[AUTOGRAPH LETTER, SIGNED "D. CLAUS," TO CAPT. MATHEWS, REPORTING ON INDIAN CAPTIVES DURING THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION].
Claus, Daniel:
Montreal. March 23, 1780. [2]pp. written on folio sheet. Old folds. Four small pin holes. Very good. Accompanied by a typed transcription. Daniel Claus (1727-87) came to North America from Germany in 1749 and settled for a time in Philadelphia. Almost immediately upon his arrival he became interested in the various languages of the tribes of the Six Nations. He worked under William Johnson, and in 1760 was based in Montreal, becoming deputy agent to the Canadian Indians and reporting to both Johnson and the local military government. By the mid-1760s he had married and had acquired considerable land in the vicinity of Albany, New York. His life changed, both administratively and personally, when in 1774, Sir William Johnson died suddenly, and Sir Guy Carleton replaced Claus with John Campbell. Shortly thereafter, with the outbreak of the American Revolution and the subsequent defeat of Burgoyne at Saratoga, the Loyalist cause in the upper Hudson valley was lost, and Claus and his family fled to Canada, leaving behind their lands and their possessions. In 1778, Frederick Haldimand, Carleton's successor, appointed Claus deputy agent of the Six Nations in Canada, with special emphasis on the Mohawks. In this hurriedly written letter (probably the original draft of the letter, containing many manuscript corrections), which pertains to one Peter Hansen, "active in ye Rebellion," whom the Indians had taken for the British "for intelligence," Claus also mentions in an afterthought: "The Mohawk Village here is somewhat sickly within this short time."
(Item ID: WRCAM26039) $5,750.00