Tristram Dalton (1738–1817), merchant and public official, was a native of Newburyport, Massachusetts. After graduating from Harvard College (later University) in 1755, he read law but went into trade. During the Revolutionary War, Dalton used his business skills and connections to sell prizes, outfit warships, acquire supplies for the Continental army, and manage his own privateers. In 1780 he was a founder of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Dalton served in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1776, 1782–84 (with service as Speaker, 1783–84), and 1785–86; the Massachusetts Senate, 1784–85 and 1786–89; the Massachusetts ratification convention of 1788, where he supported the new United States Constitution; and the United States Senate, 1789–91. He was treasurer of the United States Mint, 1792–94, but in the latter year he gave up this post, sold most of his property in New England, invested the proceeds in land in the District of Columbia, and became a partner in the mercantile firm of Tobias Lear & Company. Dalton filed for insolvency in 1799. He was appointed agent of the Washington branch of the Bank of the United States in 1800 and then a director in 1801; sat on the federal commission for the District of Columbia from 1801 until the three-member board was abolished the following year; and became postmaster of Georgetown in 1802. President James Madison named Dalton collector of federal direct taxes and internal duties in 1813 for the Ninth Massachusetts District, stationed in Salem. The next year he became federal surveyor of the port and inspector of the revenue for Boston. Dalton served in that position until his death (Eben F. Stone, “A Sketch of Tristram Dalton,” Essex Institute, Historical Collections 25 [1888]: 1–29; Sibley’s Harvard Graduates description begins John L. Sibley and others, eds., Sibley’s Harvard Graduates, 1873– , 18 vols. description ends , 13:569–78; American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Bulletin 58 [2004]: 115; Merrill Jensen, John P. Kaminski, and others, eds., The Documentary History of the Ratification of the Constitution [1976– ], vols. 4–7; William C. di Giacomantonio, “All the President’s Men: George Washington’s Federal City Commissioners,” Washington History 3 [1991]: 70–5; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States description ends ; Votes and Proceedings of the House of Delegates of the State of Maryland. November Session, 1799 [Annapolis, 1800], 30, 32, 46, 54, 111; James O. Wettereau, “The Branches of the First Bank of the United States,” Journal of Economic History 2 [supplement, Dec. 1942], 79–81; New York Commercial Advertiser, 15 Oct. 1801; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 37 vols. description ends , 36:312–4; Georgetown Washington Federalist, 26 July 1802; Salem Gazette, 25 Nov. 1813, 18 Jan. 1814; The Boston Directory [Boston, 1816], 92, 233; Boston Daily Advertiser, 2 June 1817).

The two pamphlets included the June 1815 issue of the Massachusetts Agricultural Journal, published by the Massachusetts Society for Promoting Agriculture. Aaron dexter, the society’s president, supplied a short introduction to an abridged version of a work on peat by Robert Rennie published as “Essays on the Natural History and Origin of Peat,” Massachusetts Agricultural Journal 3 (June 1815): 281–311.

TJ had owned two English translations of the rural socrates by Hans Kaspar Hirzel. One appeared as an appendix to Arthur Young, Rural Oeconomy (London, 1770; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 1952–59, 5 vols. description ends no. 705), and the other, by Benjamin Vaughan, was The Rural Socrates; or an account of a celebrated Philosophical Farmer, lately living in Switzerland, and known by the name of Kliyogg (Hallowell, Maine, 1800; see PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 37 vols. description ends , 35:605). Because he had borrowed one of TJ’s copies, Dalton decided against reading the extracts that appeared in the Massachusetts Agricultural Journal 3 (June 1815): 354–74.