Col. George Wray Revolutionary War Papers
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GUEST:
I brought in Revolutionary War documents that include muster rolls from Cornwallis's army, on the British side, of course, and lists of captured goods from the rebels—that would be us—and requisition for cannons and small arms.
APPRAISER:
So tell us the story of how you acquired these.
GUEST:
When my grandmother passed away, I got her old trunk, and about 30 years after we got the trunk, we opened it to see what was in it. And we found these.
APPRAISER:
Well, they were owned by Colonel George Wray. Royal Regiment of Artillery, British. They date from prior to the American Revolution through the end of the war. Wray was in charge of all the issuing of supplies and receiving of supplies to the entire British Regiment of Artillery. Up in this letter here, it's one of the important ones, because it's dated, "Boston, 3rd of April, 1775." That's just prior to the Concord expedition on the 19th of April, 1775, which the Royal Regiment of Artillery had a part in. This one here, "received from His Majesty's stores, cannons captured from the rebels at Camden," the battle of Camden, which is great, including some English cannon that were captured back.
(laughing)
GUEST:
Yes. It's wonderful stuff.
APPRAISER:
Down at the end, we have this requisition. This is all supplies that were issued to them and how much of the supplies they were getting. For material culture historians, it's an amazing, amazing document, because what it does is, it sheds light into their lives, what they're using for objects, how they're being supplied during the revolution. I would say at auction these might bring in the $5,000 to $7,000 range.
GUEST:
My, surprising.
APPRAISER:
Although they could do more if some of the letters were transcribed and we could really get more time to get into the information in the letters. The thing is, is, the majority of the Wray papers are at the Clements Library in Michigan. So these are basically unknown. Nobody, the historians... Historians do not know that these exist.
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