Beschreibung:

Property of a New York Collector
Pickering, TimothyAutograph letter signed ("T. Pickering"), as Secretary of State, to Secretary of War James McHenry, regarding two letters from President George Washington on Indian affairs and the building of the first frigate for the United States Navy
1 1/2 pages on a leaf of wove paper (watermarked J Smyth | 1795), "Department of State" [Philadelphia], 8 July 1796; neat repair to a spot of ink erosion costing one letter.
Secretary Pickering advances priorities for the final year of the Washington administration: stabilizing the Western frontier and building the nation's navy.
The 1791 Treaty of Holston (named for a river in Tennessee) established peace and friendship between the United States and the Cherokee, one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands. The U.S. was represented in negotiations by William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory and superintendent of Indian affairs for the Southern Department. (The Southwest Territory comprised trans-Appalachian land that North Carolina ceded to the new federal government in 1790.) One of the provisions of the treaty called for boundaries to be established between Cherokee lands and the United States, and with Tennessee—formerly the Southwest Territory—having just been admitted to the Union the month before, and with Blount serving as Shadow Senator from the Southwest Territory and about to become Senator from Tennessee, Washington acted to secure the government's relationship with the Cherokee:
"The President, in two letters I have received this week, mentions these points for consideration—"1. 'How soon & in what manner' the Cherokee boundary can and ought to be run & marked, agreeably to the treaty of Holston.
"2. What can be done relative to the appointment of an Indian agent (superintendent) in the room of Governor Blount; and of the agents for carrying on the Indian trade.
"He will expect a report as soon as our opinion[s] are formed."
As detailed in Francis Paul Prucha’s American Indian Treaties, "The Treaty of Holston … did not bring satisfaction to the Cherokees and even less to the white citizens who had continued to encroach upon Cherokee lands despite threats from the federal government. … Another treaty was negotiated in Philadelphia on June 26, 1794, by {Secretary at War Henry] Knox and a delegation of Cherokees. … The treaty was primarily a renewal of the Treaty of Holston. Both parties declared that the former treaty was 'to all intents and purposes in full force and binding upon the said Parties ans well in respect to boundaries therein mentioned as in all other respects whatever,' and it prescribed that the boundaries be marked” (p. 88).
With the threat of a naval war with the revolutionary France looming, Pickering turns to maritime affairs. "I have conversed with Mr. [Oliver] Wolcott [Secretary of the Treasury]: We are both of opinion that the first step towards building the frigate, is to send Mr. Fox to the different Navy yards, to take an account of the timber, and to converse with the principal builders, to see on what terms & within what time they will, any of them, undertake to have her completed. We think it ineligible and fruitless to advertise for a contract. The explanations which Mr. Fox can give to the master builder, will enable them to state their terms, which he will bring back with him, & then a choice may be made. I am convinced that it will be in vain to seek a substitute for Mr. Fox; & I beg you to decide thereon that his instructions may be prepared to enable him to start by farthest on Monday."
Born in Great Britain in 1763, Josiah Fox was a naval architect who came to the United States in 1793 to survey American timber; a few years later he was consulting on the building of the original six frigates of the United States Navy: United States, Constitution, President, Constellation, Congress, and Chesapeake. In order to accelerate construction of the warships, six different shipyards were employed; Fox was appointed the Naval Constructor of Chesapeake at Gosport, Virginia. The frigate project fell under Pickering's purview because the Department of the Navy had not yet been established.
PROVENANCE:Frank T. Siebert (Sotheby's New York, 21 May 1999, lot 321) — Christie's New York, 19 June 2007, lot 291 ("Property from a Private Collection")