A remarkable two-sided document from William Ellery (1727–1820), Signer of the Declaration of Independence from Rhode Island, whose signature on that document is second only to John Hancock’s in size. The recto bears a signed maritime estate receipt, Newport, October 8, 1805, in Ellery’s bold hand; the verso carries a substantial autograph manuscript of biblical commentary in which Ellery annotates a scholarly work on the Book of Revelation, displaying his Greek scholarship and theological learning. The two sides together offer an unusual and intimate portrait of the Founder as both federal official and lifelong man of letters.
Recto — Document Signed: Maritime Estate Receipt, Newport, October 8, 1805
Signed “William Ellery” in dark ink, the recto is a maritime estate receipt reading in full: “Newport Oct. 8th 1805. Received of Benjamin Bowers of Somerset in the State of Massachusetts Mariner Twenty two dollars and sixty five cents, by virtue of a power of attorney from John Coyle of the County of Washington, who by letters of Administration granted to him by the Judges of the Orphants Court of Washington County on the Twenty seventh day of April last was authorized to receive the goods and effects of John Wood of said County who died on board the Sloop Louisa said Bowers Master, on her passage from Jamaica to Charleston, and whose effects sold at auction at said Charleston, are said to have amounted to said sum of twenty two dollars and sixty five cents. William Ellery.”
The document captures a small but vivid drama of early American maritime life: a sailor, John Wood, dies at sea aboard the sloop Louisa on a Jamaica-to-Charleston passage; his effects are auctioned in Charleston; the proceeds flow through a Washington County probate court and a Massachusetts mariner-agent back to Ellery’s Newport customs office. In 1805, Ellery was fifteen years into his appointment as Customs Collector for the Port of Newport, named by President Washington in 1790 and serving until his death at 92, the longest such tenure in early American history. Maritime estate administration of exactly this kind fell squarely within his official duties.
Verso — Autograph Manuscript: Biblical Commentary on the Book of Revelation
The verso of the same sheet is filled with Ellery’s scholarly annotations keyed to Bryce Johnston D.D.’s Commentaries on the Revelation of St. John, Vol. 2, 8vo, Edinburgh, 1794. Working through chapters XII, XIII, and XIV, Ellery offers his own interpretive glosses, drawing directly on the Greek text. Among the highlights: his definition of “semeion” as “a sign, not a wonder”; his note that in symbolic language “the Sun signifies Jesus Christ” and “the 12 stars signify the 12 Apostles”; his identification of the Chapter XIII beast with “the Roman empire under the Papal form of Government” commencing in 636 A.D. and continuing “until the end of the year 1999”; a discussion of the Greek “skenountas” and “babylon he megale” across multiple chapters; and the closing note: “Chap. XIV. A ripe harvest signifies a civil government ripe for destruction.”
A Harvard-trained classicist who excelled in Greek and Latin, Ellery remained a voracious reader and theological scholar throughout his extraordinarily long life. His direct engagement with the Greek text of Revelation, his fluency with prophetic symbolism, and his willingness to map biblical prophecy onto political history, predicting the end of the papal empire with the specific date of 1999, reveal a mind as active in its seventies as it had been in the Continental Congress. The Rhode Island Historical Society’s Ellery Collection confirms that theological notes and extracts appear among his surviving papers; autograph manuscripts of this length and scholarly substance are genuinely rare.
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