1TJ & Brockenbrough: Text for handbill on University of Virginia, 8 May 1825, 8 May 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
University of Virginia. This institution was opened on the 7 th day of March 1825. it embraces a school 1. of antient languages. 2. Modern languages. 3. Mathematics. 4. Natural philosophy. 5. Natural history. 6. moral philosophy. 7. Anatomy and medecine. 8. Law and government, with distinct Professors to each. to be recieved into the school of Antient languages the applicant must be qualified...
2From Thomas Jefferson to College of William and Mary, 22 January 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
Know all men by these presents that we Thomas Jefferson Randolph Thomas Jefferson and Samuel Carr—are held & firmly bound unto the President and Masters or Professors of the College of William and Mary in Virginia in the just & full sum of forty nine thousnad, four hundred & ten dollars for the payment whereof well & truly to be made unto them or their successors, we bind ourselves and our...
3From Thomas Jefferson to Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, 9 October 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
I have duly recieved, my dear friend and General, your letter of the 1 st from Philada, giving us the welcome assurance that you will visit the neighborhood which, during the march of our enemy near it, was covered by your shield from his robberies and ravages. in passing the line of your former march you will experience pleasing recollections of the good you have done. my neighbors too of our...
4From Thomas Jefferson to Jacob Engelbrecht, 25 February 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
The kindness of the motive which led to the request of your letter of the 14 th inst. and which would give some value to an article from me, renders compliance a duty of gratitude. knowing nothing more moral, more sublime more worthy of your preservation than David’s description of the good man, in his 15 th psalm, I will here transcribe it, from Brady and Tate’s version. Lord, who’s the happy...
5From Thomas Jefferson to Arthur S. Brockenbrough, 30 April 1826 (Jefferson Papers)
I am very glad you have engaged mr Southall to assist us in the affairs of the Univ y and following his and mr Carr’s counsel implicitly you cannot go wrong. accding to the opn of these gent. the one in writing the other expressed to me verbally I observe that the following proceedings may be instituted against Mosby & Draffen, if they have license 1 . prosecute them for the forfeiture of 30.d...
6Enactments to Be Proposed to UVa. Board of Visitors, 22 Jan. 1824, 22 January 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
Enactments to be proposed to the Visitors of the University of Virginia, for constituting, governing & conducting that institution. 1. In the University of Virginia shall be instituted, for the present 8. professorships, to wit, 1. of Antient languages. 2. Modern languages. 3. Mathematics. 4. Natural Philosophy. 5. Natural history. 6. Anatomy. 7. Moral philosophy. 8. Law. 2. In the school of...
7From Thomas Jefferson to DeWitt Clinton, 30 April 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
I have duly received your favor of the 11 th with the description it covered of the Otsego Basse. born and bred among mountains, I have had less opportunity of becoming acquainted with the fishy tribe, however interesting, than with any other the objects of natural history. I should expect that the great inland seas of our country, insulated as they are, would furnish many examples of...
8From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Lehré, 1 August 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
Age and debility after a recent illness oblige Th: Jefferson to borrow the pen of another to thank Col o Lehré for his kind letter of July 5. to assure him of the gratification it affords him to learn that those who have thought well of him continue their kind dispositions and that those who have thought otherwise begin to change opinions. he never had a wish but for the good of all his...
9From Thomas Jefferson to Antoine Louis Claude Destutt de Tracy, 5 November 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
I cannot but have appeared remiss in my acknolmts of the several lres with which you have favored me, but the obstructions have been insuperable much sickness the accident of a broken arm, weakness of body and octogenary intertitude. no letters are more welcome to me than yours, and none should I answer more cordially were my powers now equal to it. you have labored for us too much and too...
10From Thomas Jefferson to Bernard Peyton, 24 August 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
Aug. 24. 1825. wrote to B. Peyton for the under written articles [the following not in TJ’s hand] : One full sized silver catheter. Two or three full sized elastic gum catheters. MHi .
11From Thomas Jefferson to Catesby Jones, 8 December 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
The impracticability of giving special answers to the numerous enquiries of the charater of your favor of Nov. 27. obliges me to refer them for answers to an advertisement which will be put into the public papers the moment of the arrival of the professors we have engaged from England. one is arrived, and the rest are known to have sailed in a ship the Competitor from London bound to Norfolk...
12From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Sewall, 16 November 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
Th Jefferson returns his thanks to D r Sewall for the information he has been so kind as to furnish him of the institution of a Medical school in the College of Columbia. he sincerely wishes it success and that it may have it’s share in the merit of lessening the afflictions of mankind. he is particularly obliged to him for his interesting account of the medical institutions of our country. we...
13Thomas Jefferson: Resolution on primary schools, ca. 3 Feb. 1825, 3 February 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
Resolved that the Governor be requested to have prepared and laid before the legislature at their next meeting a statement in detail of the sum of education which, under the law establishing primary schools, has been rendered in the schools of each county respectively and for every year from the passage of the law to the present one inclusive: that it be stated in a Tabular form, in the first...
14From Thomas Jefferson to James O. Morse, 30 April 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
I must beg to be excused from answering the question proposed to me in your favor of the 11 th inst. on the subject of the Candidates named for the next Presidency. I lay it down as a law to myself to take no part in that election. advice on such an occasion, were I even qualified to give it, would incur a fearful responsibility. I shall be perfectly contented with any choice my fellow...
15Thomas Jefferson’s Thoughts on Lotteries, ca. 20 Jan. 1826, 20 January 1826 (Jefferson Papers)
Thoughts on Lotteries, and that on particularly which is now asked It is a common idea that games of chance are immoral. but what is Chance? nothing happens in this world without a cause. if we know the cause , we do not call it chance; but if we do not know it we say it was produced by Chance. if we see a lo a ded die turn it’s lightest side up, we know the cause and that it is not an effect...
16From Thomas Jefferson to Justin Pierre Plumard Derieux, 25 September 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 10 th was not recieved till the instant, and I regret that it is not in my power to send you the Egyptian wheat which is the subject of your letter. I recieved it while I lived in Washington, and having no means of taking care of such things there, I generally sent them to some one of my careful neighbors. I do not recollect to whom of them I sent this particular article, but...
17From Thomas Jefferson to Bernard Peyton, 27 March 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
copy of Paragraph from The Presid’s lre of Mar. 22. and extract from my answer of this day. MHi .
18From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Eston Randolph, 26 September 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
Yours of the 24 th was recieved yesterday. the clause of arbitration in the lease was a sufficient provision between Shoemaker and my self because we understood every part of it in the same way. so it was with mr Randolph & M c Kinney. but you and myself differ so materially and in so many points that to enter into a contract with opposite meanings & to propose to go thro’ it by arbitrations...
19From Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Coolidge, 4 June 1826 (Jefferson Papers)
You have heretofore known that the ability of the University to meet the necessary expences of a bell and clock, depended on the remission by Congress, of the duties on marble bases and capitels used in our buildings, a sum of nearly 3000,D. the remission is granted, and I am now authorised to close with mr Willard for the undertaking of the clock, as proposed in your letter of Aug. 25. I must...
20From Thomas Jefferson to John Henri Isaac Browere, 6 June 1826 (Jefferson Papers)
The subject of your letter of May 20. has attracted more notice certainly than it merited. that the opern to which it refers, was painful to a certain degree I admit, but it was shor-tlived, and there would have ended as to myself. my age and the state of my health at that time gave an alarm to my family which I neither felt nor expressed. what may have been said in newspapers I know not,...
21From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Carstairs, 13 January 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
When we began our buildings at our University, we adopted it as a rule that we would be governed in all our prices by those established by long experience & due competn in Phila, and you were so bind as to procure & send me the printed book of Carpenter’s prices, in the other branches of work we have been able in different ways to learn your prices, except those of plaisterer ’s work, of these...
22From Thomas Jefferson to Alexander Garrett, 29 March 1826 (Jefferson Papers)
The most calamitous event which could happen to my family would be my death intestate; and prudence even requires that I should guard against the possibility of accident to my will by fire or otherwise were a single copy to be trusted to any where. I ask therefore the friendly office of you to recieve a duplicate in deposit for safe keeping and assure you of my affectionate friendship and...
23From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Leiper, 27 October 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
Since my solicitation of July 22. at your request the ground on which I stand is entirely changed, and it is become impossible for me to ask any thing further from the govmt. I cannot explain this to you, and even request you not to mention the fact. I should not have sent it to you, but that I cannot offer you false excuses. my frdshp for you is the same , but this method of proving it is no...
24Thomas Jefferson’s Specifications for the Rotunda Planetarium, 1824?, 31 December 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
The concave ceiling of the Rotunda is proposed to be painted sky–blue and spangled with gilt stars in their position and magnitude copied exactly from any selected hemisphere of our latitude. A seat for the Operator movable and fixable at any point in the concave, will be necessary, and means of giving to every star it’s exact position. [GRAPHIC IN MANUSCRIPT] Machinery for moving the Operator....
25From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Eston Randolph, 22 May 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
The distress in which I am to meet debts of the most pressing urgency obliges me to remind you of the arrearages due to me on the mill account. according to the account rendered by yourself to the 1 st of last July there was then a balance acknoleged due of 650.09D my acc t made it more. this difference was left to Jefferson to settle with you, and it was agreed between you to arbitrate it as...
26From Thomas Jefferson to William Barret, 30 October 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
At the date of my letter of the last month I thought I could not be surer of any thing than that I could within a few days remit you 750.D. I had the flour waiting in my mill for a shower only to enable boats to go down. yet so obstinate has been the drought that it was not till the day before yesterday that a fortunate rain enabled me to send off some boat loads, the sale of which will enable...
27From Thomas Jefferson to Robert Mayo, 3 February 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
I did not answer the note in the pamphlet you were so kind as to send me for 2. reasons. 1. because the use of my hand is so much impaired, and I write with so much pain that I am obliged to decline answering any lre which is not of the most indispensible urgency & oblign. 2. because I have never permitted myself to assume the office of recommend g to the public particular books or...
28From Thomas Jefferson to Jonathan Thompson, 30 September 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
You will by this time I hope have recieved from Col o Peyton the sum of the freight duty & charges for the 6. boxes of marble recieved from Mr Appleton on my own private account. this you will observe covers the new as well as the old duties, as to which I make no demurrer in what concerns my six; and I wait only your answer to mine of the 13 th on the suspension of the new duties as to those...
29From Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Parr, 26 April 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
A letter addressed to you from a perfect stranger, undoubtedly requires apology. this I can only find in the character of the subject producing it a subject cherished in every literary breast. the state of Virginia, of which I am a native and resident, is engaged in the establishment of an University on a scale of such extent as may give it eminence on this side of the Atlantic . I am...
30From Thomas Jefferson to Joseph Coolidge, 12 April 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
The arrival of our Professors from abroad has at length enabled us to get our University into operation. their failure to arrive by the day we had announced for it’s commencementt lost us for a while many students, who supposing, with most of us, from the length of time they had been out, that they must have perished, engaged themselves elsewhere. we began on the 7 th of March with between 30....