1From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 2 December 1792 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his compliments to Dr. Barton and has the pleasure to inform him that the Indian is now in Philadelphia to whom he had formerly proposed to address our South-sea adventurer. He is now under inoculation; but whenever well enough he will ask the favor of Dr. Barton and Mr. Michaux to meet him here and have a conference on the expedition . He thinks the return of these...
2From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin S. Barton and Others, 12 May 1791 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his respects to the gentlemen of the committee on the Hessian fly, and prays their attendance at the Hall of the Philosophical society tomorrow (Friday) at half after seven P.M. He has conjectured that that hour will be most convenient to them, and that not a moment of their time may be lost unnecessarily, he will attend himself at the very moment precisely, and for...
3From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 11 January 1806 (Jefferson Papers)
In answer to your letter of Dec. 27. I snatch a moment from incessant business & interruption to inform you that the Missouri & Missisipi chiefs will set out in a few days to go as far as New York & perhaps Boston, and consequently will give you an opportunity at Philadelphia of making all the enquiries you desire, & more satisfactorily by yourself than by another. There are 4. Little Osages,...
4From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 2 May 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Mr. Dunbar, during his excursion up the Washita, the last fall and winter, collected some dried specimens of plants which he has sent me in order to have them ascertained. I know I cannot dispose of them better than by transmitting them to you, with a request of the result of your investigation. he went as far as the hotsprings on that river, 500. miles up it. he found their temperature...
5From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 27 February 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
I inclose you a copy of two discourses sent you by mr La Cepede through the hands of mr Paine, who delivered them with some sent me. what follows in this letter is strictly confidential. you know we have been many years wishing to have the Missouri explored, & whatever river, heading with that, runs into the Western ocean. Congress, in some secret proceedings, have yielded to a proposition I...
6Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 3 April 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
At the request of mr Jason Chamberlayne of Burlington in Vermont , a professor of the college there, I inclose for the American Philosophical society a pamphlet pert presenting a specimen of the language of the Iroquois, among whom he informs me there are many who can read. this however is beginning at the wrong end for the improvement of their faculties and conditions. the care of domestic...
7From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 14 February 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Jan. 18 . is duly recieved. the subject of it did not need apology. on the contrary should I be placed in office, nothing would be more desireable to me than the recommendations of those in whom I have confidence, of persons fit for office. for if the good withold their testimony, we shall be at the mercy of the bad. if the question relative to mr Zantzinger had been merely that...
8From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 22 December 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Under another cover I send you drawings & specimens of the seed, cotton, & leaf of the Cotton tree of the Western country, recieved from Genl. Wilkinson at St. Louis. to these I must add that it appears from the journals of Lewis & Clarke that the boughs of this tree are the sole food of the horses up the Missouri during winter. their horses having on a particular occasion gone through...
9Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 3 April 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
Yours of the 23 d Ult. has been duly recieved, and I shall place the subject of it before the President in a letter I am to write him immediately on another subject. nothing certainly can give me greater pleasure than to be useful to you on this and every other occasion. at the same time I am satisfied no stimulus can be wanting on the mind of the President . nobody better knows your...
10Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 7 March 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter of Feb. 19. was ten days on it’s passage to me, and this followed by an interval of six days between the arrival & departure of our mail, leaves but 6. days for this to reach you within the three weeks limited for your departure. I am sorry to learn that the state of your health is such as to oblige you to seek it’s repair in other countries, and with pleasure furnish you such...
11From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 21 December 1806 (Jefferson Papers)
The period preceding & during the session of Congress is so occupied by an accumulation of business that it has not been in my power to acknolege earlier the reciept of some sheets of your publication on the authenticity of Logan’s speech. I certainly do not know myself that it is authentic; that is, I did not hear Logan deliver it, but I had it from him who recieved it from Logan & translated...
12From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 14 February 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 1st. inst. has been longer unanswered than I could have wished. the correspondence between Dr. Priestly and myself was unfrequent & short. his fear of encroaching on my public duties deprived me of communications from him which would have been always welcome. I have examined all his letters to me since Mar. 1801. (those preceding being at Monticello) & find they do not...
13From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 1 March 1800 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his compliments to Dr. Barton. he is just now beginning to copy the Indian vocabularies lent him by Dr. Barton; but finds it necessary to know previously whether some of them may not already have been entered in the Vocabularies of Th:J. lent to Dr. B. he will therefore thank him for them, & if Dr. B. has not made the uses of them which he wished, they shall be speedily...
14From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 12 October 1808 (Jefferson Papers)
This will be handed you by my grandson Th: Jefferson Randolph who goes on to take the benefit of your lectures in Natural history in the first instance, & of those of Anatomy & Surgery. it is proposed that the two former shall occupy his attention almost exclusively, his attendance on the lectures in Surgery being merely with a view to the situation of the head of a family in the country where...
15From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 13 June 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Having recieved information early last winter of mr Boudinot’s intention to retire from the Direction of the mint, and, as was then supposed, immediately, it became a matter of consideration with the administration who should be appointed to succeed him. it was thought that the duties of that office call for the best Mathematical talents which could be procured, as well on account of...
16Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 21 September 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night your favor of the 14 th and would with all possible pleasure have communicated to you any part or the whole of the Indian vocabularies which I had collected, but an irreparable misfortune has deprived me of them. I have now been thirty years availing myself of every possible opportunity of procuring Indian vocabularies to the same set of words: my opportunities were...
17From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 23 August 1793 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his friendly compliments to Dr. Barton, and being now in the act of sending off his books to Virginia, takes the liberty of asking from Dr. Barton the volumes lent him.—Th:J. has been for some time settled on the banks of the Schuylkill near Gray’s ferry, where he would always be very happy to see Dr. Barton, should his rides or walks lead him that way. His absence from...
18Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 26 February 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Congress having concluded to replace by my library the one which they lost by British Vandalism, it is now become their property and of course my duty to collect and put in place whatever stood in the Catalogue by which they purchased. this renders it necessary for me to request the return of Persoon ’s Botanical work of which you asked the use some time ago. I am in hopes you will have been...
19From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 22 June 1807 (Jefferson Papers)
I have a grandson, the son of your old acquaintance mr Randolph, now about 15. years of age, in whose education I take a lively interest. his time has not hitherto been employed to the best advantage, a frequent change of tutors having prevented the steady pursuit of any one plan. whether he possesses that lively imagination, usually called genius, I have not had opportunities of knowing; but...
20From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 2 January 1793 (Jefferson Papers)
[ Ed. Note : This letter, printed in Vol. 24: 687–8 under its inscribed date of 2 Dec. 1792, was almost certainly written on 2 Jan. 1793. See note to Barton to TJ, 4 Jan. 1793 .]
21From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 20 June 1804 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his friendly salutations to Dr. Barton & has this day put on board Capt Ellwood’s schooner bound for Philadelphia a small paper packet addressed to him, containing a copy of mr Volney’s Tableau des E.U. for Dr. Barton, & 2. others for Mr. John Mifflin and the late mr Bordley . Th:J. asks the favor of Dr. Barton to have these last delivered. they were recieved, with many...
22Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 22 October 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night yours of the 16 th . Persoon , being over at mr Randolph’s farm he will return it to me this evening: if not in time to go by this post, the 1 st vol. shall go by the next, & the 2 d by the one after, not to embarras too much a single mail. I would wish you not to consider yourself bound to return it at any particular period of time, and not prematurely for the...
23From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 29 March 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 13th. came to hand on the 20th. instant only. I now inclose you, from the Secretary at war, a letter to Colo. Meigs our agent with the Cherokees, and one to yourself which may answer with those of any other nation you may chuse to visit. should you visit the Creeks, you will find them assembled in May and June and with them General Wilkinson, General Pickens and mr Hawkins...
24From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 21 May 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his friendly salutations to Doctr. Barton: when sending him the dried specimens of plants from mr Dunbar he omitted to send some moss which he had taken out of the hotsprings of the Washeta, in a temperature of 150.° in which he says are some of the animalculae, inhabitants of the moss. Th: J. having no microscope here has been unable to see them: but he commits them now...
25Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 6 October 1810 (Jefferson Papers)
I lately recieved a letter from Professor Vater of Konigsberg inclosing the packet now forwarded to you, with a similar one for myself. they came thro’ the channel of Professor Adelung & mr Harris our Consul at S t Petersburg . not understanding a word of English German the book
26From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 21 November 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved from you a letter dated June 12. in which you were so kind as to give me the information I had asked respecting mr Dunbar’s specimens of plants, & you mentioned your preparing your Indian geography for the press, but there is no mention in that or any other letter recieved from you of any paper on the subject of manure, nor have I the slightest recollection of such an one. I have...
27From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 24 September 1807 (Jefferson Papers)
I am much indebted to you for your kind favor of April 24. and have delayed acknoleging it until I could communicate it to mr Randolph & decide on the disposal of his son. it was much the wish of us both that he should have gone this autumn to Philadelphia, and it had been decided on. but mr Ogilvie his present tutor has been so earnest in his desires to keep him another year, that it has been...
28From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 27 August 1793 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson begs the favor of Dr. Barton’s company to dinner with a small party of friends on Friday the 30th. at 3. aclock. RC ( PHi : Barton Correspondence); addressed: “Dr. Barton.” Not recorded in SJL .
29From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 27 December 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
Some propositions having been made to the public on the subject of a natural bed of Sulphur in Genesee, we wished to obtain information respecting it. Capt Williamson tells me you passed some time in examining it, and I am sure therefore you can give me better information respecting it than any other person, & on which I shall more rely. I pray you therefore to do it without delay, as we are...
30From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 17 May 1797 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson presents his friendly compliments to Dr. Barton and his thanks for his note of yesterday . He sets too high value on his esteem not to recieve every mark of it with sensibility. The subject of his piece is worthy of it’s author and he is satisfied the execution also will do justice to the subject. RC ( PHi ); addressed: “Doctr. Barton 86. North 5th. street.” Not recorded in SJL ....
31Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 11 September 1811 (Jefferson Papers)
M r Oemler , not having found me here, delivered me your letter of May 1. on the 19 th Ult. at a place 90. miles Southwestwardly near the New London of this state, which I visit frequently, & with considerable stay. this absence & the date of delivery will account for this late answer. We are in no hurry for Persoone , and I am happy in it’s emploiment to a good purpose. for altho’ I do not...
32From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 18 October 1807 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night a Diploma from the Linnaean society of Philadelphia, doing me the honor of associating me to their body. I pray you to do me the favor of assuring the society of my sensibility for this mark of their notice and of my thanks. sincerely associated with the friends of science in spirit and inclination, I regret the constant occupations of a different kind which put out of my...
33From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Smith Barton, 10 October 1796 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favors should have been sooner acknoleged but that I have been in daily expectation of recieving some other bones of the newly discovered animal which would have enabled me to write to you more satisfactorily. There does exist somewhere a thigh-bone which has been seen by many and is believed to be still in the neighborhood where found. This with the bones I have would enable me to give...