John George Baxter (d. 1826), machinist and inventor, emigrated from Dundee, Scotland, to Philadelphia and resided in 1807 in Philadelphia County, where he was working a year later at the Blockley Flax and Hemp Spinning Mill. He had previously been in New York; New London, Connecticut; and Boston. In 1809 Baxter advertised his improved looms and six-spindle machines that spun thread from flax, hemp, cotton, or wool, noting that he had thirty years of background in manufacturing with flax and hemp and considerable experience with cotton. He received a patent in 1811 for a “family cotton spinning machine.” Baxter moved about the same time to Lunenburg County, Virginia. His plan to manufacture his various machines there failed, and by 1813 he was in Philadelphia. Two years later Baxter had relocated to Kentucky, and he settled in Frankfort by 1825 (Josiah Stoddard Johnston, ed., Memorial History of Louisville from its First Settlement to the Year 1896 [1896], 1:623; Baxter to TJ, 1 Apr. 1807 [PHi]; The Process For Rotting Hemp [Philadelphia, 1808; broadside in DLC: TJ Papers; content by Thomas Cooper, with Baxter’s 21 Apr. 1808 covering letter]; Sag Harbor, N.Y., Suffolk Gazette, 8 Apr. 1809; List of Patents description begins A List of Patents granted by the United States from April 10, 1790, to December 31, 1836, 1872 description ends , 99; John S. Ravenscroft to TJ, 21 July 1812; New York Commercial Advertiser, 8 Jan. 1814; John A. Paxton, The Philadelphia Directory and Register, for 1813 [Philadelphia, 1813]; Kite’s Philadelphia Directory for 1814 [Philadelphia, 1814]; Breckinridge to TJ, 20 June 1815; Frankfort Argus of Western America, 2 Mar. 1825; Brent Moore, A Study of the Past, the Present and the Possibilities of the Hemp Industry in Kentucky [1905], 55; Frankfort Commentator, 23 Sept. 1826).

Baxter’s undated letter explaining his improvements to the carding machine, not found, is recorded in SJL as received 5 July 1815 from Lexington, Kentucky. Although TJ expressed interest in acquiring one of Baxter’s carding machines in 1812, he bought a different one instead (TJ to Ravenscroft, 3 July 1812; TJ to Jacob Alrichs, 10 Aug. 1812; MB description begins James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1287).