“Boston July 31st. 1766, I Promise to pay Mr. Thomas Walley, or order Eight pounds, Five Shillings & Nine pence Lawf[ul] Money on demand, with Lawfull Interest for the Same till paid, being for Value reciev’d of him — Witness my hand Joseph Warren.”
Source: Manuscript promissory note sold during 2000 by Alexander Historical Auctions of Chesapeake, MD. Current whereabouts unknown. It likely resides in a private autograph collection. “Very rare D.S. 1p. 7.5 x 3 inches, a manuscript promissory note. Folds, one above the signature, expertly inlaid, in very good condition. E[stimate] $6,000-8,000.” Though I have never examined this document, I have no reason to doubt the auctioneer’s acceptance of its authenticity.
Commentary: This signed document may be nothing more than the coincidental product of ordinary commerce, a piece of ephemera preserved by happenstance. Its current value results from it being a rare signature of an American Founding figure.
From the standpoint of the biographer, this promissory note document comes from a little documented period in Joseph Warren’s young adulthood. It begs explanation of Warren’s relationship with Thomas Walley and the overall context.
Warren had married Elizabeth Hooton in September of 1764. His bride was said to have been heir to a small fortune, funds apparently no longer available to Dr. Warren two years later. His North End medical practice grew slowly and steadily following his service during the smallpox epidemic of early 1764. He was coming to the forefront of Masonic life as a St. Andrew’s Lodge Ancient. Warren’s first child Elizabeth was born in 1765. He asserted an independent Whig voice in op-ed newspaper pieces for the Boston Gazette as B.W. and Paskalos. The latter’s fiery June 2, 1766 piece is dated closest to this promissory note. In August 1766 Warren visited Stafford Spa, Connecticut, to evaluate scientific and business prospects for a medicinal spring located there.
I am unsure of the identity of the person making the loan to Warren. He was not a patient, so this appears not to be related to Warren’s role as physician. One candidate is a Thomas Walley (1725-1806), who wrote a political pamphlet addressing monetary inflation during the Revolutionary War (Boston, August 31st, 1779 To the gentlemen who represented the country towns in the late convention at Concord. [Boston, publisher not identified] Early American Imprints, First Series, No. 16546). A Thomas Walley, quite possibly the same person, served as a Boston Selectman during the Confederation and Early Republic (1786-1796).
The auction catalog did not posit the circumstances of this promissory note: “Lot 2 [Autographs] Joseph Warren (1741 – 1775). American physician and Revolutionary War Officer who sent Paul Revere and William Dawes to Lexington to warn Adams and Hancock of the British advance into the countryside. Killed at the Battle of Bunker Hill.”
Money on Demand with Lawfull Interest for the Same
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