To Thomas Jefferson from Edward Thornton, 8 June 1803
From Edward Thornton
Wednesday Noon. [8 June 1803]
Mr Thornton presents his respectful compliments to the President, and proposes to have the honour of waiting on him this evening for the purpose of receiving his orders.—
In the mean time he begs to inform him that Mr Parkyns was some months ago at Halifax in Nova Scotia, where he had resided for a year or two before: but from Mr T.’s having received no answer to several letters addressed to him, he concludes that Mr Parkyns returned to England on the death of his father.
RC (MHi); partially dated; endorsed by TJ as a letter of 8 June 1803.
mr parkyns: probably English landscape artist and designer George Isham Parkyns, with whom TJ corresponded in 1800. TJ admired Parkyns’s work and tried unsuccessfully to secure his advice on landscaping at Monticello. Around 1800, Parkyns created a series of landscape images of Halifax, Nova Scotia, and its environs (Collections of the Nova Scotia Historical Society, 18 [1914], 110; Vol. 31:446–7; TJ to Philippe Reibelt, 24 Dec. 1804, 19 Oct. 1805, 12 Aug. 1807; TJ to William Hamilton, July 1806).