Meeting House Lottery 1793

Name/Title

Meeting House Lottery 1793

Entry/Object ID

2018.234

Scope and Content

A collection of lottery tickets sold to raise money in order to build a Meeting House at the Stonington Point. Six men; Nathaniel Minor, Charles Phelps, Elijah Palmer, Peleg Brown, Elisha Denison and William Cheesebrough 2nd, were each given 1000 tickets to sell at $3 each. The winner of this lottery was slated to win $3000. It appears that his lottery was not successful as many tickets have no names on the reverse, and there is no indication that a meeting house was ever built on Stonington Point. Also included in this binder is a copy of a newspaper article from 1793 outlining the lottery, an article from a local newspaper on the establishment of these fundraising lotteries in the early republic, and a listing of lottery tickets like these at auction.

Collection

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