To James Madison from John Israel, 24 March 1806 (Abstract)
From John Israel, 24 March 1806 (Abstract)
§ From John Israel.1 24 March 1806, Pittsburgh. “Please pay to Genl. John Hamilton2 the amount due for Printing in the Tree of Liberty, the Laws of the last session of the Congress of the U.S. ending 4th. of March 1805 his receipt shall be Sufficient.”
RC and enclosure (DNA: RG 217, First Auditor’s Accounts, no. 17,956). RC 1 p. The enclosure is Israel’s invoice (1 p.) for $59.25 for printing the laws of the first session of the Eighth Congress, with a note in a clerk’s hand, signed by Wagner, that the account was correct.
1. John Israel (ca. 1777–1806) was the son of Israel Israel, a prominent Republican politician and Jefferson supporter, and a protégé of Hugh Henry Brackenridge and Albert Gallatin. John Israel founded the Tree of Liberty in Pittsburgh in 1800 as a Jeffersonian newspaper and sold it in December 1805 (Prince, “John Israel,” PMHB 91 [1967]: 46–55; William Pencak, “Jews and Anti-Semitism in Early Pennsylvania,” ibid., 126 [2002]: 407).
2. John Hamilton (1754–1837) was a general in the Pennsylvania militia. He was a Jefferson elector in 1804 and was elected to the Ninth Congress in 1805 as a Republican. In 1820 he was appointed judge in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and served until his death.