Founders Online: Memorandum Books, 1767
1. Except as noted, TJ marked out all legal entries in the 1767-1770 memorandum books. The marks are evidently connected with his posting of MB entries into ancillary records such as the Case Book description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Case Book, 1767-1774,” 192 bound quarto leaves containing records of 939 cases. Indexed. CSmH description ends and Fee Book description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Fee Book,” 1767-1774, containing entries pertaining to his law practice. Indexed. Miscellaneous accounts, 1764-1794. 187 bound quarto leaves. CSmH description ends . As both the Case Book and Fee Book were transcribed or compiled from earlier records, it is impossible to date these posting marks or to determine whether the postings were made into the surviving Case and Fee Books or their unlocated predecessors. Until 1 June 1769 TJ used a large X or occasionally a single oblique line to mark out entries posted to either or both of his records. From 1 June 1769 to 1 June 1770 he made an oblique line (\) through entries posted to these records. After 1 June 1770 he used this line only on entries posted to the Case Book, or its predecessor. He made an oblique line (/) through entries posted to the Fee Book. Entries posted to both records, therefore, are marked out with a large X. TJ continued the use of this last method of marking out until 1774, when he ceased practicing law.
Throughout this period TJ rather consistently marked out entries which did not require posting to another record with a single vertical line. Entries marked out with spiral lines or repeated oblique lines have been treated as deletions.
2. Date is from Case Book, No. 36, “Pharr’s case.” description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Case Book, 1767-1774,” 192 bound quarto leaves containing records of 939 cases. Indexed. CSmH description ends TJ received his first case, an action for land, from Gabriel Jones of Augusta County on 12 Feb. 1767. For an excellent examination of TJ’s career as an attorney, see Dewey, Jefferson Lawyer. Dewey proves that TJ practiced only before the General Court, never in the county courts, and he demonstrates that the majority of TJ’s cases concerned the acquisition of title to land. See also Edward Dumbauld, Thomas Jefferson and the Law (Norman, Okla., 1978), which treats TJ’s legal career in chapters four and five.
3. MS torn; two or more lines missing at head of page.
4. MS torn; most of a line missing.
5. MS torn; undetermined number of words missing.
6. MS torn; possibly a line missing.
7. MS torn; two or more lines missing.
8. The plaintiff is identified from Case Book, No. 37 description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Case Book, 1767-1774,” 192 bound quarto leaves containing records of 939 cases. Indexed. CSmH description ends .
9. Edmund Pendleton (1721-1803). It was common in General Court practice for each litigant to employ two attorneys, unless the action was merely routine.
10. MS torn; two or three words missing.
11. The parties in the suit were from Amherst and Augusta counties (Case Book, Nos. 33 and 34 description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Case Book, 1767-1774,” 192 bound quarto leaves containing records of 939 cases. Indexed. CSmH description ends ).
12. The “entry” was one of many steps in the procedure for acquiring and preserving title to land in eighteenth-century Virginia. To acquire a parcel of Crown land over 400 acres, a prospective purchaser began by petitioning the Governor’s Council. He received an order of Council for the land and, for each fifty acres, a certificate called a “right,” which cost five shillings sterling. He then presented the order of Council and rights to the county surveyor, who recorded this “entry” and proceeded to survey the land. Within three months of the survey the purchaser was required to take the plat, the order of Council, and the rights, along with the requisite fees, to the Secretary’s Office; this process was called “returning the works.” He then received a patent. For parcels under 400 acres the order of Council was not necessary and rights were obtained directly from the Receiver General (Reese, Fauquier Papers, iii, 1469-71 description begins The Official Papers of Francis Fauquier, ed. George Reese, Charlottesville, Va., 1980-1983, 3 vols. description ends ; TJ to William Wood, 17 July 1772).
Three years from the date of the patent, land became delinquent if no quitrents had been paid or if the requirements for improving the property had not been met. Since delinquent or “lapsed” land reverted to the Crown, anyone who knew of and wished to acquire such land could enter a “petition” for it before the General Court. If he successfully proved delinquency he received a certificate entitling him to a patent for the land. Petitions for lapsed land were heard on the seventh day of the sessions of the General Court. For the laws in effect at this time regarding such petitions and requirements for seating and planting property bought from the Crown, see Hening, Statutes, vi, 418-21, 424-6 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends .
To avoid patent fees, the payment of quitrents, or the seating and planting requirements, many landholders did not pursue the patenting procedure beyond the survey; in other words, they did not return the works. Since such surveyed but unpatented land was also subject to forfeiture, a claimant could enter a “caveat” before the Governor’s Council. If successful, he received an order of Council for the land. Caveats were heard by the Council in the middle of June.
Most of TJ’s petition and caveat cases were of the adversary type, brought by Augusta County land speculators and others who hoped to acquire land at well below market price by paying only for rights and fees. He also took a number of cases which were so-called “friendly” petitions or caveats. From the time of the entry of a petition or caveat until its success or dismissal, no other such action regarding the land in question could be filed. Landholders, therefore, could have friends enter petitions or caveats to protect their lapsed or surveyed but unpatented lands from other claimants. This was a widespread method of avoiding the payment of quitrents. The friendly petition was also used to perfect title to property, as in Smith v. Patterson (MB 22 Mch. 1770, legal notations; Reese, Fauquier Papers, iii, 1448-51 description begins The Official Papers of Francis Fauquier, ed. George Reese, Charlottesville, Va., 1980-1983, 3 vols. description ends ).
13. The use of ad sectam (ads.) in citing a case indicates that the defendant’s name appears first in the citation.
14. The sheriff collected the public, county, and usually the parish levies; however, as in this case when a sheriff was a defendant, a coroner served the process (Hening, Statutes, vi, 330 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ). Tobacco was the currency in which most dues and levies were paid until the end of the colonial period, when the practice began to disappear.
15. This was a reimbursement for writ fees and other advancements; TJ normally collected his attorney’s fee upon completion of each case. Legal fees for practice before the General Court were fixed by statute at £5 for chancery cases and £2–10 for all other causes (Hening, Statutes, vii, 400 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ; viii, 198, 385-6). In May 1773 TJ and other General Court attorneys publicly announced that they would henceforth ask for half the lawyer’s fee in advance (Papers, i, 98-9 description begins Julian P. Boyd and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton, N.J., 1950- description ends ).
16. A bail piece is a bail bond. In colonial Virginia there were two types of bail. The first was used to secure the defendant’s appearance. The second type, known as “special bail,” was used to secure the defendant’s payment of a judgment if the case was decided against him (St. George Tucker, Blackstone’s Commentaries: with Notes of Reference, to the Constitution and Laws, of the Federal Government of the United States; and of the Commonwealth of Virginia [Philadelphia, 1803], iv, 43, note C, “Arrest and Bail”).
17. TJ’s first cousins George and John Jefferson were sons of his uncle, Field Jefferson (1702-1765).
18. TJ refers here to the judicial function of the Governor’s Council, exercised as the General Court (“G. C.,” “Gen. Ct.”), which acted both as an appellate court and a trial court. The Governor’s Council was composed of the governor and not more than twelve members, named to their posts by the Crown, and possessed executive, legislative, and judicial powers. As the General Court, the Council met in Williamsburg for sessions of twenty-four days, beginning on 10 Apr. and 10 Oct. The first five days were given over to chancery cases and appeals from the inferior courts. The Council also sat as a court of oyer and terminer for one or two days in June and December to hear criminal cases involving individuals other than slaves.
For the operation of the General Court during TJ’s legal career, see Hening, Statutes, vi, 325-50 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ; Mays, Pendleton, i, 235-8 description begins Daniel J. Mays, Edmund Pendleton, 1721-1803, Cambridge, Mass., 1952, 2 vols. description ends ; Alan M. Smith, “Virginia Lawyers, 1680-1776: The Birth of an American Profession,” Ph.D. diss., Johns Hopkins University, 1967; and Hugh F. Rankin, “The General Court of Colonial Virginia: Its Jurisdiction and Personnel,” VMHB, lxx (1962), 142-53.
19. This action on debt was brought by the former governor against Richard Lee (c. 1726-1795) of Westmoreland County. The attorney general was John Randolph (c. 1727-1784). See Case Book, No. 43 description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Case Book, 1767-1774,” 192 bound quarto leaves containing records of 939 cases. Indexed. CSmH description ends .
20. This friendly caveat protected the Bedford County lands inherited from PJ while TJ was completing the process of obtaining patents. On 17 and 20 Sep. 1768 patents were granted for the following tracts (LPB, xxxvii, 443-5 description begins Land Patent Books. Vi description ends ):
a. 298 acres on Tomahawk and Rock Castle creeks in present Campbell County, which TJ sold in 1776 (AlCSurB, I, pt. 1, 177 description begins Albemarle County Surveyor’s Books, Albemarle County Courthouse, Charlottesville, Va. description ends ; MB 29 May 1777).
b. 2,000 acres called “The Rough” on Cheese and Judith’s creeks in Bedford County, sold in 1775 (AlCSurB, i, pt. 1, 181 description begins Albemarle County Surveyor’s Books, Albemarle County Courthouse, Charlottesville, Va. description ends ; MB 3 Apr. 1777).
c. 560 acres on Tuckahoe Creek in Bedford County, sold in 1771 (AlCSurB, i, pt. 1, 231 description begins Albemarle County Surveyor’s Books, Albemarle County Courthouse, Charlottesville, Va. description ends ; MB 17 Sep. 1771, cash accounts).
21. Nathaniel Walthoe (d. 1770) was clerk of the Council from 1743 until his death; he was succeeded by John Blair (1732-1800).
22. TJ’s friend Alexander McCaul was a partner in the Glasgow mercantile firm Kippen & Co., later Henderson, McCaul & Co. In the pre-Revolutionary period it was with this firm that TJ, as PJ before him, transacted the major part of his business. He sold them his tobacco, received cash or goods from their stores, and by the Revolution had accumulated a debt to them of £1,400. Other than the occasional sums received from Kippen & Co. factor Neill Campbell, MB entries shed little light on TJ’s dealings with his chosen British mercantile connection; they were no doubt recorded in now unlocated private accounts kept by that firm (“Notes on the account of R. Harvie & Co. against me,” 22 July 1795, MHi; MB 1 Aug. 1789, 4 Mch. 1790).
23. TJ presumably intended “put his hand on.”
24. TJ evidently intended “she was with child.”
25. In 1767 the quitrent was one shilling sterling per fifty acres, payable yearly to the sheriff for benefit of the Crown. Nonpayment for three years caused property to become “lapsed” and thus unprotected against petitions entered by individuals other than the patentholder. The practice of paying quitrents was abolished in May 1779. See Reese, Fauquier Papers, iii, 1448-51 description begins The Official Papers of Francis Fauquier, ed. George Reese, Charlottesville, Va., 1980-1983, 3 vols. description ends ; and Beverley W. Bond, Jr., The Quit-Rent System in the American Colonies (New Haven, 1919), p. 219-53.
26. A deposition de bene esse is testimony taken if the witness might be unavailable at the time of the trial.
27. John May (1744-1790) worked in the Secretary’s Office and acted as TJ’s “agent” there until 1769, when he was appointed first clerk of Botetourt County. In 1778 he became clerk of the General Court in Williamsburg.
28. The Secretary’s Office, one of the colony’s oldest administrative institutions, was located in the Public Records Office in Williamsburg. The secretary, usually a member of Council, was keeper of the seal of the colony and issued all patents and other papers bearing the governor’s signature. Almost all administrative records of the colony, such as the governor’s proclamations, vital statistics, proceedings of the Admiralty and General Courts, lists of tithables, royal charters, and official correspondence with the home government, were kept in his office.
The office also served as the colony’s land office. All deeds, rolls of escheated lands, papers relating to coroner’s inquests, and certificates of fines certified by the secretary were kept here. Among the writs issued were those from the General Court, those used in selecting members of the House of Burgesses, and those determining land rights. On the functions of the office see P. S. Flippen, The Royal Government in Virginia (New York, 1919), p. 223-39; Reese, Fauquier Papers, iii, 1461-5 description begins The Official Papers of Francis Fauquier, ed. George Reese, Charlottesville, Va., 1980-1983, 3 vols. description ends ; and Junius R. Fishburne, Jr., “The Office of Secretary of State in Colonial Virginia,” Ph.D. diss., Tulane University, 1971.
Thomas Nelson (1716-1782) held the office of secretary from 1743 to 1776.
29. William Allegre was a resident of Albemarle County and later of the Richmond area. He gave Martha Wayles Skelton lessons on the spinet for two years before her marriage to TJ (Fee Book: John Wayles account description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Fee Book,” 1767-1774, containing entries pertaining to his law practice. Indexed. Miscellaneous accounts, 1764-1794. 187 bound quarto leaves. CSmH description ends ).
30. TJ erroneously entered this and the following payment, part of the cash accounts, in the legal notations.
31. Thus in MS.
32. At the end of 1767, when the legal and cash account entries for that year were complete, thirty-three blank pages remained between the two sections of the 1767 notebook. TJ later filled these blank pages with miscellaneous memoranda, beginning with this entry of 14 July 1768 and ending with the entries on the digging of the cellar and dry well in the first months of 1771. In this three-year period TJ called the 1767 volume his “common” memorandum book (see MB 20 Nov. 1768, legal notations). With the exception of architectural and literary memoranda and certain other entries as noted, TJ marked out all the entries in this section, usually with horizontal lines through the entire entry. These and the marginal Xs are probably in some way connected with his accomplishment of the actions prompted by the entries. TJ’s rather random dating has been supplemented where possible by bracketed dates, supplied from internal evidence or other sources as noted.
33. At the invitation of several early-blooming patriots, William Rind came to Williamsburg in 1766 to establish his Virginia Gazette description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends , which would be independent of the governor’s influence. It was for many years the rival of the Virginia Gazette published by John Dixon and Alexander Purdie description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends . TJ assisted Rind by obtaining upcountry subscriptions.
34. The Gentleman’s Magazine, and Historical Chronicle, of which TJ owned volumes for the years 1756, 1767, and 1768, was founded in London in 1731 (Sowerby, No. 4895 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
35. This subscription is possibly for a bridge over the Rivanna River near Charlottesville. Its construction was authorized in 1762, but no bridge was built until the beginning of the next century (Hening, Statutes, vii, 622-3 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ; Woods, Albemarle, p. 72 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ).
36. Anna Scott Jefferson (1755-1828), TJ’s youngest sister and the twin of Randolph, was known in the family as Nancy.
37. Attached. A two-line entry following this is faded and illegible.
38. Peyton Randolph.
39. Carter Henry Harrison (c. 1727-c. 1794) of Clifton in Cumberland County was the son of Benjamin Harrison of Berkeley and brother of Benjamin Harrison, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. He married TJ’s aunt Susannah Randolph. TJ probably saw Harrison on 25 Sep. 1768 on his way to Williamsburg (see MB 25 Sep. 1768, legal notations).
40. Date from 1768 cash accounts. TJ visited Thomas Mann Randolph at Tuckahoe on 26 Sep. and bought the books on 29 Sep. Mary (Polly) Randolph (1762-1828), Randolph’s oldest child, later married David Meade Randolph and wrote a popular cookbook, The Virginia Housewife (Jonathan Daniels, The Randolphs of Virginia [Garden City, N.Y., 1972], p. 196-8, 228, 247-9; Norfleet, Saint-Mémin, p. 202 description begins Fillmore Norfleet, Saint-Mémin in Virginia: Portraits and Biographies, Richmond, Va., 1942 description ends ).
41. The CDs here and the marginal letters below, which were all written in after the original entries, defy certain interpretation. They may signify the status of the cases on the court dockets, although evidence for this explanation is full of inconsistencies. CD may indicate cases ready for trial before the General Court, on the “court docket.” R and RD may indicate those cases not yet ready for trial and subject to the “rules” or on the “rule docket” (for the “rules” setting or postponing the time for the next pleading or procedural move, see Hening, Statutes, vi, 328, 335 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ). The N may indicate a “new cause” not yet on any docket.
42. Phrase not marked out.
43. TJ regularly used the forms of the Latin pronoun Idem when citing cases with the same parties, abbreviating them id. (Idem) and iid. (Idem, eidem) for the same plaintiff or plaintiffs and eund. (eundem) and eosd. (eosdem) for the same defendant or defendants.
44. The Virginia Almanack, and Ladies Diary, 1769 (Williamsburg, Va., 1768).
45. For this date in the Case Book (No. 47) TJ wrote: “Wrote to J. May for Pl. sci. fa.”
46. Mesne assignments intervened between the original land grant and the final vesting of interest.
47. Phrase not marked out.
48. Michael Bowyer was a deputy sheriff of Augusta County (Virginia Gazette [R], 11 May 1769; Waddell, Augusta County, p. 181 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ).
50. John Harvie (1742-1807), a prominent attorney and political figure in Albemarle County, was the son of one of TJ’s guardians, John Harvie (1706-1767). Harvie lived at this time at Belmont, a few miles northeast of Shadwell. After becoming register of the land office in 1780 he removed permanently to Richmond (Woods, Albemarle, p. 224-5 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ).
51. “And get patent” not marked out.
52. This is probably the advertisement which appears over the name of Adam Wallace, who reported a horse “taken up” near Ivy Creek on the Woods’ Gap road (Virginia Gazette [R], 13 Apr. 1769 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ). After taking up and properly reporting and advertising a stray horse, the finder could take possession of the animal after six months, if no owner came forward (Hening, Statutes, vii, 545-8; viii, 354-7 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ).
53. Norborne Berkeley, Baron de Botetourt, was governor of the colony from 1768 to 1770. The petition was possibly that concerning fish traps on the Rivanna River (JHB, 1766-1769, p. 216, 246 description begins Journals of the House of Burgesses of Virginia, 1619-1776, Richmond, 1905-1906, 6 vols. description ends ). The entry is not marked out.
54. Cleveland Coffey advertised a horse “taken up” in Albemarle County (Virginia Gazette [R], 13 Apr. 1769 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ).
55. Oznabrig, or osnaburg, was a coarse brownish linen often used for slave clothing.
57. Dowlas was a coarse linen fabric used for towels and shirts (Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles, p. 198 description begins Isabel B. Wingate, Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles, 6th ed., New York, 1979 description ends ).
58. Jupiter (1743-1800), a slave inherited from PJ, was at this time TJ’s body servant and coachman. In later years he worked as a wagoner and stonecutter. His wife was Suck, a Monticello cook. After his death TJ wrote: “With all his defects, he leaves a void in my domestic arrangements which cannot be filled” (AlCWB, ii, 41 description begins Albemarle County Will Books, Albemarle County Courthouse, Charlottesville, Va. description ends ; TJ to MJE, 12 Feb. 1800).
Except as otherwise noted, all information pertaining to TJ’s slaves is from the Farm Book description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Farm Book,” 1774-1826. Reproduced in facsimile in Betts, Farm Book. MHi description ends or the slave files in the Monticello Archives.
59. This is the first of several instances in the MB where TJ has recorded verse and maxims, some perhaps of his own composition. They were entered at several different times. It would be difficult to determine the sequence with accuracy, but those which appear to have been written down concurrent with the memoranda of this page are the second, the fourth, and possibly the sixth. Only one of these maxims, now illegible, has been lined out. The first maxim, meaning “Moderation in all respects [is] best,” is ascribed, without the phrase “in all respects,” to Cleobulus in Diogenes Laertius, Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers, i, 93 (Sowerby, Nos. 31-33 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
60. No source found.
61. “Bear and forbear” is from Epictetus and appears in Aulus Gellius, Attic Nights, xvii, 19, 6 (Sowerby, No. 4905). See also Arrian’s Discourses of Epictetus, iv, 8, 20.
62. No source for TJ’s maxim exactly as he wrote it has been found; its meaning, however, “It is good because it is honorable,” found frequent expression. See, for instance, Cicero, De Finibus, ii, 12, 38, and De Officiis, iii, 3, 11 (Sowerby, Nos. 1315, 1317 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
63. “Altogether smooth and round in himself” is from the description of the wise man as conceived by the Stoics, in Horace, Sermones, ii, 7, 86.
64. “Be honored for your virtue, well done,” is from Horace, Sermones, i, 2, 31.
65. A source has not been found for this phrase, which means "[One] must bear and hope."
66. “One should not despair at all” is from Horace, Odes, i, 7, 27. The entire quotation is “Nil desperandum Teucro duce et auspice Teucro.”
67. “Each one the architect of his own fortune” is attributed to Appius Claudius Caecus in the work ascribed to Sallust, Ad Caesarem Senem de Re Publica, i, 2 (Sowerby, Nos. 55-58 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ). The complete quotation is: “Sed res docuit id verum esse, quod in carminibus Appius ait, fabrum esse suae quemque fortunae.”
68. No source found.
69. “To say what one thinks” occurs in Horace, Epistles, i, 4, 9 (Sowerby, No. 4478 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
70. Alexander Pope used what he called a Socratic maxim in the last line of Epistle i, Essay on Man: “One truth is clear, whatever is, is right” (Sowerby, No. 1403 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
71. No source for this maxim, whose meaning is roughly “Glory comes from uprightness,” has been identified.
72. A source has not been identified for “No one nowhere.”
73. “Yield not to misfortunes, but move more boldly against them” is from Vergil, Aeneid, vi, 95 (Sowerby, Nos. 4279-80 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
74. Charles Lewis (d. 1779), son of Robert Lewis of Belvoir, advertised a horse “taken up” at his farm in the North Garden area of Albemarle County (Virginia Gazette [R], 13 Apr. 1769 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ). See L & B, xviii, 141 description begins Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert E. Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, “Memorial Edition,” Washington, D.C., 1903-1904, 20 vols. description ends , for TJ’s brief description of Lewis.
75. Robert Carter Nicholas (1728-1780).
76. Tucker Woodson (d. 1779) was deputy clerk of Albemarle County (Woods, Albemarle, p. 356-7 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ).
77. Thomson Mason (1733-1785), younger brother of George Mason of Gunston Hall, also practiced law before the General Court.
78. This large reading desk had a slant top capable of holding large folios; the reader stood to use it. For mention of a similar desk see MB 1772, miscellaneous memoranda; see also undated specifications and drawings in MHi. George Donald was a cabinetmaker in Anthony Hay’s Williamsburg shop; he later moved to Richmond.
79. For the Association see MB 18 May 1769, cash accounts. The list that follows originally contained only: “paint and oil, black cloth, velvet, linen, cambrick, black silk stockings, bottles, hkcheifs., tea, paper, long lawn, scarlet cloth.” TJ added the figures and other items at later dates.
80. Two or three words illegible.
82. This sentence not marked out.
83. Elizabeth Randolph Chiswell (c. 1722-1776) was the widow of Colonel John Chiswell. The entry is not marked out.
84. Entry not marked out.
86. Virginia cloth was a homespun fabric of tow and cotton used mainly for clothing slaves. This and the following nine entries are not marked out.
87. Eighteenth-century dimity was a much stouter fabric than modern dimity and was used mainly for upholstery and hangings.
88. This may be the slave Peter, son of Myrtilla, bequeathed by PJ to RJ.
89. TJ’s friend John Coles ii (1745-1808) lived at Enniscorthy in the Green Mountain area of southern Albemarle County, about sixteen miles southwest of Monticello (Woods, Albemarle, p. 172 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ). For the duties of the overseer, or surveyor, of the roads, see Hening, Statutes, vi, 64-9, vii, 577-80 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends .
90. Entry not marked out.
91. Two John Walkers appear in MB. One was an Orange County attorney (MB 14 Sep. 1769, cash accounts, 15 Sep. 1795; TJ Index, 1767-1770 description begins Thomas Jefferson manuscript indexes for the Memorandum Books, 1767-1826, bound with them, except for 1773 (unlocated), 1776-1778 and 1779-1782 (ViU) description ends ; TJ to Peter Carr, 8 May 1791). Most MB references are to TJ’s close friend and schoolmate John Walker (1744-1809), oldest son of Dr. Thomas Walker. He and his wife, Elizabeth (Betsey) Moore Walker, lived at Belvoir about six miles northeast of Shadwell. The friends soon began to take different political paths and by 1802 their friendship was irrevocably broken by the public scandal arising from TJ’s alleged improper conduct toward Mrs. Walker from 1768 to 1779 (Woods, Albemarle, p. 335-6 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ; Malone, Jefferson, i, 153-4, 447-51 description begins Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, Boston, 1948-1981, 6 vols. description ends ).
92. TJ required attachments as a justice of the peace. He was first appointed a justice of Albemarle County on 6 Nov. 1766 and reappointed in 1768 and 1771. He declined the 1771 reappointment but served again in 1777 (Justices of the Peace of Colonial Virginia, 1757-1775 [Richmond, 1922], p. 68, 89, 106; Malone, Jefferson, i, 130, 287 description begins Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, Boston, 1948-1981, 6 vols. description ends ; on the duties of the office, see George Webb, The Office and Authority of a Justice of Peace [Williamsburg, Va., 1736]). This entry is not marked out.
93. Entry not marked out.
94. “A franklin”: a lightning rod. The entry is not marked out.
95. Dabney Carr (1743-1773), TJ’s very close friend, had married TJ’s sister Martha on 20 July 1765. They lived at Spring Forest in Goochland County, just off TJ’s route from Shadwell to Williamsburg (see TJ MS Map). This entry is not marked out.
96. “Got it” not marked out.
1. Last two phrases not marked out. Shadwell burned on 1 Feb. 1770 (see this date in 1770 MB, legal notations).
2. Entry not marked out.
3. John Ramsay had been minister of St. Anne’s Parish, Albemarle County, since 1751. TJ, who was not elected to the vestry until 1777, may have been the “Gentleman at the Bar” to whom the parish inhabitants applied in 1767 to help rid them of this unsuitable pastor. The charges brought against Ramsay in the General Court in 1768 included neglect of his ministerial duties, excessive drinking, and the attempted seduction of Joanna Plummer Collins. Soon after TJ made this entry Ramsay died, the case was dropped, and Charles Clay succeeded to the ministry of St. Anne’s Parish (Francis Fauquier to Bishop of London, 27 Apr. 1767, Reese, Fauquier Papers, iii, 1441-2 description begins The Official Papers of Francis Fauquier, ed. George Reese, Charlottesville, Va., 1980-1983, 3 vols. description ends ; Meade, Old Churches, ii, 48-50 description begins Bishop Meade, Old Churches, Ministers, and Families of Virginia, Philadelphia, 1857, 2 vols. description ends ; G. MacLaren Brydon, Virginia’s Mother Church [Richmond, 1947], ii, 337-9; St. Anne’s Parish vestry book, 1772-1785, CSmH). Clearmount (later Forge) Church was in southern Albemarle County on the Hardware River about a mile below Carter’s Bridge (Woods, Albemarle, p. 56, 125, 163 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ; Elizabeth C. Langhorne, A History of Christ Church, Glendower [Charlottesville, Va., 1957], p. 33-7).
4. Thomas Carr (1735-1807), half-brother of Dabney Carr, lived several miles north of Charlottesville (Edson I. Carr, The Carr Family Records [Rockton, Ill., 1894], p. 73; Woods, Albemarle, p. 159 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ).
5. Last sentence not marked out.
6. Entry not marked out.
7. Nicholas Lewis (1734-1808), TJ’s close friend and neighbor, lived at The Farm on the eastern edge of Charlottesville. While TJ was in France, Lewis supervised his affairs in Albemarle County (see Lewis’ accounts in Ledger, 1767-1770 description begins Thomas Jefferson’s manuscript ledger, 1767-1770, containing entries for daily expenditures and receipts. Miscellaneous accounts, 1783-1797, including accounts with Nicholas Lewis, 1786-1791, and nailery accounts, 1794-1797. 140 bound quarto leaves. ViU description ends ). Lewis was involved in public affairs and served as surveyor and sheriff of the county. He married Mary Walker, daughter of Dr. Thomas Walker (Woods, Albemarle, p. 252 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ).
8. The architectural section of the 1767 MB, which begins on the verso of the page ending with the preceding entry, contains five pages of memoranda followed by two blank pages. It is difficult to determine exactly when TJ made these memoranda, and the chronology is further complicated by additions and emendations he made over an extended period. The earliest entries must date between 1767, when TJ first began using the 1767 notebook, and 2 Oct. 1769, when the miscellaneous memoranda resume. MB entries for May 1768 indicate that TJ had by then determined to build at Monticello and by Feb. 1769 he had resolved on a plan for a dwelling, although it was evidently smaller than the one to which these notes pertain (MB 7 and 15 May 1768, cash accounts; TJ to Thomas Turpin, 5 Feb. 1769). The dimensions and brick calculations in these memoranda correspond to a plan (Nichols, No. 40) for a house which was to have a two-story central block and flanking wings, each eighteen feet square with an attic above. This preliminary plan was later modified by the addition of octagonal projections to the wings and central block, as in Nichols, No. 49, which, with the elevations in Nichols, Nos. 47 and 48, was the basis for the construction of the first Monticello house, believed to have been begun in 1770.
The architectural memoranda are particularly important not only for the information about the design and construction of the house but also for the insight they provide into TJ’s approach to solving formal architectural problems and his reliance on two important books, James Gibbs, Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture (Sowerby, No. 4184 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ) and the Leoni edition of either 1715 or 1742 of The Architecture of A. Palladio (Sowerby, Nos. 4174, 4175 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ), for the detailing of architectural elements. The Marquis de Chastellux, visiting TJ in 1782, remarked that this early house “resembles none of the others seen in this country” and added that “Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather” (Chastellux, Travels, ii, 391 description begins Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782 by the Marquis de Chastellux, ed. Howard C. Rice, Jr., Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963, 2 vols. description ends ).
9. Wainscot.
10. Both place and stock bricks were made at Monticello. Stock bricks, the finer of the two types, were used for the outside face of walls. The additional rubbing would produce sharper edges and a more uniform appearance. There is no evidence of the use of rubbed brick at Monticello.
11. “Zocco”: socle. TJ’s spelling corresponds to the form used in the Leoni editions of Andrea Palladio’s Four Books of Architecture (Sowerby, Nos. 4174, 4175 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
12. TJ’s original plan was to execute the moldings of the house in stone, and it was probably in the fall of 1769 that he asked James Ogilvie, then sailing for England, to obtain estimates on the cost of stonework from British masons. These estimates (MHi) indicate that TJ considered continuing the moldings of the column capital around the walls of the house. This was contrary to approved classical treatment and was never carried out (Ogilvie to TJ, 26 Apr. 1771).
13. “O.H.”: outhouses. TJ refers to the north and south pavilions, each twenty feet square. They were later incorporated in the two L-shaped office wings attached to the main house (Nichols, No. 34).
14. TJ was citing either the 1715 or 1742 Leoni edition of The Architecture of A. Palladio; in Four Books (Sowerby, Nos. 4174, 4175 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
15. This may be John Saunders, a Williamsburg carpenter. In 1761 he built the stables for the president of the College of William and Mary, and he later was awarded the contract to build the additions to the college based on TJ’s plans. He died in 1792 or 1793 (Marcus Whiffen, The Public Buildings of Williamsburg [Williamsburg, Va., 1958], p. 182, 220).
16. These specifications for the wings of the main house and the pavilions indicate that there were to be three windows with full exterior entablatures for each wing and two windows with simple architrave surrounds for each pavilion.
17. Thus in MS.
18. TJ was attempting to solve the problem of water seeping into the house at the meeting of the upper and lower window sashes. He must have realized that joining the sashes with a rabbet would restrict their movement and on the next line he attempted to solve the problem in another way.
19. Neill Campbell, factor for Kippen & Co., managed their store in Richmond. He had managed their store in southern Albemarle County until the end of 1768 (Virginia Gazette [P & D], 1 Dec. 1768 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ).
20. TJ often visited his friend John Page at Rosewell in Gloucester County. Known for some of the finest brickwork in the colonies, this house burned early in this century and only portions of its walls remain (Waterman, Mansions of Virginia, p. 111-23 description begins Thomas Tileston Waterman, The Mansions of Virginia, 1706-1776, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1946 description ends ).
21. These brick estimates probably antedate the beginning of brick production in July 1769 because they specify a larger brick than any actually used at Monticello (MB 16 July 1769, cash accounts).
22. TJ evidently planned to paint his dining room in distemper, a technique in which the colors are mixed with size and water and applied warm to the walls. The size can be made from boiled leather cuttings.
23. The lead manufactory of Joseph Kidd and Joshua Kendall was at this time in the Bruton Parish Church block in Williamsburg.
25. TJ used the term “Venetian blinds” to refer to louvered blinds, whether mounted like shutters or of the hanging type which could be raised by cords. Here he was probably ordering the latter, as he later mentions pulleys and cords (MB 1767, miscellaneous memoranda, 2 Oct. 1769).
26. Scotch carpet, an ingrain carpet made in both floral and geometric patterns, was first produced in Kidderminster, England, and later in Scotland (Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles, p. 308 description begins Isabel B. Wingate, Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles, 6th ed., New York, 1979 description ends ). TJ commissioned James Ogilvie to purchase him a Scotch carpet in the fall of 1769 (MB 1767, miscellaneous memoranda, 2 Oct. 1769).
27. James Gibbs, Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture (London, 1738; Sowerby, No. 4184 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ). There is no evidence that TJ executed ceiling designs in papier-mâché.
28. The basement of the south pavilion served as the Monticello kitchen until the end of the century. The exact dimensions recorded here indicate that the foundation walls were at least partially constructed at the time of this entry, probably the summer of 1770. Bricks for this building were probably not laid earlier than May 1770, at which time TJ began to quarry and burn lime for mortar, and the structure was completed by Nov. 1770, when TJ moved into it (Misc. Accts.: Will Beck account description begins Thomas Jefferson manuscript miscellaneous business and personal accounts, 1764-1779. CSmH description ends ; MB 26 Nov. 1770, cash accounts). The south pavilion was built into the hillside, hence the references to an upper and lower level and an upper fall. The page containing this single entry is followed by two blank pages.
29. The letters refer to Lisbon wine, Madeira, rum, and cider. If TJ kept a cellar book, it is not known to have survived.
30. James Ogilvie, a native of Scotland, was about to leave for England to seek ordination as an Episcopal clergyman. He returned to Virginia after his ordination in 1771 and in 1776 was serving as rector of Westover Parish, Charles City County (Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church, i [1932], 32-6). On 28 Mch. 1770 Ogilvie wrote TJ: “I have purchased a few of your Commissions, the others I delayed till the measures of Parliament were known” (see also MB 22 Oct. 1769, cash accounts; TJ to Ogilvie, 20 Feb. 1771; and Ogilvie to TJ, 26 Apr. 1771, at which time Ogilvie had not yet sent any of the articles).
TJ marked out only two entries in this list–the pulleys and the canvas. The hinges, pulleys, and mortise locks were procured from Secretary Thomas Nelson (MB 5 Nov. 1770, cash accounts; Nelson to TJ, 6 Mch. 1770).
31. Except for the duty on tea, the Townshend Acts were repealed on 12 Apr. 1770.
32. A calender is a machine in which cloth or paper is pressed under rollers to smooth or glaze the surface.
33. The date is from cash accounts, which indicate several visits to Rosewell or its vicinity in this month. Frances Burwell, daughter of Robert Carter Burwell of Isle of Wight County, married John Page about 1765. This entry is not marked out.
34. “Skyow”: scow? The entry is not marked out.
35. See Malone, Jefferson, i, 115-16 description begins Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, Boston, 1948-1981, 6 vols. description ends , and Papers, i, 87-8 description begins Julian P. Boyd and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton, N.J., 1950- description ends , for TJ’s first involvement in public service. As early as 1763 TJ had become interested in the possibility of making the Rivanna River navigable. He initiated and led the effort to clear the river, which was opened to boat traffic from its mouth to the falls at Milton in the 1770s.
36. Thomas Mann Randolph (1741-1793) of Tuckahoe in Goochland County was TJ’s friend from childhood and the father of Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. (1768-1828), TJ’s future son-in-law.
37. The governor received £1–1–6, Virginia currency, for every patent he signed (see Reese, Fauquier Papers, iii, 1460-1 description begins The Official Papers of Francis Fauquier, ed. George Reese, Charlottesville, Va., 1980-1983, 3 vols. description ends ).
38. James Steptoe (1750-1826) succeeded John May as TJ’s “agent” at the Secretary’s Office, where he worked until he was appointed clerk of Bedford County in 1772 (MB 10 May 1771, cash accounts; TJ to ——, 30 June 1771).
39. This entry was probably made not long before 6 Mch. 1770, the date Beck was ready to return from Williamsburg and Yorktown with nectarine grafts from George Wythe and mortise locks from Secretary Thomas Nelson, among other things (see Wythe to TJ, 9 Mch. 1770; and Nelson to TJ, 6 Mch. 1770).
40. William Beck worked for TJ as a limeburner, well-digger, and messenger from 1768 until the early 1800s (see his accounts with TJ in the Misc. Accts. description begins Thomas Jefferson manuscript miscellaneous business and personal accounts, 1764-1779. CSmH description ends and Fee Book description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Fee Book,” 1767-1774, containing entries pertaining to his law practice. Indexed. Miscellaneous accounts, 1764-1794. 187 bound quarto leaves. CSmH description ends ).
41. “Pomegranate” through “artichokes” not marked out.
42. This phrase not marked out.
43. Alexander Purdie was printer and coeditor with John Dixon of the Virginia Gazette description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends , rival of William Rind’s Virginia Gazette description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends . Their printing office, which included a bookshop and bookbindery, was on Duke of Gloucester Street in Williamsburg on the site of the present Printing Office.
44. “What . . . cost” not marked out.
45. The Acts of Assembly, Now in Force, in the Colony of Virginia (Williamsburg, Va., 1769; Sowerby, No. 1840 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
46. “Electrical points”: probably points for lightning rods.
47. Gum mastic, a resin from the mastic tree, Pistacia lentiscus, is used as an astringent, aromatic, and varnish ingredient.
48. At MB 31 July 1769, cash accounts, TJ called his mountaintop estate “Moncello.” When he called it Hermitage in the present entry, he may have been influenced by his reading of the English poets of landscape, particularly William Shenstone, whose works he had acquired in 1765 (see Marie Kimball, Jefferson: The Road to Glory [New York, 1943], p. 148-9, 321). It is not known when TJ crossed out “Hermitage” and substituted “Monticello,” adding “lop cherry trees” at the same time, but he seems thereafter to have been consistent in calling his property Monticello, an Italian word for Little, Low, or Small Mountain. He used the Italian form of pronunciation: Montichel’lo (see Papers, v, 431-2 description begins Julian P. Boyd and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Princeton, N.J., 1950- description ends ; see Douglas L. Wilson, “Thomas Jefferson’s Early Notebooks,” WMQ, 3d ser., xlii [Oct. 1985], 436-8, for a persuasive argument that TJ’s references to “Monticello” in the Garden Book for 1767 and 1769 were made retroactively).
TJ had inherited the 1,000 acres which became Monticello from his father, who had patented the land in 1735 (LPB, xvi, 60-2).
49. There are no entries in the Garden Book for 1770, and this is the only entry relating to gardening at Monticello for that year. The entry is not marked out.
50. About 1757 PJ had built a toll mill on the north bank of the Rivanna River at Shadwell, four miles below Charlottesville. The flood of 1771 destroyed the mill and dam (MB 27 May 1771, cash accounts). In 1777 TJ began extending the canal as contemplated in this entry, moving the intake upriver to a ledge of rocks just below the mouth of Shadwell Branch. Contrary to his expectations, this ledge did not render a dam unnecessary. A new dam and canal, which was over 1,200 yards long, were not completed until 1806 (see Betts, Farm Book, p. 341-4, 363-5 description begins Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, ed. Edwin M. Betts, Princeton, N.J., 1953 description ends ). The entry is not marked out.
51. Entry not marked out.
52. John Bolling (1737-1800) had married TJ’s sister Mary in 1760. They lived in Goochland County at Fairfields, which was on the James River and Lickinghole Creek about three miles west of Goochland Courthouse (TJ MS Map). In 1785 the Bollings moved to Chestnut Grove in Chesterfield County.
53. This is the date Rachael Morrison gave TJ a new case and a first payment (see Case Book, No. 394 description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Case Book, 1767-1774,” 192 bound quarto leaves containing records of 939 cases. Indexed. CSmH description ends ). The entries between this and the next dated one (28 July) appear to have been made both before and during TJ’s trips to Williamsburg of 4 Apr. to 8 May and 5 to 30 June 1770.
54. John Blair (1687-1771), Auditor of the colony from 1732 until his death.
55. This action was probably part of the controversy over proposed alternatives for a road from Charlottesville to the east (see MB 1772, miscellaneous memoranda, note 44). John Moore’s ford, located just east of Charlottesville near where present State Route 250 crosses the Rivanna River, was soon cleared despite the opposition (Woods, Albemarle, p. 20 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ; MB 30 Sep. 1771, cash accounts).
56. John Blair (1732-1800), the jurist, was burgess for the College of William and Mary and in the fall of 1770 became clerk of the Council.
57. Entry not marked out.
58. Thomas Everard was clerk of the committee of the courts of justice and a permanent assistant clerk in the Secretary’s Office. He was clerk of York County from 1745 to 1784 and mayor of Williamsburg in 1766 and 1771.
59. John Bolling?
60. Entry not marked out.
61. Transfer tobacco was delivered at the warehouse not in casks. Tobacco delivered in properly sealed hogsheads was called crop tobacco.
62. TJ is probably referring to tobacco revenues collected by the county. The books were no doubt for the Albemarle County Court, which had been moved from Scottsville to Charlottesville in 1762. Unfortunately there is no evidence of these purchases in the county records.
63. This entry concerns the 200,000 acres of bounty lands in the Ohio Valley granted by Governor Dinwiddie’s Proclamation of 1754 to encourage enlistment. George Washington had run an advertisement asking all soldiers who had entered the Virginia Regiment before the battle of Great Meadows in July 1754 to present their claims to him by 10 Oct. 1770 (Virginia Gazette [R], 21 Dec. 1769 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ). This entry is not marked out.
64. Entry not marked out.
65. Phrase not marked out.
66. Two Lewis Burwells appear in MB. This is probably TJ’s college friend, Lewis Burwell (1747-1779) of Fairfield in Gloucester County. Another Lewis Burwell (1716-1784) lived at Kingsmill in James City County.
67. Peter Pelham (1721-1805) was clerk to Governor Botetourt and committee clerk of the House of Burgesses, as well as the pre-eminent musician in Virginia during this period. Born in London and raised in Boston, Pelham about 1754 had settled in Williamsburg, where he taught and performed music and was organist at Bruton Parish Church. TJ enjoyed Pelham’s playing and heard him frequently (Parke Rouse, Jr., “ ‘The Modern Orpheus,’ Peter Pelham,” Arts in Virginia, xviii, No. 2 [Winter 1978], 21-5).
68. Last half of entry not marked out.
69. TJ wrote to Steptoe concerning these cases on 15 Sep. 1770 (see this date in MB 1770, legal notations).
70. This and next two entries not marked out.
71. This and the next four entries were probably made during TJ’s 21 to 25 Aug. 1770 visit to Staunton (see those dates in MB 1770, legal notations and cash accounts).
72. Benjamin Waller (1716-1786) was a Williamsburg attorney and clerk of the General Court.
73. TJ’s friend Hugh Rose (1743-1795) lived at Geddes in Amherst County.
74. Entry not marked out.
75. Fincastle County, formed in 1772 from part of Botetourt County, ceased to exist in 1776 when it was divided into Montgomery, Kentucky, and Washington counties (Hening, Statutes, viii, 600-1).
76. This sentence and the final phrases of the next three entries are not marked out.
77. Entry not marked out.
78. Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy, the most popular eighteenth-century English cookbook, was first published in London in 1747.
79. “Get” and the last four words of this entry not marked out.
80. Entry not marked out.
81. Phrase not marked out.
82. The cultivation of hemp as a money crop had been officially encouraged in the colony since 1633. The grower in 1770 was entitled to collect from the treasurer a bounty of four shillings for every one hundred pounds of hemp deposited in the public warehouse (Hening, Statutes, viii, 363-4 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ). The entry is not marked out.
83. Robert Carter Nicholas.
84. Sentence not marked out.
85. Entry not marked out.
86. Following the death of Lord Botetourt on 15 Oct. 1770, William Nelson (1711-1772) succeeded John Blair as president of the Council and was acting governor of the colony until the arrival of Lord Dunmore in Sep. 1771.
87. Entry not marked out.
88. This entry was probably made during or shortly after TJ’s December visits at The Forest and certainly before 20 Feb. 1771, by which date he had commissioned the purchase of a German clavichord for Martha Wayles Skelton. In June 1771 he changed his order to a pianoforte, perhaps the one sold to the Baron von Riedesel in 1779 (TJ to Thomas Adams, 20 Feb., 1 June 1771; MB 29 Apr. 1779; Cripe, Jefferson and Music, p. 43, 65-6 description begins Helen C. Cripe, Thomas Jefferson and Music, Charlottesville, Va., 1974 description ends ). The entry is not marked out.
89. This cellar, probably dug in the early months of 1771, could have been for the north wing of the Monticello house.
90. Archaeological excavations in 1981 revealed that this dry well, just below the south pavilion, was nineteen feet deep and was filled in soon after its completion.
91. The next three pages in the original MS are blank.
92. This line and the couplet below are from Alexander Pope’s well-known and often emended poem “To Mrs. M. B. on her Birth-day,” lines 2, 15, and 16. The standard form of this line, which TJ used in his “Thoughts on English Prosody” (L & B, xviii, 417 description begins Andrew A. Lipscomb and Albert E. Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, “Memorial Edition,” Washington, D.C., 1903-1904, 20 vols. description ends ), is: “Long Health, long Youth, long Pleasure, and a Friend.” For TJ’s use of it, in the variant form here, to conclude a letter, see TJ to Henry Dearborn, 17 May 1818. He owned one of William Warburton’s editions of Pope’s works (Sowerby, No. 4503 description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-1959, 6 vols. description ends ).
93. From Pope’s Imitations of Horace, Book ii, Epistle i, line 150. With line 149 it reads: “Lely on animated Canvas stole / The sleepy Eye, that spoke the melting soul.”
94. Non solum nobis is a standard classical phrase. TJ added sed patriae, making the translation: “Not for ourselves only, but for our country.”
95. Fiat justitia, ruat coelum (“Let justice be done, though the sky fall”) was a fairly common nonclassical maxim. TJ’s use of ruet for ruat makes the literal translation: “Let justice be done, the sky will fall.”
1. When passing through what is now Rockbridge County on 23 Aug. 1767, TJ viewed the Natural Bridge, probably for the first time. These notes, which are written on the inside back cover of the 1767 Memorandum Book opposite the first page of cash accounts, were the basis for TJ’s famous description of this “most sublime of Nature’s works” in his Notes on Virginia (p. 24-5) description begins Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, ed. William Peden, Chapel Hill, N.C., 1955 description ends . By 1773 TJ had taken steps to become the owner of the bridge and in 1774 he received a patent for a 157-acre tract which included it (MB 10 June 1773, cash accounts, 15 Sep. 1773, legal notations; LPB, xlii, 657-8). TJ often thought of building there “a little hermitage” where he might spend part of every year (TJ to William Carmichael, 26 Dec. 1786). Although that project was never carried out, he did make at least three more recorded visits to the bridge, in 1815, 1817, and 1821, and possibly while staying at Poplar Forest in 1781. In 1809, a financially disastrous year, TJ tried to sell the tract, and he periodically leased it for saltpeter mining and use as a shot tower. By 1815, however, he had “no idea of selling the land. I view it in some degree as a public trust, and would on no consideration permit the bridge to be injured, defaced or masked from public view” (TJ to William Caruthers, 7 Sep. 1809, 15 Mch. 1815). The Natural Bridge tract was sold in 1833 as part of TJ’s estate.
2. Correctly “to have fallen.”
3. The first entry on the first extant page of 1767 cash accounts was the 19 Aug. payment to John Madison for club; the 18 Aug. entry, like all the legal receipts in this period, was added after completion of the page. It is quite possible that TJ actually began the 1767 cash accounts with this page. The position of the Natural Bridge description on the inside cover opposite the 23 Aug. entry (the date of his visit) supports this hypothesis. Previous pages, if any, were missing at the time TJ drew up the Ledger 1767-1770, which, if it was not contemporaneous with the 1767-70 accounts, was probably drawn up in 1770 after the loss of TJ’s papers in the Shadwell fire. The TJ index for the 1767-70 period also includes nothing previous to these Aug. 1767 entries.
Using a single oblique line (\) TJ marked out all entries dealing with expenses, probably when posting them in the Ledger. Receipts and general entries are not marked out.
4. “Law fund” is the term TJ used in the cash accounts section of the MB to refer to receipts and expenditures connected with his legal practice. All 1767 entries concerning the “law fund” are interlined.
5. John Madison (d. 1783) was the long-time clerk of Augusta County. See Malone, Jefferson, i, 118-19 description begins Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time, Boston, 1948-1981, 6 vols. description ends , for the family story of TJ’s introduction to Staunton under Madison’s wing. He was the father of Bishop James Madison and the John Madison, Jr., who frequently appears in the MB.
6. The club was the share of joint expenses, divided equally (OED).
7. Thomas Bowyer (d. 1785) kept a Staunton ordinary on the courthouse lot. He moved to Botetourt County in 1771.
8. This may be the tavern of either Captain John Paxton (1743-1787) or Captain William Paxton (1733-1795), both of whom lived near present Glasgow in southern Rockbridge County (W. M. Paxton, The Paxtons [Platte City, Mo., 1903], p. 46-7, 248-51; Chastellux, Travels, ii, 404-7 description begins Travels in North America in the Years 1780, 1781, and 1782 by the Marquis de Chastellux, ed. Howard C. Rice, Jr., Chapel Hill, N.C., 1963, 2 vols. description ends ). “Entertainment” is an eighteenth-century British word for services provided by an innkeeper, especially provisions of the table (OED description begins A New English Dictionary on Historical Principles, ed. Sir James Murray and others, Oxford, 1888-1933 description ends ). TJ used it to mean food or lodging or both. The payment to a guide indicates that this was probably the date TJ visited the Natural Bridge.
TJ’s travels in Virginia can be followed in Colles, Roads, Böÿe, Map of Virginia description begins Christopher Colles, A Survey of the Roads of the United States of America, 1789, ed. Walter W. Ristow, Cambridge, Mass., 1961 description ends , and the TJ MS Map.
9. Francis Thorpe kept the Long Ordinary in New London, then the Bedford County seat (Virginia Gazette [R], 14 Apr. 1768 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ). Besides his legal business TJ probably here concerned himself with the Bedford County lands inherited from his father (see MB 20 Oct. 1767, legal notations).
10. Lynch’s ferry, established in 1757, and its tavern, located at the foot of present Ninth Street, Lynchburg, became the focal point for the development of what is now the city of Lynchburg (Chambers, Lynchburg, p. 6-9 description begins S. Allen Chambers, Jr., Lynchburg: An Architectural History, Charlottesville, Va., 1981 description ends ).
11. Gabriel Penn (1741-1798) kept an ordinary in Amherst County.
12. Henry Key’s ordinary was at Findlay’s Gap near the Amherst County courthouse, which was located until 1807 at what is now Colleen in Nelson County (Virginia Gazette [P & D], 17 Oct. 1771 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ).
13. Joseph Berry operated an ordinary and a ferry on the Shenandoah River on the road from Winchester to Ashby’s Gap (“Berry’s Ferry, and Old Roads Leading to That Ferry,” Proceedings of the Clarke County Historical Association, vi [1946], 11-12).
14. Now Warrenton.
15. Nicholas Meriwether (1736-1772) was married to Margaret Douglas, daughter of TJ’s preceptor William Douglas. They lived at Clover Fields, about five miles from Shadwell and just north of present Keswick (Woods, Albemarle, p. 272 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ; Rawlings, Ante-bellum Albemarle, p. 76 description begins Mary Rawlings, Ante-bellum Albemarle: Albemarle County, Virginia, Charlottesville, Va., 1935 description ends ).
16. Carrol was probably clearing this land at Monticello for cultivation.
17. Benjamin Colvard (d. 1786) was a Charlottesville tailor (AlCWB, iii, 11 description begins Albemarle County Will Books, Albemarle County Courthouse, Charlottesville, Va. description ends ).
18. Albemarle County was divided into two parishes, Fredericksville to the north and St. Anne’s to the south, by a line up the Rivanna River to Secretary’s ford at the base of Monticello mountain and thence west along the Three Notched Road to Woods’ (now Jarman’s) Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains (Hening, Statutes, vii, 141-2 description begins William Waller Hening, The Statutes at Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Richmond, 1809-1823, 13 vols. description ends ). Shadwell was in Fredericksville Parish and Monticello was in St. Anne’s. The best account of the Three Notched Road from Richmond via Charlottesville to Augusta County is Nathaniel Mason Pawlett and Howard Newlon, Jr., The Route of the Three Notch’d Road: A Preliminary Report (Charlottesville, Va., 1976), in the Historic Roads of Virginia series published by the Virginia Highway and Transportation Research Council.
19. Squire (1727-1810), a farm laborer at Shadwell, was a former PJ slave leased by TJ from his mother, after whose death he became TJ’s property (Fee Book: Jane Jefferson account description begins Thomas Jefferson’s “Fee Book,” 1767-1774, containing entries pertaining to his law practice. Indexed. Miscellaneous accounts, 1764-1794. 187 bound quarto leaves. CSmH description ends ).
20. A farm laborer inherited from PJ, Quash and his wife Nell lived at Monticello.
21. William Rutherford’s Goochland County ordinary was on the Three Notched Road near present Gum Spring (TJ MS Map; GoCCOB, 1767-1771, p. 132 description begins Goochland County Court Order Books, Goochland County Courthouse, Goochland, Va. description ends ).
22. The Richmond tavern owned by Abraham Cowley and kept at this time by Mary Cowley was located near the courthouse on the southwest corner of present Main and Twenty-Third streets (Virginia Gazette [P & D], 22 Nov. 1770 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ; Ward and Greer, Richmond During Revolution, p. 5, 51 description begins Harry M. Ward and Harold E. Greer, Jr., Richmond during the Revolution, 1775-1783, Charlottesville, Va., 1977 description ends ).
23. James Vaughan kept the Richmond tavern on the northwest corner of present Main and Nineteenth streets. From 1775 it was kept by Gabriel Galt and later called the City Tavern (Ward and Greer, Richmond During Revolution, p. 5, 50 description begins Harry M. Ward and Harold E. Greer, Jr., Richmond during the Revolution, 1775-1783, Charlottesville, Va., 1977 description ends ).
24. William and Mary Davis rented the Chickahominy River ferry and its ordinary on the Charles City County side (Virginia Gazette [P & D], 3 Aug. 1769 and 22 Mch. 1770 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ). This ferry was on the road from Williamsburg to Charles City Courthouse generally followed by present State Route 5. TJ always called this ferry by the name of the current tenant: Davis’ (Davies’) until 1770, Lorton’s (Lawthorn’s, Lawton’s) from 1770 to 1774, Foese’s in 1775, and Bryan’s from 1776.
25. TJ came to Williamsburg for the October General Court. The site of the “coffeehouse” in this period is still a matter of speculation. It was probably at the Capitol end of Duke of Gloucester Street on the site of the reconstructed Burdett’s Ordinary. It was operated briefly by Richard Charlton in 1767 and by Christiana Campbell from 1769 to 1771. For a general discussion of the term “coffeehouse,” see Carson, Virginians at Play, p. 260-70 description begins Jane Carson, Colonial Virginians at Play, Williamsburg, Va., 1965 description ends .
26. Alexander Craig (c. 1717-1776) was a saddle and harness maker at the site of the restored Alexander Craig House on Duke of Gloucester Street. Unless noted otherwise, the source of all biographical information on Williamsburg merchants and residents is the research files at Colonial Williamsburg.
27. William and Mary Smith were launderers and boardinghouse keepers. Most of TJ’s payments to them during this period were probably for washing.
28. James Craig (d. 1794) was a jeweler at the site of the reconstructed Golden Ball on Duke of Gloucester Street.
29. TJ’s parentheses denote transactions that did not enter into his own accounts.
30. Robert Carter (1728-1804) lived until 1772 in the house on Palace Green which bears his name. He then moved to his estate Nomini Hall in Westmoreland County (Louis Morton, Robert Carter of Nomini Hall [Williamsburg, Va., 1941]).
31. The James City County ordinary kept by Thomas Doncastle was located between present Toano and Barhamsville, about fifteen miles from Williamsburg on the road to New Kent Courthouse (Virginia Gazette [P & D], 2 Nov. 1769 description begins Virginia Gazette (Williamsburg, 1751-1780, and Richmond, 1780-1781). Abbreviations for publishers of the several newspapers of this name, frequently published concurrently, include: D & H (Dixon & Hunter), P & D (Purdie & Dixon), R (Rind) description ends ).
32. Claiborne’s ferry was on the Pamunkey River, on the road from New Kent Courthouse to King William Courthouse. This King William County ordinary and ferry was called Ruffin’s after 1768 (Arthur P. Gray, “Washington’s Burgess Route,” VMHB, xlvi [1938], 307-8).
33. Thomas Morgan operated TJ’s Shadwell toll mill until it was destroyed in the flood of 1771. He was paid £8 per year.
34. William Terrell Lewis (d. 1802), son of David Lewis, lived west of Charlottesville in the Ivy Creek area (Woods, Albemarle, p. 255 description begins Edgar Woods, Albemarle County in Virginia, 1901, repr. Bridgewater, Va., n.d. description ends ).
35. Richard Harvie, son of John Harvie of Belmont, managed a store in Charlottesville connected with the Glasgow firm Kippen & Co. (TJ notes on account with R. Harvie & Co., 22 July 1795, MHi; “Articles of Copartnership between Harvie & Compy.,” 2 May 1766, Thomas Walker Papers in William C. Rives Collection, DLC).