1Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 15 March 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favors of Feb. 15. 18. and 24. have all been recieved, and you could not even at the date of the last have recieved mine of Feb. 21. on the subject of your improvement in wheel carriages. I have now to thank you for the certificate of a right to use employ it in a carriage. it will be some time before I can make use avail myself of it. in travelling myself I have been obliged latterly to...
2Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 26 April 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter of the 7 th inst. is just recieved and finds me within a few days of my departure for a distant possession which I visit 3. or 4. times a year & am absent a month at a time. the suspension of these visits during winter renders indispensable as early a one as practicable in spring, and I expect to be absent all May. I hasten therefore to mention this, lest we should both be...
3Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 28 June 1818 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of May 29. came to hand 2. days ago. age and a stiffening wrist render writing slow and painful, and oblige me to adopt almost a lapidary stile: this is the effect of an antient dislocation of the wrist. I have given up my farms to be managed by my family, and take no concern in them myself. I tried the Ruta baga when first brought from England and found it the best table-turnep I...
4From Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates Spafford, 1 May 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Apr. 8. has been recieved. the gazetteer you are so kind as to propose sending to me may come safely by mail, and I return you, by anticipn, my thanks for this attention. my reading now is for amusement rather than instruction in the wane of body cannot be unattended with that of the mind. extreme debility has obliged me to retire from all other business, and the only serious...
5Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 15 August 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 2 d inst. is duly recieved and I thank you for the mark of attention it expresses in proposing to send me a copy of your new Gazetteer. it will come safely to me under cover by the ordinary mail. but I owe abundant additional thanks for the kind expressions of respect which the letter conveys to me. at the end of a career thro’ a long course of public troubles, if my...
6Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 17 March 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
I am an unpunctual correspondent at best. while my affairs permit me to be within doors, I am too apt to take up a book, and to forget the calls of the writing table. besides this I pass a considerable portion of my time at a possession so distant, and uncertain as to it’s mails that my letters always await my return here. this must apologise for my being so late in acknoleging your two favors...
7Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 11 May 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
The interest on the late derangement of my health which was so kindly expressed by many, could not but be gratifying to me inasmuch as it manifested a sentiment that I had not been merely an useless cypher of society. yet a decline of health, at the age of 76. was naturally to be expected, and is a warning of an event which cannot be distant, and whose approach I contemplate with little...
8Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 22 December 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Of the last 5. months I have past 4 at a possession 90. or 100 miles S.W. from hence. this must apologise for my answering and acting at this late date on your letters of Nov. 18. & 23. I have written by this mail to the President on the subject of your request, altho more as evidence of my wish to be useful to you than with the hope of it’s effect, as the occasion I fear has past away while...
9Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 19 March 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
I duly recieved your favor of Feb. 28 and take a friendly interest in the good and the evil which you, as all our human brethren, have to encounter in the path of life. I hope your literary labors will prove advantageous to yourself and useful to the world. the occupation of the mind is surely that which brings most happiness. but with respect to your Apprentice’s Spelling book, you could not...
10Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 10 January 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
Of the last 5 months, 4 have been passed at my distant possession, to which no letters are carried to me, because the cross post is too circuitous and unsafe to be trusted. on my return I find an immense accumulation of them calling for answers, & among these your favor of the 25 th ult. in this you request me to examine the MS. tract it covered, to suggest amendments or alterations, give my...
11From Thomas Jefferson to Horatio Gates Spafford, 2 July 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
I had recieved the copy of your gazetteer which you were so kind as to send me, and was about returning my thanks when your letter of June 18 came to hand. I have now to add to my own acknolegements those on behalf of the institution to which you wish the volume consigned. it shall accdly have a place in it’s library as soon as we can commence the formation of one. it is the disposition the...
12Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 14 May 1809 (Jefferson Papers)
I have duly recieved your favor of Apr. 3. with the copy of your General Geography, for which I pray you to accept my thanks. my occupations here have not permitted me to read it through, which alone could justify any judgment expressed on the work. indeed as it appears to be an abridgment of several branches of science, the scale of abridgment must enter into that abridgment judgment....
13Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 14 May 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of April 4 . was not recieved till the day before yesterday. I subscribe with pleasure to your American magazine, but hope you will have some agent in our state to recieve the annual subscription, nothing being so difficult as remittances to other states for want of some paper of general circulation. with respect to aiding it with materials for publication, I am become so averse to...
14Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 21 February 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Jan. 28. was three weeks on it’s passage to this place. I thank you for the copies of the pamphlet you have been so good as to send me. I have read it with pleasure and observe the ingenuity of the idea. having however been myself very much of a projector in mechanics, and often disappointed in my theoretical combinations, I have learnt neither to form, nor to trust any opinion...
15Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 20 December 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
On my return from Bedford , after an absence of 7. weeks, I find here your favor of Nov. 23. with your magazine for Dec. 1815. for which be pleased to accept my thanks. you request permission to publish extracts from my letter of Mar. 17. 1814. on the anticivism of our professional crafts. on this subject I must observe that I have not now the buoyant spirits of youth which enabled me formerly...
16Thomas Jefferson to Horatio G. Spafford, 16 December 1814 (Jefferson Papers)
By the condition of the roads and repeated abandonments of the mail by the way your favor of Nov. 25. did not come to hand until it was certain from it’s contents, you had left Washington . I have delayed acknoleging it therefore till you might have reached Albany , and indeed the only object of doing it thus late is to express my regret at not having had the pleasure of recieving you here,...