[June, 1775] hand written notes containing excerpts from an early drafted letter from William Hooper, Joseph Hewes, and Richard Caswell to the inhabitants of North Carolina, alternate wording and some visible redactions, appears to be writing of Joseph Hewes and perhaps one other hand on watermarked paper (SI? or SL?) 9 x 14-1/2 in. (one folio and one loose leaf)

Provenance: A Historic Edenton Family Collection

source: https://docsouth.unc.edu/csr/index.php/document/csr10-0011

This enigmatic draft should prove ripe for research for Founding Document scholars as well as students of early Federal and North Carolina history. Importantly, the full document encouraged coordination between the North Carolina committee and the Continental Congress.

Joseph Hewes (1730-1779), a native of New Jersey educated at Princeton, became a successful merchant after the French and Indian War. At the age of 30, he moved to Edenton, North Carolina, expanding his mercantile enterprise and entering politics. A few days before his wedding, Hewes’s fiancée died suddenly. He remained a bachelor and left no children to inherit his sizeable estate. At the start of the American Revolution, Hewes put his entire fleet at the disposal of the Continental Navy. He then served as Secretary of the Naval Affairs Committee of the Continental Congress. John Adams later recalled that Hewes “laid the foundation, the cornerstone of the American Navy.” In collaboration with John Adams and Samuel Adams, Hewes was one of the strongest advocates of independence in the contentious early months of 1776, forcing him to sunder ties with the Quakers.

This lot was viewed by representatives of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources and the Department does not at this time have reason to believe that the Lot contains any out-of-custody public records.