How History Unfolds on Paper: Important Americana from the Eric C. Caren Collection, Part X

Northampton County, Pennsylvania, July 11, 1770. Single sheet, approximately 9 1/4 x 8 1/4 in. (235 x 209 mm) (sight). Manuscript legal document, in the hand of Provincial Attorney General Andrew Allen, being an indictment against Salisbury Township yeoman Jacob Johe, for "contriving and fraudulently intending...to deceive and defraud three pieces of false signed and counterfeit money of copper, tin, and other mix'd metals composed, made in the likeness and similitude of good legal and current money of gold, called half Joanna's commonly current within the Province of Pennsylvania, & knowing the same pieces of coin to be false, and counterfeit did pay and tender in payment to divers of the wise subjects of our Lord the King...". Signed by Allen at bottom, and witnessed by four individuals (seemingly in Allen's hand), including Lambert Cadwalader, John Jennings, Henry Hooker, et al. Docketed on verso. Creasing from old folds, some reinforced on verso; old mounting paper along left verso edge; small dampstaining affecting a few words at bottom, a few small holes at same.

Scarce autograph legal document, signed by Andrew Allen (1740-1825), colonial Attorney General for Pennsylvania and Loyalist convicted of treason in absentia during the American Revolution.

Son of Chief Justice William Allen, the younger Allen was educated at the Academy and College of Philadelphia (now the University of Pennsylvania) and studied law with his father and then at the Temple in London. Upon his return to Pennsylvania he served in a variety of posts, including Attorney General beginning in 1769, as well as Recorder of Philadelphia and member of the City Council. At the beginning of the Revolution he was sympathetic to the colonial cause, and represented Pennsylvania in the Second Continental Congress, but withdrew due to his opposition to independence. As tensions rose in Pennsylvania, his allegiance teetered, and he finally fled to British lines in New York in December 1776 after he and his family were marked as sympathetic to the British. He made a brief return to Philadelphia in 1777 following the fall of that city, but moved to Great Britain the following year. In 1781, the Pennsylvania Assembly attainted Allen of treason, and confiscated his and his family's property. 

Lambert Cadwalader (1742-1823) was an American merchant, politician, and Patriot. Educated at the University of Pennsylvania, he went into business with his older brother John Cadwalader to become one of the leading merchants in the colony (1742-86), before entering politics. A signer of the non-importation agreement in 1765, he was elected to the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly in 1774, and was a delegate to the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention in 1776. He served in the Revolutionary War beginning in 1775, as a captain in the Philadelphia militia known as "The Greens", and later as a lieutenant colonel of the 3rd Pennsylvania Battalion of the Continental Army. He was taken prisoner by the British following the fall of Fort Washington, but was quickly paroled. He resigned from the army in 1777, and then served as a delegate from New Jersey in the Confederation Congress, and then in the House of Representatives in 1788 and 1792.