Napoleon Archer to Thomas Jefferson, 13 October 1821
From Napoleon Archer
October 13th 1821 Mount Pleasant near Petersburg Va
Sir
Excuse the liberty I Take in addressing you respecting Central colleg, of which I wish To become a member immediately if it is in opperation—I have lately left the junior class of Union colleg in Schenectady of which Dr Eliphalit Nott is president, and from whom I can produce a regular and honourable dismission, as well as letters of recommendation from every officer of that litterary institution—If the above mentioned Central college is in opperation, you will please let know immediately—
Napoleon Archer
RC (MHi); between dateline and salutation and repeated at foot of text: “Mr Thomas Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received 23 Oct. 1821 and so recorded in SJL; with Dft of TJ to Archer, 23 Oct. 1821, beneath endorsement.
Napoleon B. Archer (ca. 1802–61) was born in Chesterfield County. He studied at Union College in Schenectady, New York, before attending Hampden-Sydney College for a year beginning in 1821. Archer served as a delegate from Petersburg to a Whig state convention in 1856. Four years later he was still living in Petersburg, had a personal estate valued at $500, and was described in the census as a “gentleman” (John Frederick Dorman, comp., Claiborne of Virginia: Descendants of Colonel William Claiborne, The First Eight Generations [1995], 214; A General Catalogue of the Officers, Graduates and Students of Union College, from 1795 to 1854 [1854], 34; A. J. Morrison, College of Hampden Sidney Dictionary of Biography, 1776–1825 [(1921)], 224; Catalogue of the Members of the Philanthropic Society of Hampden Sydney College, from its foundation to the year 1850 [1850], 7; Richmond Enquirer, 18 July 1856; DNA: RG 29, CS, Petersburg, 1860; Blandford Cemetery, Petersburg, Interment Records [Vi]; Petersburg Hustings Court Will Book, 5:92).
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