To George Washington from Alexander Hamilton, 26 August 1790
From Alexander Hamilton
Treasury Department [New York], 26 Aug. 1790. Submits a new contract made by William Allibone, superintendent of the lighthouse and establishments on the Delaware River, with Abraham Hargis as keeper of the Cape Henlopen in place of the previous contract, of which GW did not approve.1 “The Secretary humbly begs leave to remark, that the terms of the contract . . . appear to him consistent with the interests of the United States.”2
LB, DLC:GW.
For previous correspondence about the lighthouse on Cape Henlopen at the entrance of Delaware Bay, ceded to the federal government by the state of Pennsylvania, see Hamilton to GW, 28 May 1790 (first letter), and Hamilton to GW, 18 June and 5 Aug. 1790.
1. Neither the previously rejected nor the current contract has been found (see Hamilton to GW, 18 June 1790).
2. On 28 Aug. 1790 Tobias Lear informed Hamilton of the president’s approval of the new contract, which fixed Hargis’s salary as keeper of the lighthouse on the Delaware River “at the rate of 266 Dollars 66⅔ Cents per annum.” Allibone’s own annual salary as superintendent was $500 (DLC:GW; DNA: Miscellaneous Treasury Accounts of the General Accounting Office, 1790–1894, item 1233).