Name/Title
1780 Request to John Milton GA Records Move CharlestonScope and Content
Revolutionary War General Benjamin Lincoln orders Captain John Milton to relocate Georgia state records to save from destruction.Context
John Milton's service during the Revolutionary War is supported by these documents. During the War the state of Georgia records were relocated several times starting from the then state capital Savannah to Charleston, to New Bern, NC and ultimately up to Baltimore. This is a digital record only. Original documents are with the Public Library of Boston. Call number (Ms.G.380.38 v.1 Folio). These orders were given February 25, 1780 to move the records from Savannah to Monk's Corner and deliver to a Mr. Parker, the South Carolina Treasurer who was holding the South Carolina records. The orders allowed Milton to exercise his judgement for an alternate safe location if necessary. Written as follows: "You will therefore be pleased remove in the Continl. Waggon, ordered you, the public papers of Georgia, to Monk's Corner, and, if then Mr. Parker one of the Treasurers of this State, and an Officer of the Continental loans, will take them into his possession, & engage to secure them as he secures ye. public papers of So. Carolina to his care - you may, I believe, wt. safety deliver them to him ... "*
*Excerptedfrom Gen. Lincoln's order to Capt. John Milton.
Photostat of original, from the
LETTERBOOKOFBENJAMINLINCOLN,
manuscript, in the Boston Public Library,
sent to Mrs. Mary Bryan, then Director
of the Georgia Department of Archives
by Dr. Charles E. Lee, Director of the
Department of Archives of South Carolina
Oct. 19. 1963.See transcription document attached.Collection
John Milton