American Revolutionary War Finance Eldad Shepard Receipt for Connecticut State Notes 1789

Revolutionary War Soldier's Wages

Manuscripts & Autographs

Shepard, Eldad. Signed receipt dated April 9, 1789, documents Connecticut’s post-Revolutionary system for redeeming state notes issued in connection with wartime obligations. Prepared through the Hartford comptroller’s office during Oliver Wolcott Jr.’s tenure as Connecticut comptroller of public accounts, the document records the process by which a Revolutionary War soldier exchanged state paper for payment after independence. Wolcott had previously worked with Connecticut’s Committee on the Pay-Table, which accounted for the state’s military expenditures, before serving as comptroller from 1788 to 1789. The receipt therefore provides primary-source evidence for the study of veterans’ compensation, state debt administration, and the financial mechanisms used to settle Revolutionary War accounts.

Shepard, Eldad. Hartford, Connecticut. April 9, 1789. One manuscript receipt issued from the comptroller’s office of Oliver Wolcott Jr.; dimensions not supplied. The document acknowledges Shepard’s receipt of three pounds, eleven shillings, and three pence in redemption of Connecticut state notes issued during the Revolutionary War. Signed “Eldad Shepard” at the lower right, it links an individual claimant to the state’s administrative settlement of wartime financial obligations. The payment notation, official context, and recipient’s signature together show how the redemption system operated in practice through standardized accounting, presentation of state obligations, and written acknowledgment by the payee. The supplied identification of Shepard as a Revolutionary War soldier accords with contemporary dealer records for this same document, although his specific regiment and dates of service have not been independently established from the information available.

Dated less than two weeks before George Washington’s inauguration, the receipt belongs to the transitional period in which state governments continued resolving debts created during the Revolution while the new federal government was being organized. Its surviving manuscript entries preserve the monetary language of pounds, shillings, and pence still used in Connecticut accounting and demonstrate the delayed conversion of wartime promises into postwar payment. Light handling wear, if any, is not specified; writing and signatures remain dark and clearly legible, near fine. Directly signed record of Connecticut’s settlement of a Revolutionary soldier’s state-note claim at the close of the Confederation era.

Item #3809

Price: $220.00