To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Smith Barton, 27 May 1802
From Benjamin Smith Barton
Philadelphia, May 27th, 1802.
Dear Sir,
I take the liberty of introducing to your knowledge, the bearer of this, Dr. Edward D. Smith, of Charleston, S. Carolina, who is now on his return to his native place. Dr. Smith is a young man of very uncommon merit, ardently attached to science, and not less so to the interests of republicanism. These circumstances have procured for him many friends in Pennsylvania. I could not deprive myself of the pleasure of making him known to you, in his passage through Washington.—
I am happy, Sir, to inform you, that our Philosophical Society proceed with spirit. Their sixth volume will shortly be committed to the press.
I acknowledge, with many thanks, the receipt of your kind & valuable letters. They will be of most essential use to me in my journey, which I design to set out upon in two or three weeks.
With the greatest respect, I am, Dear Sir, Your very humble Servant, and affectionate friend, &c.
B. S. Barton.
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 1 June and so recorded in SJL.
Edward Darrell SMITH graduated from the College of New Jersey in 1795, then earned his medical degree in Philadelphia in 1800 under the tutelage of Benjamin Rush. Returning to his native Charleston, he practiced medicine and later taught chemistry at South Carolina College in Columbia (Joseph Ioor Waring, A History of Medicine in South Carolina, 1670–1825 [Charleston, 1964], 315–16; J. Jefferson Looney and Ruth L. Woodward, Princetonians, 1791–1794: A Biographical Dictionary [Princeton, 1991], 311).
YOUR KIND & VALUABLE LETTERS: see TJ to Barton, 29 Mch. 1802.