[Americana] Biddle, Charles, and David Rittenhouse Manuscript Document, signed

Philadelphia, December 2, 1785. One sheet, 6 1/8 x 7 3/16 in. (155 x 182 mm). Manuscript pay order, signed by Charles Biddle as Vice President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania, for John Whitehill, member of the Executive Council, for "Seventy four pounds specie in full for his attendance in Council until this day inclusively--and his mileage twice--"; counter-signed by David Rittenhouse as Treasurer, and John Nicholson; additionally signed by Whitehill at bottom; docketed on verso. Creasing from old folds.

Charles Biddle (1745-1821) served as the seventh Vice-President of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania (today the equivalent to the Lieutenant Governor) from 1785-87. He was the fourth son of William Biddle III and Mary Scull. During the American Revolution he served as a Captain in the merchant service and served under his brother, Commodore Nicholas Biddle on the USS Randolph.

John Whitehill (1729-1815) was a Pennsylvania politician who served on the Supreme Executive Council from 1784-87. He also served as a justice of the peace, justice of the orphans’ court of Lancaster County in 1777, member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives from 1780-82, and again in 1793, was a member of the State ratification convention in 1787, and was elected as a Republican to the Eighth and Ninth Congresses, from March 4, 1803-March 3, 1807.

Passed down within the Biddle family and never before offered for sale.

Provenance

From the collection of Edward Biddle Clay