George Washington Papers

To George Washington from Pierce Butler, 6 August 1789

From Pierce Butler

[New York] August the 6th 1789

Sir

I have the honor to inclose to You a letter that came under Cover to me, and which I have just now rec’d from Mrs Greene.1 I have the honor to be Yr Excellencys most Obedt Servt

P. Butler

ALS, DLC:GW.

1The endorsement to this letter notes that the enclosure was “a Letter from Mr Jas Seagrove,” possibly Seagrove’s letter to GW of 24 July.

Catharine Littlefield Greene (1755–1814), widow of Gen. Nathanael Greene, had recently arrived in New York from her plantation in Georgia. She spent the summer of 1789 in the city, pressing for congressional settlement of her husband’s Revolutionary War accounts and pursuing an active social life including frequent invitations from the Washingtons. As she wrote Nathaniel Pendleton on 7 Aug., “I have been most graciously received by the President and his Lady—and am to dine with them tomorrow—a very great honor I can assure you[.] on Levee Days No person presumes to sit in his presents—and he is treated in most respects as if he had a crown he however did me the honor to give me a kiss for which I made my best cortesy and thanked him” (NHi: Nathaniel Pendleton Papers).

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