This is an original pay roster for the Lexington Militia from the American Revolutionary War. The roster was made out by Daniel Harrington, who was a captain and also the clerk of the Lexington Militia Company, so it was his responsibility to see his men were paid, and the roster shows exactly how much these early militia men earned: their pay ranged anywhere from 2 pounds, 5 shillings and 8 pence all the way up to 13 pounds and four shillings for Daniel Harrington, who was the captain of the company, and they were usually paid by the local colonies or communities because they were made up of local militia. Colonial militia were vastly underpaid, too. Many of them were farmers who couldn’t afford to leave their farms untended, and they usually served for three months at a time. Many of the colonies maintained their own currencies as well, which caused lots of problems, and Congress often lacked the funds to pay the soldiers because it didn’t have the power to tax yet, so printing or borrowing money was the primary source of funding Congress till the war ended: the war left Congress in debt, which meant the Continental dollar was almost worthless, and that caused hardships for many of the men who fought. There is no date on the roster, but Harrington’s service might provide clues: by 1775 he would be clerk of the Lexington militia company, later rising to captain; he served in Cambridge during the siege of Boston and was commissioned a First Lieutenant in 1776, then rose in the ranks until he was commissioned captain in March, 1778, so we believe this roster was written somewhere between 1775 and 1778, and we assume the X marks showed the men were paid. There were sixty-four men listed on the roster and two officers besides Harrington. He was also the individual named in the previous lot - he had bought land from Samuel Jones in 1763 and the land was bounded by the parsonage of Reverend Jonas Clark, who had sheltered Samuel Adams and John Hancock on the night of the very the first battle of the American Revolutionary War. Unfolded the roster measures 12 3/8 x 12 3/8 in. wide, with light wear and creases at the edges, browning along the folds, a small chip on the left edge and a hole in the margin on the right, and it is rare to find an original pay roster from the Revolutionary War, let alone a roster for the men who fought at Lexington, where it all began. #3540 #78