George Washington Papers
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To George Washington from the Delaware Delegates, 29 June 1775

From the Delaware Delegates

Philadelphia, 29 June 1775.

Recommend the bearer John Parke,1 who “is an Ensign in the 2d Battalion of the Militia here, and is desirous of serving his country as a Volunteer under you. He has frequently drawn his pen and is now resolved to draw his sword in support of the American cause.”

LS, in Thomas McKean’s writing, DLC:GW. The letter is signed by Caesar Rodney (1728–1784) and Thomas McKean (1734–1817). The third member of the Delaware delegation, George Read (1733–1798), was temporarily absent from the Continental Congress on this date.

1John Parke (1754–1789) of Kent County, Del., was a former law clerk of Thomas McKean. He was appointed assistant quartermaster general of the Continental army on 16 Aug. 1775 and served in that position with the rank of major until 29 June 1776, when he became lieutenant colonel of a regiment of artificers. He subsequently served in Col. John Patton’s Additional Continental Regiment and resigned from the army in October 1778. In 1786 Parke dedicated a volume of poetry to GW.

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