An Original Free Frank of General George Washington, From 1787, to Col. Israel Shreve, Who Commanded the New Jersey Troops With Washington at Valley Forge

Perhaps more than any other leader of the Revolutionary Era, George Washington was shaped by his experiences in western lands. Washington came away from his early ventures in the West with a conviction that the destiny of Virginia, and later of the United States itself, would be one of expansion. Washington was a youth when he began surveying in the Shenandoah Valley and was only twenty-one when he made a perilous journey across the Allegheny Mountains to command the French to withdraw from the Ohio region claimed by Britain. When Washington returned to Williamsburg with news of the French defiance, he brought back a vision of the almost inconceivably rich interior beyond the barrier of the mountains. That vision remained with him and he invested in western lands for his whole life and worked to politically and commercially link the west with the eastern seaboard. Through purchases, trades, and as payment for his military service, George Washington eventually amassed more than 70,000 acres in what would today be seven different states and the District of Columbia. The schedule of property he appended to his will in the summer of 1799 listed his then-current land holdings as 52,194 acres, exclusive of the 8,000 he also held at Mount Vernon.

One of Washington’s holdings was a 1,644–acre tract of land, called Washington’s Bottom, on the Youghiogheny River in western Pennsylvania. This was his first land acquisition west of the Allegheny Mountains, a remarkable moment in the life of the budding land owner. In 1787 Shreve wanted to buy that land, and Washington was willing to sell.

Free frank, March 20, 1787, Mount Vernon, addressed in Washington’s hand to Col. Israel Shreve, Burlington County, New Jersey, and is franked “Free, G. Washington.” Calculations, in Shreve’s hand, and likely relating to land cost, are below. There is also a “Free” stamp above the handwritten text, this being a very early use of such a stamp.

The letter it once contained was dated March 1787, in which Washington stated, “The land you mention is for sale…My price is 40/ Pennsylvania money per acre if sold altogether, which is one third less than small tracts of land in the vicinity, of less intrinsic value, have sold for. One fourth of the money to be paid down – the other three fourths in three annual payments, with interest…If therefore you have any inclination to purchase upon the terms here mentioned (which I shall not deviate from), I should be glad if you would signify it without delay, as I was about to write to him on this subject, but will delay doing it now till I hear from you, if this shall happen in the course of a post or two.” Just two months later, Washington would go to Philadelphia to chair the Constitutional Convention.