American Historical Ephemera & Photography

1p, folio sheet, approx. 17 x 11 in. (sight) matted and framed to approx. 17 x 23 in. (adhesive repair at folds, toning especially along edges, missing lower left portion of document). The seal of Massachusetts remains at the top left corner.

An appointment for "Thomas Cowden, Esq. of Fitchburg" as Justice of the Peace for the "County of Worcester for the term of seven years if during that time he shall behave well in the same office." Countersigned by John Avery as Secretary of the Commonwealth, and endorsed on verso by Lieutenant Governor Samuel Adams whose signature affirmed that Cowden had taken the oath of office, 30 September 1789. 

Capt. Thomas Cowden (1720-1792) was a resident of Fitchburg, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Though he wrote his surname "Cowdin," it often appears as "Cowden" such as on the document offered here. As a young man Cowdin served the crown first at the Siege of Louisburg and later as a captain during the French and Indian War. The History of the Town of Fitchburg (1836) notes that Cowdin was not initially a supporter of the American Revolution, and so "though in other respects a very popular man, and a very noted inn-keeper, was shorn of all his municipal honors in 1775, and was not again admitted to the confidence of the town till towards the close of the war." In 1779 Cowdin was chosen a delegate to the to the convention forming the Massachusetts state constitution and a year later was chosen to represent the town in the first General Court under the new Constitution. By the time of this appointment as Justice of the Peace in 1789, the "Reluctant Revolutionary" was fully immersed in the governmental and political establishments of his new country.