Ohio History Journal

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ARNOLD HENRY DOHRMAN

ARNOLD HENRY DOHRMAN.

 

 

BY A. J. MORRISON, TOLEDO.

The following extracts1 will explain themselves and will serve

to throw light upon the circumstances of the grant, by the Old

Congress to Arnold Henry Dohrman, of a township in the south-

eastern part of Tuscarawas County.

 

1780.

I. Report of Committee of Foreign Affairs, June 21, 1780;

to whom was referred a letter of 23rd May from Mr. P. Henry,

late governor of Virginia, to-wit: [Arnold Henry Dohrman]

"hath expended large sums of money in carrying into practice

schemes projected by him for assisting the United States with

clothing and warlike stores, as well as in supplying great numbers

of American prisoners, carried into the ports of the Kingdom of

Portugal, with money and all other necessaries for their comfort-

able subsistence while there." On recommendation of Com-

mittee, Arnold Henry Dohrman appointed agent for the United

States, in the Kingdom of Portugal, without salary.

A letter to Mr. Dohrman from John Adams, dated May 16,

1780: "You will please to accept of my thanks as an individual

who feels himself obliged to every gentleman, of whatever

country, who is good enough to assist his fellow countrymen."

A letter from Thomas Jefferson, dated May 24, 1780: "The

* cf. Gouverneur Morris to John Parish (merchant in Hamburg),

Feb. 16, 1802-

"Poor Door-Mans! for so his name ought to be spelled, perhaps,

after the history you have given. He had from the beginning an un-

toward mission, and neither nature nor education had given him the art

of pleasing, so essential to that trade."

[Sparks, Life and Correspondence of Gouverneur Morris, III, 159.]

1Drawn from Vol. XIX (Claims), American State Papers, pp.

508-514.

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