Henry Laurens letters and documents

1769-1792

Henry Laurens (1724-1792) was a South Carolina merchant, plantation owner, and Revolutionary-era statesman. The collection of Henry Laurens letters and documents, 1769-1792, includes letters written by him to Lachlan McIntosh, 1769; to his son John Laurens, 1775; to Thomas Wharton, Caesar Rodney and William Alexander while President of the Continental Congress, 1777-1778; and to Benjamin Vaughan, dated 1782 April 2 at Exeter, England, regarding a meeting with Lord Shelburne. An oversize letter to William Carmichael, 1778 February 24, asks for payment of his account with Matthew Lock, written on verso, for sums paid on behalf of the Marquis de Lafayette. Letters to Henry Laurens are chiefly from his former secretary Moses Young, captured with Laurens on their voyage to Holland in 1780, regarding Young’s attempts to obtain payment from Congress for his services. Laurens’s brief notes on his conversation with John Adams at Haarlem on April 15, 1782 (1 page), and two clipped signatures are also present. Items are in chronological order.