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At the Institute’s core is the Gilder Lehrman Collection, one of the great archives in American history. More than 85,000 items cover five hundred years of American history, from Columbus’s 1493 letter describing the New World through the end of the twentieth century.

Knox, Henry, 1750-1806 to Jonas Simonds

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Gilder Lehrman Collection #: GLC02437.02677 Author/Creator: Knox, Henry, 1750-1806 Place Written: West Point, New York Type: Autograph letter signed Date: 18 October 1783 Pagination: 2 p. : docket ; Height: 23.7 cm, Width: 17.8 cm Order a Copy

Congratulates Symonds (or Simonds) on his acquittal and mentions being ignorant of a peace establishment. Jonas was accused of participating in the Philadelphia Mutiny of June 1783, an anti-government protest by nearly 400 soldiers of the Continental Army (see GLC02437.02609 for a related letter). Knox advises Simonds that former officers should procure farms. States that if land cannot be gotten cheap in the more settled areas, to move to less settled land. Believes that "industry in such a situation is honorable as well as profitable and productive of much peace of mind."

Knox, Henry, 1750-1806
Simonds, Jonas, fl. 1783

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