George Washington Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-13-02-0258

To George Washington from George Peter Keeports, 8 August 1793

From George Peter Keeports

Baltimore Augst 8th 1793

Sir,

With due submission I beg leave to offer myself for the Office of Surveyor for the district of Baltimore, which by the death of Colo. Ballard has become vacant.1 altho’ this is the first time I have the Honor of addressing your Excellency I flatter myself that it will not be considered too presumtive to say that I have had the Honor of serving my Native Country from the commencement to the close of the late War, in the Army under your Excellencies command and in the Commissary of Cloathing and Military-stores department in the State of Maryland;2 in which I discharged the duties of the trust reposed in me without complaint, the testimonials of which services, as soon a⟨s⟩ time will permit to obtain them from His Excellency the Governor of this State and the members of the Executive council, under whose immediate direction I was employed for Six years, I shall take the liberty to transmit to Your Excellency;3 and shall make it my only Study to discharge with equal Integrity and Satisfaction, the duties of Surveyor should your Excellency think proper to appoint Your Excellencies most Obedient and very Humble Servant

Geo: P. Keeports

ALS, DLC:GW. The docket reads “recd 10 Augt.” The cover is stamped “FREE” and “BALT. AUG. 8.”

1On the competition to replace Robert Ballard as the surveyor of customs at Baltimore, see David Plunket to GW, 7 Aug. 1793, n.1.

2During the Revolutionary War George Peter Keeports of Baltimore received a commission as a lieutenant in Capt. Nathaniel Smith’s artillery company in January 1776 and then as a captain in the German Regiment on 8 July 1776. He resigned his commission in May 1777 and returned to Baltimore, where, as a member of the local militia, he was in charge of the city’s magazines and stores. Currently he was a notary public in Baltimore.

3The only extant letter of recommendation for Keeports is Congressman Samuel Smith’s fourth letter to GW from Baltimore of 8 Aug. 1793. Smith wrote that Keeports “had conducted himself Intirely to the Satisfaction of those who have employ’d him” as a notary public, and that his services during the Revolutionary War in the Maryland commissary department had been conducted “with Honor Honesty & to the Satisfaction of the Governor & Council” (DLC:GW). No letters of recommendation to GW from Thomas Johnson, Thomas Sim Lee, and William Paca, the governors of Maryland from 1777 to 1783, or any other prominent Maryland official have been found. For GW’s appointment of Daniel Delozier to the surveyor’s position, see Delozier to GW, 8 Aug. 1793, n.3.

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