ALEXANDER HAMILTON. AUTOGRAPH ENDORSEMENT SIGNED AT THE FOOT OF A LETTER SENT TO HIM, 13 SEPTEMBER 1801

Endorsement on a one-page (12 5/8 x 7 3/4 in.; 321 x 197 mm) autograph letter signed by Arthur Breese, Whitestown, 13 September 1801; lightly browned, some staining. Matted, framed, and glazed with Plexiglas with a portrait of Hamilton.

Hamilton asks his college roommate and two other good friends to pay their share of surveying expenses for a speculative joint New York State land investment. Arthur Breese graduated from Princeton and received an honorary degree from Yale College in 1789. Breese was admitted to the bar of the New York Supreme Court in 1792, and settled in Whitestown, New York, in 1793. He speculated in land in northern New York and assisted others, including James Madison, in doing so. In the present letter he reports on the progress of a survey that was to have been done by Charles C. Brodhead, of Oneida County:

"Your favor of the 1st Inst. I had the honor of receiving by fridays Mail. I should have had the survey completed, had I not relied upon Mr Brodheads executing it, he being much engaged I have at length employed a substitute who is now engaged in the Job. The whole expense will be about $500. I have been obliged to advance one hundred & upwards, in Provisions & have taken the liberty of drawing upon you in favor of Suydam & Wykoff Merchs N. York, for $200. The survey will be completed well & expeditiously. Two good surveyors being employed."

Hamilton's endorsement is written directly beneath Breese's text and is directed at his three co-signers, John Laurance, Robert Troupe, and Nicholas Fish, assessing a $50 share of the expenses to each: "As I expect momently to be called upon for the amount of the abovementioned Bill, I request the following Gentlemen to pay their respective proportions to the bearer." Laurance, Troup, and Fish were all involved in New York politics and legal circles; Troup had earlier been Hamilton's roommate at King's College (now Columbia University).