Thomas Jefferson to Francis Eppes, 21 September 1820
To Francis Eppes
Poplar Forest Sep. 21. 20
Dear Francis
I leave at Flood’s with this letter a packet containing 3. small volumes of my petit format library containing several tragedies of Euripides, some of Sophocles and one1 of Aeschylus. the 1st you will find easy, the 2d tolerably so; the last incomprehensible in his flights among the clouds. his text has come to us so mutilated & defective and has been so much plaistered with amendments by his commentators that it can scarcely be called his.
I inclose you our measured distances expressed in miles and cents. we leave this tomorrow morning and shall be at Monticello the next night. from thence you shall hear from me about the end of the 1st week of October. by that time I shall either see Doctr Cooper, or know that I shall not see him. I was decieved in the weather the day we left Millbrook.2 we past thro’ 2. hours of very heavy rain, and got to Flood’s at 11. aclock where we staid the day. we did not suffer ourselves but the servants got very wet. present our cordial love to the family. ever & affectionately yours
Th: Jefferson
RC (DLC); addressed: “Mr Francis Eppes Mill brook near Raine’s tavern”; franked; postmarked Flood’s, 22 Sept. PoC (MHi); on verso of reused address cover of Thomas Ewell to TJ, 10 Aug. 1819; endorsed by TJ.
This letter and the books for Eppes were probably left at the post office at flood’s in Buckingham County in the care of its postmaster, Thomas H. Flood (, 30). The tragedies came from TJ’s petit-format classical library at Poplar Forest (, 38–9 [no. 647]).
1. Word interlined.
2. Manuscript: “Milbrook.”
Index Entries
- Aeschylus; works of search
- books; classical search
- Buckingham County, Va.; Flood’s Ordinary search
- Cooper, Thomas (1759–1839); proposed visit of search
- Eppes, Francis Wayles (TJ’s grandson); letters to search
- Eppes, Francis Wayles (TJ’s grandson); TJ’s relationship with search
- Euripides; works of search
- Flood, Thomas H. search
- Flood’s Ordinary (Buckingham Co.; proprietor Henry Flood) search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Books & Library; loans books search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Family & Friends; relations with grandchildren search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Opinions on; Aeschylus’s writings search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Writings; Notes on Distances between Monticello and Poplar Forest search
- Mill Brook (J. W. Eppes’s Buckingham Co. estate); TJ visits search
- Monticello (TJ’s Albemarle Co. estate); distance to Poplar Forest search
- plays; TJ sends to F. Eppes search
- Poplar Forest (TJ’s Bedford Co. estate); distance from Monticello search
- Poplar Forest (TJ’s Bedford Co. estate); library at search
- Poplar Forest (TJ’s Bedford Co. estate); TJ returns from search
- Sophocles; works of search
- weather; rain search