George Washington Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-02-02-0069

To George Washington from Charles Croxall, 19 April 1789

From Charles Croxall

Eden Park1 near Wilmington [Del.] 19 April 1789

Sir

It was my intention to have done myself the honor of waiting on your Excellency in person but finding you so crouded with applications on the same head, that it would be takeing too great a Liberty with your time.

your Excellency may recollect the addition of men I made to Colel Thomas Hartleys Redgt of Contanental Troops, and he can testify my activity both in and out of the Feild dureing the Campaign of 1777 untill the day of my being wounded and made a prisoner of war—near four years expence, and irreparable injury, to my small private fortune, in Captivity and being dureing that period neglected or unjustly deranged, so as to Bar against my final Settlement certificatees, as oth⟨ers⟩ more fortunate in not being made Captives of injoyed—misfortunes in Commerce since the year 1783 is the leading necessaty to my asking the honor of your Excellencies appointment in this State to the Collectors office of impost—my being a Contanental officer and not in the service of one State more than an other, will I hope put me on a par with any State applicant—my Connection with the Hon. Mr R. Morris, whose friendship for me will I hope, answer any further Satisfaction or Satisfactory inquirery you Sir may please to make, and to him I beg your Excellencies refering, for my conduct and character, should it be Sir your pleasure to notice this application. I have the Honor to be Sir Yr Most Humble & Obbdt Sert

Charles Croxall

ALS, DLC:GW.

Charles Croxall (1756–1831) served in Eichelberger’s company of Hartley’s Regiment of Guards during the Revolution and was taken prisoner at the Battle of Brandywine in 1777. After the war he opened a dry goods store in Baltimore at the Sign of the Plough, Calvert and Market streets, and in July 1781 married Mary (Polly) Morris (c.1763–1834). For speculation that his wife was Robert Morris’s illegitimate daughter, see Ferguson and Catanzariti, Robert Morris Papers, description begins E. James Ferguson et al., eds. The Papers of Robert Morris, 1781–1784. 9 vols. Pittsburgh, 1973–99. description ends 5:130–31.

1Eden Park, or Monckton Park, was an estate just south of Wilmington owned in the early 1780s by George Haynes, a Wilmington merchant. By the end of the decade Robert Morris owned the estate, and in 1791 he sold it to the comte de Segur. In the early nineteenth century it became the site of Peter Bauduy’s powder mills.

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