Carter H. Harrison to Thomas Jefferson, 9 April 1822
From Carter H. Harrison
Richmond. 9th April 1822.
Dear Sir,
My friends Mr Abbot & Mr Myers, gentlemen of the Richmond-bar, being about to take a ride into the upper country which will probably lead them through your neighbourhood, I take the liberty of offering them an introduction to you. Your reception of them will be a favour to me which will be gratefully remembered.
I have been much concerned to hear of your bad health since the period of my residence in Albemarle, but from late accounts have reason to hope that you now enjoy more health and better spirits than usually belong to your time of life.
Carter H. Harrison
RC (MHi); endorsed by TJ as received 15 Apr. 1822, with his additional notation beneath endorsement: “Abbot & Myers,” and so recorded in SJL. RC (DLC); address cover only; with Dft of TJ to John Laval, 12 Sept. 1824, on verso; addressed: “Mr Jefferson Monticello By Mr Abbot.”
Carter Henry Harrison (1792–1843), attorney and planter, was the son of TJ’s first cousin Randolph Harrison. Born in Cumberland County, he attended the College of William and Mary, 1810–12, and lived the following year in Milton, from which he visited Monticello. Harrison resided in Richmond from at least 1822 until 1825, and he owned twenty-two slaves in Goochland County in 1830. He moved to Albemarle County in 1834 and became a county magistrate the next year. Harrison owned forty-two slaves in Cumberland County in 1840 and fifty-six there at the time of his death during a visit to John H. Cocke’s Bremo plantation (, 223, 378; ViHi: Harrison Family Papers; Bond from David Higginbotham to William Short, 31 Jan. 1813, enclosed in TJ to Short, 10 Feb. 1813; ViU: Harrison Diary; DNA: RG 29, CS, Goochland Co., 1830, Cumberland Co., 1840; Richmond Enquirer, 31 Oct. 1843; Cumberland Co. Will Book, 10:413–5, 429–31; gravestone inscription in Clifton cemetery, Cumberland Co.).
mr abbot & mr myers were most likely the Richmond attorneys Josiah B. Abbott and John S. Myers (The Richmond Directory, Register and Almanac, for the Year 1819 [Richmond, 1819], 33; Richmond Enquirer, 3 July 1821).
Index Entries
- Abbott, Josiah B.; introduced to TJ search
- Harrison, Carter Henry; and TJ’s health search
- Harrison, Carter Henry; identified search
- Harrison, Carter Henry; introduces Abbott and Myers to TJ search
- Harrison, Carter Henry; letter from search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Correspondence; letters of introduction to search
- Monticello (TJ’s Albemarle Co. estate); Visitors to; Abbott, Josiah B. search
- Monticello (TJ’s Albemarle Co. estate); Visitors to; Myers, John S. search
- Myers, John S.; introduced to TJ search