Written to a French general during the Revolutionary War, the letter was believed stolen from the state archives in the 1930s or ’40s.
A letter written by founding father Alexander Hamilton during the Revolutionary War and believed stolen decades ago from the Massachusetts state archives has been returned following a federal appeals court decision, top state officials said Tuesday. Secretary of the Commonwealth William Galvin hailed the homecoming, after last week’s decision by the Boston-based 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a previous ruling by a district court judge. The letter was reputedly stolen between 1938 and 1945 by a “kleptomaniacal cataloguer” who worked at the archives, according to the court decision. Hamilton wrote the letter to the Marquis de Lafayette, a French aristocrat who served as a general in the Continental Army. Dated July 21, 1780, the letter resulted in Massachusetts sending troops to Rhode Island “to bolster the embattled French forces,” the appeals court wrote. Galvin, whose office oversees the archives and the Commonwealth Museum, said he was pleased the court ruled “that this historical treasure belongs to the people.
