To James Madison from James Barbour, 7 December 1823
From James Barbour
Washington Decr. 7th. 23
Dear Sir
After you left us on Court day, the parties, present, agreed to dissolve our ill fated Copartnery:1 and that each member should make arrangements for his particular Share, of the debt, which stands in the Bank, in the name of James Madison & Co. In passing thro’ Fredericksburg, I obtained the necessary data, by which to ascertain our respective proportions. Since my arrival here I have made the necessary calculations—which are transmitted in the enclosed Statement—By which you will discover that your balance is $1632.25. mine $2414.74. The difference between our balances resulted from an agreement on my part with John Henshaw2 (whose obstinacy threatened to give us some trouble) to take his part of the Subscription—he agreeing to pay me for so doing $450. Our joint note in Bank becomes due on the 30th. of this month at which time our Individual notes must be presented. I have written to all the subscribers requesting them to furnish their notes by that time and I expect it will be done.
It is understood that in point of accommodation the bank is to extend to us individually the same that it was bound to do collectively. I have sent you (for convenience) two notes adapted to our respective cases; to sign the one and endorse the other—before they come round we must make some permanent arrangement to renew them without trouble—which may be safely done by a special agency. When executed Send them if you please to Mr. Allen Fredg.3 I offer you my best wishes
James Barbour
[Enclosure]
A statement showing the amount of the original subscription to the Swift Run Turnpike, of the concern of James Madison and Co.; the amount of discounts paid thereon to the Bank, the loss sustained by the insolvency of three of its members; and also the Sums paid by each, and what is now respectively due.
Our loss will be mitigated by the distribution among the solvent
Subscribers of the sixty insolvent shares in the following proportions.
| Shares | |||
| William Jones | 17 | 1/7 | |
| James Madison | 8. | 4/7 | |
| James Barbour | 8. | 4/7 | |
| Barbour & Henshaw | 8. | 4/7 | |
| Messrs | Taliaferros | 8. | 4/7 |
| ” | Hume & Conway | 8. | 4/7 |
| 60. [sic] |
RC (DLC). Docketed by JM. Enclosure filed in DLC series 1, undated correspondence.
1. The “ill fated Copartnery” was an association formed on 27 Oct. 1817 to “extend the Turnpike road from Fredericksburg to Swift run Gap, from a thorough conviction of its great public utility.” The membership was composed of JM, James Barbour, Catlett Conway, Benjamin Hume, John and Edmund Henshaw, Baldwin and Hay Taliaferro Jr., William Jones, Churchill Jones, Thomas Macon, Robert Mackay, and Thomas Goodwin. The whole amount of the subscriptions was to be 240 shares, to “be made out in the name of all the subscribers entire, and shall be indivisible and unassignable untill the Amount of each mans share shall have been paid.” Application was to be made to a Fredericksburg bank for a loan equal to the subscribed amount, with “the parties pledging themselves individually to pay their respective quotas of Discount as it becomes due and each guaranteing the responsibility of the others.” JM’s original part in this association amounted to twenty shares. By the change in the agreement of this date (see enclosure above), he added eight more. In a report to the Board of Public Works from William Allen, secretary of the turnpike company, 7 Dec. 1829, which included a list of the shareholders, JM was credited with personally holding another thirty shares. JM continued to pay down his portion of the company’s bank debt at the Bank of Virginia at Fredericksburg until at least April 1833 and received dividends from his shares in the Swift Run Gap Turnpike Company until his death (Articles of Agreement, 27 Oct. 1817, and William Allen to James Brown Jr., 7 Dec. 1829, Vi: RG 57, Board of Public Works, entry 404, Swift Run Gap Turnpike; JM to William Allen, 19 May 1829, 21 Jan. 1830, 10 Apr. 1833, 13 Jan. 1835, and 18 Jan. 1836 [DLC], and Allen to JM, 19 Jan. 1831 [PPPrHi]).
2. John Henshaw (d. 1841) farmed at Mt. Henshaw, his plantation to the south of Montpelier. He served as sheriff of Orange County (Miller, Antebellum Orange, 8–9, 58).
3. William Allen (d. 1866) was a Fredericksburg commission merchant and secretary of the Swift Run Gap Turnpike Company. Allen provided JM with merchandise and financial services from 1824 to JM’s death (Carroll H. Quenzel, The History and Background of St. George’s Episcopal Church, Fredericksburg, Virginia [Richmond, 1951], 101; Thomson’s Mercantile and Professional Directory … [Baltimore, 1851], 173; Fourteenth Annual Report of the Board of Public Works to the General Assembly of Virginia [Richmond, 1830], 68).