ELIAS DAYTON

(1737 - 1807) American Revolution brigadier general, a colonel of New Jersey troops promoted upon the direct recommendation of Washington. Manuscript D.S. as Mayor of Elizabethtown, 1p. 8vo., [Essex Co., NJ], Mar. 6, 1799, a sworn statement that a witness had moved to New York, sworn before Dayton who signs at bottom. On the verso, the document bears a two-line signed endorsement by AARON OGDEN (1756–1839), U.S. Senator and the fifth Governor of New Jersey. Ogden is perhaps best known today as the defendant in Gibbons v. Ogden which destroyed the monopoly power of steamboats on the Hudson River in 1824. Split with some minor loss at bottom, repaired with archival tape on verso, marginal chips and a seal stain in the text, none of which affects the signatures.