To Thomas Jefferson from James Mease, with Jefferson’s Note, 9 December 1802
From James Mease, with Jefferson’s Note
109 Spruce In Philadelphia [9 Dec. 1802]
with Dr Mease’s respectful Compliments.
[Note by TJ:]
Dec. 24. 1802.—subscribed to the work, to wit Domestic Encyclopedia 5. vols@ 2.50 D pr. volume.
RC (DLC); undated; addressed: “The President of the uStates”; franked; postmarked 9 Dec.; endorsed by TJ. Enclosure not found, but see below.
domestic encyclopedia: James Mease, a newly elected member of the American Philosophical Society, proposed an octavo edition in five volumes of Anthony F. M. Willich’s compendium, Domestic Encyclopædia; or, A Dictionary of Facts, and Useful Knowledge. Mease may have enclosed a proposal for the first volume of his American edition, which was scheduled for publication on 1 Apr. 1802, with additional volumes to appear every three months thereafter. Unlike Willich’s London edition, published in 1802, Mease’s Philadelphia edition was published by William Y. Birch and Abraham Small in 1803–4, “with additions, applicable to the present situation of the United States” such as TJ’s invention of the moldboard plow (Baltimore Republican, 28 July 1802; New York American Citizen, 11 Jan. 1803; Mease, Domestic Encyclopædia, 4:288–92; Mease to TJ, 9 Aug., 5 Dec. 1803, 28 Mch. 1804; Vol. 30:207n).