Research


Scope and Content Note

This is the body of correspondence, mostly incoming, generated by the Provincial Congress in the course of governing New York in the early years of the Revolution. The Congress received correspondence from other revolutionary bodies or other persons, including local committees concerning defense measures, raising troops, etc.; other Committees of Safety, such as that in Philadelphia headed by Benjamin Franklin; New York delegates to the Continental Congress; imprisoned loyalists or suspected loyalists or their families requesting relief; and Quakers who refused to provide names of men of military age.

The correspondence concerns organizing, maintaining, supplying, and paying the military; New York and enemy troop movements; charges against and activities of loyalists and suspected loyalists, and their treatment by the Revolutionary government; construction of fortifications, especially at New York City; orders and resolutions of the Continental Congress; orders and recommendations to local committees; and relations with and military actions of Indians.

Among those from whom correspondence was received are John Hancock (president of the Continental Congress); Ethan Allen; George Washington; Benjamin Franklin (president of the Philadelphia Committee of Safety); Alexander Hamilton (then an artillery captain); George Clinton; and John Jay.

The series also includes some printed broadsides concerning such matters as Provincial Congress proceedings and resolutions, prices set for certain goods, organization of and bounties to the militia, and a printed copy of the Declaration of Independence.