George Washington Signed Partial Document.

WASHINGTON, George.

$27,000.00

Item Number: 142623

Rare partial document signed by George Washington on January 21, 1799, eleven months before his death on December 14, 1799. Octavo, the partial manuscript document reads, “I do acknowledge that this is the Platt referred to in the Deeds made for the Lands of George Mercer.” Signed by Washington, “Go. Washington” and countersigned by three witnesses. Accompanied by a typed letter signed by Dorothy Twohig, editor-in-chief of the The Papers of George Washington which reads in part, “The note on Mercer explains Washington’s involvement in the whole affair which started before the Revolution. After the war Washington tried to extricate himself from the problems resulting from the power of attorney given him by George Mercer, who had died in 1784, and indeed a decree of the Virginia Court of Chancery had removed Mercer’s affairs from his control, but ramifications from land sales followed him even into his years of retirement after his presidency. I am also inclosing transcriptions of three letters between Washington and Raleigh Colston involving Mercer’s land. We think that your document was issued by Washington to reassure Colston in regards to his purchase of Mercer land. It was all an extremely complicated affair that plagued Washington for much of his public life.” George Mercer served as a captain under George Washington during the French and Indian War, moving to Europe in 1765. Washington became entangled in his American business affairs in the early 1770s, after Mercer had inherited properties in Virginia from his father. The present document seems to pertain to the sale of Mercer’s lands to Raleigh Colston, with Washington offering reassurances of a clean title. It is a particularly noteworthy document in that Washington began his adult life as a surveyor—in July 1749, at the age of 17, Washington was appointed official surveyor for the newly created Culpeper County in northern Virginia. Here, a mere eleven months before his death on December 14, 1799, he is still attending to matters of plats and surveys. In very good condition. Handsomely matted and framed with a portrait of Washington after Rembrandt Peale’s famed painted portrait, “George Washington, Patriae Pater,” considered by many second only to Gilbert Stuart’s iconic Athenaeum portrait of the first president and variations of which hang in the Oval Office and Old Senate Chamber. The entire piece measures 16 inches by 19.25 inches.

American statesman and soldier George Washington served as the first President of the United States from 1789 to 1797 and was one of the Founding Fathers of the United States. He served as Commander-in-Chief of the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, and later presided over the 1787 convention that drafted the United States Constitution. He is popularly considered the driving force behind the nation's establishment and came to be known as the "father of the country," both during his lifetime and to this day. Washington retired to Mount Vernon in March 1797 and devoted time to his plantations and other business interests, including his distillery. His plantation operations were only minimally profitable,[48] and his lands in the west (Piedmont) were under Indian attacks and yielded little income, with the squatters there refusing to pay rent. He attempted to sell these but without success. Washington was known to be rich because of the well-known "glorified façade of wealth and grandeur" at Mount Vernon,but nearly all of his wealth was in the form of land and slaves rather than ready cash. To supplement his income, he erected a distillery for substantial whiskey production. Historians estimate that the estate was worth about $1 million in 1799 dollars, equivalent to $17.59 million in 2022.  Washington bought land parcels to spur development around the new Federal City named in his honor, and he sold individual lots to middle-income investors rather than multiple lots to large investors, believing they would more likely commit to making improvements.