To James Madison from John Tayloe, 4 August 1824
From John Tayloe
Washington August 4th. 1824
My dear Sir,
This will be handed to you by my Son Edward T. Tayloe,1 whom I have pleasure in presenting to you. He is recently from Cambridge College, and is now reading law with Mr Lomax2 of Fredericksburg. As he would wish to form the acquaintance of the most distinguished men of our Country, as well as State, may I ask the favor of you to give him an introductory letter to Mr Jefferson.
Be pleased to accept for Mrs. Madison and yourself Mrs. Tayloe’s and my best regards; nothing could give us greater pleasure than to see you again in Washington. I remain, my dear Sir, With great respect regard Your very obedt: Servt.
John Tayloe
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM.
1. Edward Thornton Tayloe (1803–1876), an 1823 Harvard graduate, served as Joel R. Poinsett’s private secretary in Mexico, 1825–28, and was secretary of legation in Colombia, 1828–29. He afterward lived at his plantation, Powhatan Hill, in King George County, Virginia (C. Harvey Gardiner, ed., Mexico, 1825–1828: The Journal and Correspondence of Edward Thornton Tayloe [Chapel Hill, N.C., 1959], 3, 5, 7, 9, 191–92, 194, 197). Tayloe wrote about his visit southward: “I have been pleased that I have been enabled to visit Montpelier and Monticello while their venerable proprietors lived. From both I received the most flattering attention” (ibid., 8).
2. John Tayloe Lomax (1781–1862), the nephew of John Tayloe of Mount Airy and a graduate of St. John’s College in Annapolis, Maryland, was a Fredericksburg lawyer. He was appointed professor of law at the University of Virginia in 1826, resigning in 1830 to become judge of the Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery for the Fifth Judicial Circuit in Fredericksburg. He held this office until he resigned it in 1857. He was the author of Digest of the Laws Respecting Real Property (1839) and Treatise on the Law of Executors and Administrators (1841) (W. Hamilton Bryson, Legal Education in Virginia, 1779–1979: A Biographical Approach [Charlottesville, Va., 1982], 359–63).