To Thomas Jefferson from Isaac Briggs, 30 January 1802
From Isaac Briggs
Sharon, 30th. of the 1st. Month 1802.
Will the President do me the favor to accept the enclosed pamphlet; and the additional one to inform me of the title of Arthur Young’s performance, alluded to in a late conversation, so particularly as to enable me to procure the book?
With deep impressions of esteem and respect, I am thy friend
Isaac Briggs
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 31 Jan. and so recorded in SJL; also endorsed by TJ: “near Montgomy. C.H. Maryld.” Enclosure: see below.
The pamphlet was perhaps Thomas Moore, The Great Error of American Agriculture Exposed: and Hints for Improvement Suggested (Baltimore, 1801; No. 820). Briggs and Moore were brothers-in-law. Both were Quakers who lived near the town of Brookeville in Montgomery County, Maryland, and they shared an interest in the improvement of agriculture (Ella Kent Barnard, “Isaac Briggs, A.M., F.A.P.S.,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 7 [1912], 409–10, 416, 418; T. H. S. Boyd, The History of Montgomery County, Maryland, from its Earliest Settlement in 1650 to 1879 [Clarksburg, Md., 1879; repr. Baltimore, 1968], 90–1, 122; Vol. 32:501–3, 560; Briggs to TJ, 26 Apr. 1802; Moore to TJ, 21 June 1802).
It is not known which of Arthur Young’s works TJ mentioned to Briggs. TJ included Young’s Rural Œconomy in an extensive reading list covering a variety of subjects that he drew up for a young man in 1800 (Vol. 32:178).