To James Madison from Timothy Clowes, 4 May 1827
From Timothy Clowes
Washington College, Chestertown, Md. May 4, 1827.
Sir.
I have been informed that the Chair of the Professorship of Mathematicks, in the University of Virginia, is about to be vacated.
Having, in addition to a liberal education, had the advantage of long experience in teaching, I feel myself fully competent to discharge the duties of a Mathematical Instructor; and I therefore take leave, respectfully, to offer myself, as a Candidate to supply the vacancy.
In a letter, written several days since, to the Revd. Mr. Hatch, of Charlotte[s]ville, I transmitted copies of several certificates in my favour; which copies, were designed for the inspection of the Board of Visitors, and I trust, have been laid before the Board, by that gentleman.1
I now enclose in this letter, a certificate of Dr. Anderson, the Professor of Mathematicks, in Columbia College, City of New York,2 which it is my wish should be laid before the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia. I am very respectfully Your obedient Servt
T. Clowes.3
RC (ViU: Special Collections, Madison Papers). Cover docketed by JM.
1. For the recommendations entrusted to Frederick W. Hatch, which were likely communicated to JM in Hatch’s 4 June 1827 letter, see James Ryan to JM, 11 May 1827, and Clowes to JM, 25 May 1827, and n. 3.
2. Enclosure not found.
3. Timothy Clowes (1787–1847) of Hempstead, New York, was an 1808 graduate of Columbia College and an Episcopal priest who ministered at several churches before serving as rector of St. Peter’s Church in Albany, New York, 1810–17. Clowes then taught and was headmaster at two academies before becoming president of Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, 1823–29. His peripatetic career continued at two private academies before he became principal of the Philadelphia High School, 1842–46 (Charles J. Werner, comp., “The Clowes Family of Long Island,” New York Genealogical and Biographical Record 50 [1919]: 157, 166).