Samuel Harrison Smith to Alexander J. Dallas, 18 November 1815 (Abstract)
Samuel Harrison Smith to Alexander J. Dallas, 18 November 1815 (Abstract)
§ Samuel Harrison Smith to Alexander J. Dallas. 18 November 1815, Treasury Department, Revenue Office. “On the accompanying representation of Giles Holt, Keeper of the Gull Island Light House,1 I have the honor to state, for the information of the President, that he now receives four hundred and thirty three dollars 33/100, which is as large as any allowance made to a Keeper.
“The peculiar circumstances, urged in his behalf, will, in my opinion, however, justify an addition of one hundred dollars to his salary.”
RC (DNA: RG 26, Light House Service Correspondence). 1 p.; in a clerk’s hand, signed by Smith. Cover sheet bears Dallas’s 25 Nov. 1815 note: “Respectfully submitted to the President,” and JM’s undated reply: “The proposed additional allowance, Approved.” Enclosure not found, but see n. 1.
1. Holt’s letter may have had to do in part with the damage to the Little Gull Island lighthouse caused by the “late tremendous gale,” which put the light out of operation (Alexandria Herald, 18 Oct. 1815). The keeper and his family had also been forced to leave the island while the British occupied it during the War of 1812 (New York Commercial Advertiser, 12 Aug. 1814).