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Manuscript DS signed “B. Franklin, Presid’t,” one page, 7.5 x 6, December 13, 1785. Pay order issued to Treasurer David Rittenhouse, directing him to pay Joseph Gardner “the sum of Three hundred and sixty seven pounds fifteen…in full of his account for his attendance on Congress as a Delegate from this State,” according to the Comptroller General’s report. Franklin signs prominently at the conclusion, and the reverse is signed and docketed several times by Gardner. In fine condition, with archivally reinforced intersecting folds.
Franklin had returned to Philadelphia on September 14, 1785, after nearly nine years in France as the United States’ minister, where he helped negotiate the 1778 Treaty of Alliance and the 1783 Treaty of Paris. He was elected president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Executive Council on October 18, 1785, and signed this pay order less than two months into his presidency. The recipient, Joseph Gardner (1752–1794), was a physician and Revolutionary-era public official who represented Pennsylvania in the Continental Congress in 1784 and 1785, and had previously served in the Pennsylvania Provincial Assembly and on the state’s Supreme Executive Council.
The order directs payment through state treasurer David Rittenhouse, the noted astronomer, instrument-maker, and longtime associate of Franklin in the American Philosophical Society. Rittenhouse served as Pennsylvania’s treasurer from 1777 to 1789 and later became president of the American Philosophical Society and the first director of the United States Mint. An early document from Franklin’s tenure as Pennsylvania’s chief executive.
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