Fontaine Maury to Thomas Jefferson, 31 July 1815
From Fontaine Maury
July 31. 1815
Dear Sir
My Nephew James Maury of Liverpool having been charged by his Father to give you a call before his return to England, and he being now about to accompany1 my Sister Matilda to the Springs I avail myself of the opportunity of making them both known to you—with real Esteem I am
Fontaine Maury
RC (MHi); addressed: “Thomas Jefferson Esqr” care of “Master Maury”; endorsed by TJ as received 1 Aug. 1815 and so recorded (adding that it was delivered “by James Maury jr”) in SJL.
James Sifrein Maury (1797–1864) was born in Liverpool, England, the eldest son of James Maury, longtime United States consul there and TJ’s childhood friend. At the time of young Maury’s first visit to Virginia, his father described his poor physical condition, and other family letters confirm that he was frail. He went back to England in about 1819, returned to the United States in 1822, and settled near Fredericksburg. In 1825 Maury purchased Ridgemont, a 164½-acre property in Albemarle County. He sold this farm in 1833 (Anne Fontaine Maury, ed., Intimate Virginiana: A Century of Maury Travels by Land and Sea [1941], 53–70, 319; James Maury to TJ, 9 Sept. 1815, 24 Sept. 1821, 24 June 1822; James S. Maury correspondence, esp. Maury to James Maury, 30 Apr. 1822, and to Ann Maury, 16 Feb. 1828 [ViU: James Maury Papers]; Albemarle Co. Deed Book, 25:80–1, 27:124–5, 31:33; , 269).
The sister was Matilda Hill Maury Eggleston (Maury, Intimate Virginiana, 318).
1. Manuscript: “accopany.”
Index Entries
- Eggleston, Matilda Hill Maury; visits Monticello search
- Maury, Fontaine; introduces M. H. M. Eggleston and J. S. Maury to TJ search
- Maury, Fontaine; letters from search
- Maury, James; family of search
- Maury, James Sifrein; identified search
- Maury, James Sifrein; visits Monticello search
- Monticello (TJ’s estate); Visitors to; Eggleston, Matilda H. M. search
- Monticello (TJ’s estate); Visitors to; Maury, James S. search
- springs; therapeutic search