LETTER OF REMONSTRANCE TO JOHN BROOKS, GOVERNOR AND COMMANDER IN CHIEF OF THE MILITIA OF MASSACHUSETTS, REGARDING THE QUESTIONABLE CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE ELECTION OF COL. DUNLAP AS A FIELD OFFICER FOR THE 2nd REGIMENT, 1st BRIGADE, 11th DIVISION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS MILITIA.
Brunswick [MA, later Maine]: Feby. 23, 1819. Letter, signed by Capt. Wm. James, Lieut. Joshua Herrick, Ensign Calvin Wing, and [Sgt.?] Jno. Dunning, of the B.L. Light Infantry Co., officers of the 2d Regiment, 1st Brigade & 11th Division M.M. 25 x 21 cm. [2] pp., approx. 200 words. Directed to Gov. Brooks and addressed on the integral leaf to William H. Sumner, Esq., Adjutant General of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston. Docketed on address leaf: "Remonstrance against the election of Col. Dunlap & others." Old fold lines, some short separations along folds, small hole at wax seal, else very good, legible.
"We the undersigned officers of the 2nd Regiment, 1st Brigade, and 11th Division M.M. would humbly represent to your Excellency that a choice of Field officers for said Regiment was ordered by the Brigadier General Commanding said Brigade to be holden at Brunswick on the 22nd day of February 1819... and it was declared by the Presiding Officer that certain persons were elected to fill the vacancies then existing...." The memorialists state that at least two of the Electors were not present when the election of field officers was held on Feb. 22, and that "many things of an illegal tendency took place at, and about the time of said election...." The officers therefore request that Gov. Brooks suspend the issuance of Commissions to the persons questionably elected, and order a court of inquiry to look into the matter. Item #65472
During the War of 1812, a William James is listed as a private in Capt. Richard T. Dunlap's Company of Massachusetts Militia, Lt. Col. C. Thomas' Regiment, raised at Brunswick in Sept. 1814, with service at Bath [Massachusetts, later part of Maine when it became a state in 1820]. Perhaps this is the same company.
Price: $325.00