WASHINGTON'S HEADQUARTERS
NEWBURGH-ON-THE-HUDSON WHERE THE WATSON AND CASSOUL LETTER WAS WRITTEN, AUGUST, 1782.
This autograph letter from Washington to Messrs. Watson and Cassoul is now in the possession of the Grand Lodge of New York, who purchased it from a member of the Watson family in the year 1866 or 1867 at a cost of approximately $1,000, and is now framed and secured between two sheets of glass in the collection of the Committee of Antiquities of the Grand Lodge F. & A. M. of New York.[18]
It is written upon two pages of an ordinary letter sheet, and was a copy of one written by Washington, with which he was not entirely satisfied, as shown by the changes made in the text before it was sent to France. The first copy Washington retained, and is now in the Library of Congress, and is here given for comparison, viz:
Fac-simile of the Original Draft of Washington's Letter to Watson and Cassoul, New York, August 10, 1782.
"State of New York,
"Augt 10th 1782.