman from Andover, Massachusetts. He served in the Massachusetts and New York state legislatures, represented Massachusetts in the Continental Congress and was the first Postmaster General under the United States Constitution. Osgood led a local company of minutemen into the Battle of Lexington and Concord in the spring of 1775. As more troops assembled, he was made major of a brigade while serving at Cambridge, and later became an aide to Gen. Artemas Ward. In 1780 Osgood was named as a Massachusetts delegate to the Continental Congress and he served there from 1782 until 1784. He would not occupy this position for long: Congress made him a commissioner of the Treasury later that year, and in 1789, Washington appointed Osgood the first Postmaster General under the new U.S. Constitution. From the B. T. Fredericks collection.

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May 13, 2009 10:00 AM EDT
Stamford, CT, US

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