Thomas Jefferson Papers
Documents filtered by: Author="Abernethie, John"
sorted by: date (ascending)
Permanent link for this document:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-45-02-0111

To Thomas Jefferson from John Abernethie, 1 December 1804

From John Abernethie

District of Louisiana, Cape Geredeau, Decr. 1st. 1804

Sir.

The inclosed Certificate I venture to send to you, humbly requesting of your Exclly. to have the same laid before Congress (at this Session if your Exclly pleases.) if it’s good I wish very much to have the value of it, if it’s not good, your Exclly. & Congress may do what you please with it.

The Cer. has belonged to me for about twenty years past—I have sent it once or twice to Congress at Philadelphia within these eight years past, but was told, that altho. the Cer. is good, yet I was too late in sending it forward—I have been told by numbers of persons who calls themselves judges of such claims, that this one of mine is good (for my part I do not know whether it’s good or bad) & for me not to neglect sending it forward, that after a while Congress would take the matter under consideration & order me payment—A german gentleman, an old Pensylvania mem. of Assembly, told me once, that Congress was as much bound to pay my Cer. and every other good Claim agst. the U. States, as he was bound to pay any just debt or debts that he was or might be owing to an individual or individuals, and for me to be sure & not neglect sending forwd. my Claim, that after a while Congress would order me payment—I therefore submit the business to your Excelly. & Congress to do whatever is right in the business—If I get paid, I can venture to assure your Excelly. that it will be a matter of as much consequence to me, as the accession of the two Florida’s will be to the U. States—   If your Exclly. & Congress is pleased to order me payment, please Sir, order the money to be in Bank bills of the U. States, & to be inclosed in a letter directed to me in Cape Geredeau (The place where my self, my wife & our nine children resides) in the district of Louisiana above said.

This step that I have taken of pestering the President of the U. States of America, with such a mote of a matter as mine will appear to be, I suppose is Unprecedented, but Sir, it’s said, that “necessity has no Law, absolute necessity drives me to it—

Your Excelly. will singularly oblige me if you will be pleased to spare one moments attention from the great affairs of the nation on my small matter—

I am Sir Your Excelly.’s most Obdt humble Servt.

Jno. Abernethie

RC (DLC); addressed: “To his Excelly. Thomas Jefferson President of the United States of America, at the City of Washington”; endorsed by TJ as received 16 Feb. 1805 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: loan office certificate, not found; see TJ to Abernethie, 12 Mch. 1805.

In 1772, John Abernethie (1754-ca. 1835) emigrated from northern England to Wake County, North Carolina, where he fulfilled an indenture as “an apprentice to the merchant business.” According to his 1832 pension claim, he both hired a substitute to satisfy his enlistment in the American Revolution and also served for 10 months as a deputy commissary. In 1788, he moved to Georgia, and then in 1800 to Cape Girardeau. In 1813, Abernethie became a township justice for Cape Girardeau County, an office he held until at least 1818. Abernethie died in Union County, Illinois, after relocating there about 1833. In 1852, his pension claim was denied for lack of documentation (DNA: RG 15, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrant Application Files; Terr. Papers description begins Clarence E. Carter and John Porter Bloom, eds., The Territorial Papers of the United States, Washington, D.C., 1934-75, 28 vols. description ends , 14:650, 704, 794; 15:46, 275, 279, 375).

Index Entries