Quaker, British Loyalist, Spy, Co-Conspirator With Benedict Arnold: Land Grant For Sale

9 ¼ x 15partly-printed 1794 land grant signed by loyalist British Spy Samuel Wallis, whowas also a co-conspirator with Benedict Arnold.“Know all men by these Presents, That I Samuel Wallis of Muney Townshipin the county of Lycoming and State of Pennsylvania...whereas a grant did issueon the fourth of February in the year of our Lord, one thousand, seven hundredand ninety-four t...John Barron Jun...for a tract of land...within the lastpurchase made of the Indians, east of the Allegheny River and Conewago Creek...onehundred & eleven for one thousand acres of land...I Samuel Wallis for andin consideration of the sum of five shillings, to me in hand paid by Edward Wallis...havegranted, bargained, and sold, convey and confirm...all of the landssurveyed...unto the said Samuel Wallis...”

SAMUEL WALLISwas a loyalist spy, born in Maryland and of Quaker descent. He became asubstantial Philadelphia merchant, shipper and speculator long before the Warof American Independence. An investor in frontier lands, he tookadvantage of the 1768 Treat of Fort Stanwix to build a substantial house inMuncy, Pennsylvania, on the west branch of the Susquehanna River, abouttwenty-five miles north of Fort Augusta at Sunbury. When the British arrived inPennsylvania in 1777-1778, he worked secretly for them and helped them toorganize Loyalist raids on the frontier.

Wallis usedhis house as a rendezvous for British and Loyalist frontier agents and he wasone of the spies who reported to John Andre and George Beckwith, HenryClinton’s intelligence chiefs in New York. Andre made use of him in mid-1779when Benedict Arnold was making overtures from Philadelphia. Beckwith tried toget Wallis to exploit the mutiny of the Pennsylvania Line (January 1 – 10,1781) but the opportunity passed before anything could be done. He continued tosend intelligence and food shipments to the British army until 1782, all thetime keeping up close personal contacts with the Continental Congress andposing as a Whig. In 1782, he moved permanently to Muncy, expanded his landholdings to about seven thousand acres, and – especially as the agent of theHolland Land Company—became a major speculator in lands farther west. He diedof smallpox in Philadelphia in 1798; his fortune, possibly owing to theconcurrent financial crisis, was lost. So good was Wallis’s cover that hisLoyalist activities went unsuspected until the Clinton and Arnold papersreached the public domain in the early twentieth century.

The document is also signed by ThomasNewton, Stephen Hollingsworth and Henry Shoemaker Jr.

Two small edge tears. Else excellent.

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