31Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 27 May 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
Another of our friends of 76. is gone, my dear Sir, another of the Co-signers of the independance of our country. and a better man, than Rush , could not have left us, more benevolent, more learned, of finer genius, or more honest. we too must go; and that ere long. I believe we are under half a dozen at present; I mean the signers of the Declaration. yourself, Gerry , Carroll , and myself are...
32Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 5 July 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
Since mine of Jan. 24. your’s of Mar. 14. was recieved. it was not acknoleged in the short one of May 18. by mr Rives , the only object of that having been to enable one of our most promising young men to have the advantage of making his bow to you. I learned with great regret the serious illness mentioned in your letter: and I hope mr Rives will be able to tell me you are entirely restored....
33Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 12 October 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
Since mine of Aug. 22. I have recieved your favors of Aug. 16. Sep. 2. 14. 15. and ___ and mrs Adams’s of Sep. 20. I now send you, according to your request a copy of the Syllabus. to fill up this skeleton with arteries, with veins, with nerves, muscles and flesh, is really beyond my time and information. whoever could undertake it would find great aid in Enfield’s judicious abridgment of
34Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 25 November 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieve here, dear Sir, your favor of the 4 th just as I am preparing my return to Monticello for winter quarters; and I hasten to answer to some of your enquiries. the Tracy I mentioned to you is the one connected by marriage with La Fayette ’s family. the mail which brought your letter brought one also from him . he writes me that he is become blind & so infirm that he is no longer able to...
35Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 12 September 1821 (Jefferson Papers)
I am just returned from my other home , and shall within a week go back to it for the rest of the autumn. I find here your favor of Aug. 20. and was before in arrear for that of May 19 . I cannot answer, but join in, your question, of May 19 . Are we to surrender the pleasing hopes of seeing improvement in the moral and intellectual condition of Man? the events of Naples & Piedmont cast a...
36Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 14 March 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
A continuation of poor health makes me an irregular correspondent. I am therefore your debtor for the two letters of Jan. 20. & Feb. 21. it was after you left Europe that Dugald Stuart , concerning whom you enquire, and L d Dare , second son of the Marquis of Lansdowne came to Paris . the
37Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 8 April 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I have to acknolege your two favors of Feb. 16. & Mar. 2. and to join sincerely in the sentiment of mrs Adams , and regret that distance separates us so widely. an hour of conversation would be worth a volume of letters. but we must take things as they come. You ask if I would agree to live my 70. or rather 73. years over again? to which I say Yea. I think with you that it is a good world on...
38Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 28 December 1812 (Jefferson Papers)
An absence of 5. or 6. weeks, on a journey I take three or four times a year, must apologize for my late acknolegement of your favor of Oct. 12. after getting thro the mass of business which generally accumulates during my absence, my first attention has been bestowed on the subject of your letter. I turned to the passages you refer to in Hutchinson & Winthrop , and with the aid of their...
39Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 17 May 1818 (Jefferson Papers)
I was so unfortunate as not to recieve from mr Holly ’s own hand your favor of Jan. 28. being then at my other home . he dined only with my family, & left them with an impression which has filled me with regret that I did not partake of the pleasure his visit gave them. I am glad he is gone to Kentucky . rational Christianity will thrive more rapidly there than here. they are freer from...
40Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 18 May 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
This will be handed you by mr Rives a young gentleman of this state and my neighborhood. he is an eleve of mine in law, of uncommon abilities, learning and worth. when you and I shall be at rest with our friends of 1776. he will be in the zenith of his fame and usefulness. before entering on his public career he wishes to visit our sister states and would not concieve he had seen any thing of...
41Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 21 January 1812 (Jefferson Papers)
I thank you before hand (for they are not yet arrived) for the specimens of homespun you have been so kind as to forward me by post. I doubt not their excellence, knowing how far you are advanced in these things in your quarter. here we do little in the fine way, but in coarse & midling goods a great deal. every family in the country is a manufactory within itself, and is very generally able...
42Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 7 November 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
Three long and dangerous illnesses within the last 12. months must apologise for my long silence towards you. The paper bubble is then burst. this is what you & I, and every reasoning man, seduced by no obliquity of mind, or interest, have long foreseen. yet it’s disastrous effects are not the less for having been foreseen. we were laboring under a dropsical fulness of circulating medium....
43Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 5 May 1817 (Jefferson Papers)
Absences and avocations have had prevented my acknoleging your favor of Feb. 2. when that of Apr. 19. arrived. I had not the pleasure of recieving the former by the hands of mr Lyman . his business probably carried him in another direction; for I am far inland, & distant from the great line of communication between the trading cities. your recommendations are always welcome, for indeed the...
44Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 15 May 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter of Apr. 2. was recieved in due time, and I have used the permission it gave me of sending a copy of that of Mar. 2. to the editor of Tracy ’s Political economy. M r S. A. Wells of Boston , grandson of our old friend Sam l Adams , and who proposes to write the life of his grandfather, has made some enquiries of me
45Enclosure: Circular from Hezekiah Niles to Prominent Subscribers, 31 July 1817 (Jefferson Papers)
After revolving upon some suitable apology for intruding myself with the following statement and request, I have thought it most respectful to decline offering any, except to observe that if ought appears to your better judgement improper in either, that you will attribute it to any thing else than a willingness on my part to act so, in any respect towards you. For six years ending with the...
46Thomas Jefferson to John Adams, 20 April 1812 (Jefferson Papers)
I have it now in my power to send you a piece of homespun in return for that I recieved from you. not of the fine texture, or delicate character of yours, or, to drop our metaphor, not filled as that was with that display of imagination which constitutes excellence in Belles lettres, but a mere sober, dry and formal piece of Logic. ornari res ipsa negat . yet you may have enough left of your...
47Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 10 May 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
An absence from home of some length has occasioned your letter of Apr. 24. to remain here unanswered until my return. the operation of sitting for portraits and busts, especially after it has been so often done, and probably as well as it will be done again, and that too before the havoc of age had left nothing but an anatomy to copy, needed the strong motive of my desire to meet any wish...
48Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 5 September 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
As Rector of the University of Virginia , I have recieved at several times the underwritten volumes of which I make this acknolegement as a proper voucher for your office , and pray you to be assured of my constant sentiments of respect and esteem. State papers of 1818. 8. vols 8 vo Secret journals of Congress . 4. v. 8 vo Journals of the Federal Convention 1. v. 8 vo Census for 1820. 1. v....
49Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 22 June 1820 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his respectful salutations to mr Adams , and his thanks for the copy of the journals of the Convention which he has been so kind as to send him. t hat also presented to the University of Virginia , has been properly addressed to Th:J. as Rector of that institution and shall be carefully preserved until the proper depository shall be provided. he prays mr Adams to be...
50Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 1 November 1817 (Jefferson Papers)
Yours of the 4 th of Oct. was not recieved here until the 20 th having been 16. days on it’s passage, since which unavoidable avocations have made this the first moment it has been in my power to acknolege it’s reciept. of the character of M. de Pradt his political writings furnish a tolerable estimate, but not so full as you have favored me with. he is eloquent, and his pamphlet on colonies...
51Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 26 December 1817 (Jefferson Papers)
On my return to this place after an absence of 6 weeks I find here your favor of Nov. 29 . when I proposed to the President the appointment of mr Sasserno to be Consul at Nice , I was not possessed of his Christian name. I therefore took measures immediately to obtain it, and found also, on my return here, the answers to my enquiries. his name is Victor Adolphus Sasserno . I was intimately...
52Thomas Jefferson to John Quincy Adams, 12 May 1821 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson returns his thanks to mr Adams for the copy he has been so kind as to send him of his very able and profound Report on Weights and measures. from the general view, the only one he has yet had time to take of it, it seems really to present every thing which is useful on the subject. he shall read it seriously, with the interest he takes in the subject and with an earnest desire to...
53Thomas Jefferson to John Adlum, 7 October 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
While I lived in Washington , a member of Congress from your state (I do not recollect which) presented me with two bottles of wine made by you, one of which, of Madeira colour, he said was entirely factitious, the other, a dark red wine was made from a wild or native grape, called in Maryland the Fox grape, but very different from what is called by that name in Virginia . this was a very fine...
54Thomas Jefferson to John Adlum, 13 January 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
While I lived in Washington you were so kind as to send me 2. bottles of wine made by yourself, the one from currans, the other from a native grape , called with you a fox-grape, discovered by mr Penn’s gardiner . the wine of this was as good as the best Burgundy and resembling it. in 1810. you added the great favor of sending me many cuttings. these were committed to the stage Mar. 13. on the...
55Thomas Jefferson to John Adlum, 13 June 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 5 th has been duly received, covering my two letters to you of Oct. 7. 1809. and Apr. 10. 1820. 20. 1810. which I now return of these be pleased to make whatever use you think proper. but I should think the first half of the last letter had better be omitted, as it would encumber mr Skinner ’s columns with matter entirely useless & uninteresting to his readers. I am very glad...
56Thomas Jefferson to John Adlum, 20 April 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favors of Feb. 15. & Mar. 13. were recieved in due time, but were not acknoleged because I was daily in expectation of the cuttings which should have accompanied the latter. on the 15 th inst. I recieved yours of the 10 th & concluding the bundle of cuttings had been rejected at some post office as too large to pass thro’ that line, I had yesterday, in despair, written my acknolegements...
57Thomas Jefferson’s Notes on a Proposed Albemarle County Road, [ca. 8 April 1817] (Jefferson Papers)
Present roads Proposed roads from the Mainstreet of Charlottesville Miles po miles to Moore’s creek 0.98 to Secretary’s ford 614. = 1.92. by Smith the Thoro’fare 1.25
58Thomas Jefferson to Eli Alexander, 12 February 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
M r Randolph will ride with you any day you please to the lands on Lego , & confer on the accomodation you propose. any thing which he thinks I might agree to without too much injury, I shall willingly agree to. In order to furnish you with proper evidence of the grounds which on Saturday last I agreed you should clear, I observe that the opening of the Upperfield over the road at Shadwell has...
59Thomas Jefferson to Eli Alexander, 17 April 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
Being much pressed by mr Higginbotham for a debt I owe him, and towards the discharge of which I promised him my rents, I paid over to him immediately the 200. D. you paid me the other day, & must sollicit the paiment of the balance of rent due since the 1 st day of December last . this I trust the sale of your crop of wheat will have enabled you to do, and that the request will be deemed...
60Enclosure: Proposed Agreement between Thomas Jefferson and Eli Alexander, [ca. 20 February 1810] (Jefferson Papers)
Articles of compromise and agreement between Thomas Jefferson of the one part & Eli Alexander on the other, in addition to the original articles of agreement whereby the said Thomas Je leased to the said Eli his farm on the tract of land called Shadwell , and a certain portion of his tract called Lego . It is agreed that the road crossing the Shadwell branch near it’s mouth passing thence...