Benjamin Franklin Papers

Accounting of Benjamin Franklin’s Share in the Walpole Company, 12 May 1772: résumé

Accounting of Benjamin Franklin’s Share in the Walpole Company

AD: American Philosophical Society

<May 12, 1772: “Benjamin Franklin Esq., for his Proportion of Expences and Charges incurred from June 1769 to May 1772, on the Application to the Crown for a Grant of Lands on the River Ohio in North America.” He had paid £5 5s. in cash on November 6, 1769, and £25 on November 27, 1771. The charge for one share at £44 3s. 4d., dated May 2, 1772, left a balance due to Samuel Wharton and William Trent of £13 18s. 4d. Trent acknowledged receipt of this balance on May 12, 1772, in full settlement of the account.4>

[Note numbering follows the Franklin Papers source.]

4BF endorsed the account “Wharton and Trent for the Shares of BF WF and J. Galloway pd. May 12th 1772. Entd.” What he entered were the three £25 assessments in 1771 and the three later items, which we assume were also assessments, of £13 18s. 4d. (Jour., pp. 38, 41); the £5 5s. payments in 1769 were not recorded. If we are right, these were all charges for expenses rather than for the shares themselves; BF retained WF’s and Galloway’s receipts from Wharton and Trent, which have since disappeared. In 1773 BF paid £200 for each of the three for further expenses, and this time for purchase money as well. See Foxcroft to BF above, March 2; BF to WF below, July 14, 25, 1773.

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