Pay Order signed twice by Oliver Wolcott Jr. - Connecticut - American Revolutionary War

State of Connecticut Pay Order signed twice by Oliver Wolcott Jr.

Oliver Wolcott Jr. (January 11, 1760 – June 1, 1833) was United States Secretary of the Treasury from 1795 to 1800 and governor of Connecticut from 1817 to 1827.

He was born in Litchfield, Connecticut, son of Oliver Wolcott, Sr. and Laura Collins Wolcott. He graduated from Yale University in 1778, later studying law at Litchfield Law School and being admitted to the bar in 1781.

Wolcott was appointed in 1784 as one of the commissioners to mediate claims between the United States and the state of Connecticut. After serving as state comptroller of Connecticut from 1788-90, he was named auditor of the federal treasury, and became Comptroller of the Treasury in 1791.

He was appointed Secretary of the Treasury by George Washington in 1795 to succeed Alexander Hamilton; as Secretary, he was Washington's intermediary in getting the Collector of Customs for Portsmouth, New Hampshire to ship a runaway slave-woman back to Mount Vernon if it could be done quietly; it could not be, and she remained there. He resigned in 1800 due to unpopularity, and a particularly vitriolic campaign against him in the press in which, among other things, he was falsely accused of setting fire to the State Department building. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Wolcott_Jr.

The American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), also known as the Revolutionary War and the American War of Independence, was initiated by delegates from the thirteen American colonies in Congress against Great Britain over their objection to Parliament's taxation policies and lack of colonial representation. From their founding in the 1600s, the colonies were largely left to govern themselves. The cost of victory in the 1754 to 1763 French and Indian War and the 1756 to 1763 Seven Years' War left the British government deeply in debt; attempts to have the colonies pay for their own defense were vigorously resisted. The Stamp Act and Townshend Acts provoked colonial opposition and unrest, leading to the 1770 Boston Massacre and 1773 Boston Tea Party. When Parliament imposed the Intolerable Acts upon Massachusetts, twelve colonies sent delegates to the First Continental Congress to draft a Petition to the King and organize a boycott of British goods. Read more at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Revolutionary_War

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