Our Collection

At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Hopkinson, Francis (1737-1791) to John Hancock and Robert Morris

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC03939 Author/Creator: Hopkinson, Francis (1737-1791) Place Written: s.l. Type: Autograph document signed Date: August 1777 Pagination: 1 p. : address ; 32 x 20 cm. Order a Copy

Possibly written at Philadelphia. Hopkinson, John Nixon, and John Wharton submit a Continental Navy Board report to Congress. The Board designates a sum paid to "officers and Men on Board every Fire Ship in the River Delaware & Co the officers and Crew of any Chain of Fire Rafts which shall actually set on Fire & destroy any one of the Enemy's Ships of War ... " States that $2000 shall be divided in the following manner: $500 to the captain, $300 to the lieutenant, and the remainder equally divided among the crew.

Hancock, John, 1737-1797
Morris, Robert, 1734-1806
Hopkinson, Francis, 1737-1791
Nixon, John, 1733-1808
Wharton, John, fl. 1774-1780

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