Thomas Jefferson Papers

Nicholas H. Lewis to Thomas Jefferson, 5 September 1816

From Nicholas H. Lewis

September 5th 1816

Sir

The Rivanna company request that you will meet them at Shadwell Mills next saturday You will be so good as to let me know by boy whether you can attend

I am yours &a

N, H, Lewis

RC (MHi); dateline at foot of text; addressed: “Mr Thos Jefferson ⅌ boy”; endorsed by TJ as received 5 Sept. 1816.

Nicholas Hunter Lewis (1789–1840), farmer, was a nephew by marriage of William D. Meriwether. He served in 1812 on an Albemarle County jury that agreed with TJ that a tract of his land near Milton had been improperly seized. Lewis was an officer of the Rivanna Company into the 1830s. He was a member from 1817 until at least 1828 of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle, which awarded him prizes on several occasions, and in 1818 he subscribed $300 toward the establishment of Central College. Lewis owned fifty-eight slaves in 1820. In 1835 he sold his property in Albemarle County and moved to Missouri, where he died (Sarah Travers Lewis Anderson, Lewises, Meriwethers and their Kin [1938], 73–4; Woods, Albemarle description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. 1991 description ends , 272–3; Jury Findings regarding Land Seized by David Michie, 30 July 1812; True, “Agricultural Society,” description begins Rodney H. True, “Minute Book of the Agricultural Society of Albemarle,” Annual Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1918 (1921), 1:261–349 description ends 271, 313, 315, 344; Master List of Subscribers to Central College, [after 7 May 1817], document 5 in a group of documents on The Founding of the University of Virginia: Central College, 1816–1819, printed at 5 May 1817; TJ to Lewis, 26 June 1819; Richmond Enquirer, 17 Apr. 1832, 26 June 1835; DNA: RG 29, CS, Va., Albemarle Co., 1820, 1830; Mo., Lincoln Co., 1840; Albemarle Co. Will Book, 15:523; gravestone inscription in Elmwood Cemetery, Lincoln Co., Mo.).

Index Entries

  • Lewis, Nicholas Hunter; and Rivanna Company search
  • Lewis, Nicholas Hunter; identified search
  • Lewis, Nicholas Hunter; letters from search
  • Rivanna Company; TJ’s meetings with search
  • Shadwell mills; and Rivanna Company search