To Benjamin Franklin from William Dames, 16 March 1747
From William Dames7
ALS (fragment): American Philosophical Society
[Missing] 16th: March 1746/7
[Missing] letters frequently are sent down by the westren [missing] post to Annapolis, which occations a [missing] delay, Expence, and trouble, Shall be obliged [missing] if you give your Young Man directions [missing] all my Letters for our New town, or [Chester?]town post, to be by him forwarded me. [Missing] Can in any shape serve you here [missing] freely Command Sir Your Obedient Servant
Wm. Dames
[My ser]vice to your good spouse.
Addressed: To Mr: Ben: Franklin at the post Office Philadelphia
7. William Dames lived at Chestertown, Kent Co., across the Chesapeake Bay from Annapolis. In 1749 he is listed as owning also a lot in Kingston, a new town laid out on the Queen Anne’s side of the Chester River, where he was warden and vestryman of St. Paul’s parish, and for whose new church he furnished the brick, 1767–71. He owned several ships, one of which, he said, in advertising it for charter to England, could carry 200 hogsheads of tobacco. Frederic Emory, Queen Anne’s County, Maryland (Baltimore, 1950), pp. 120, 167, 169, 321; Md. Hist. Mag., XXVI (1931), 254, 256–7, 261; Md. Gaz., Jan. 13, 1748.