1From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 14 January 1802 (Jefferson Papers)
The inclosed letter was written to you on the day of it’s date. I wrote to Dr. Currie of Richmond on the same day. by mistake I put your letter under his address, and probably I put the one for him under cover to you. he has returned the one addressed to you, which discovers to me my mistake. I forward it now to you for the purpose of rectifying it with you. Accept my respects and best wishes...
2From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 15 October 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
I am much indebted to the rainy morning at Newport for your acceptable letter of Sep. 14. it gives me information of the state of religion in Boston and Cambridge of which I had not a just idea. I could not have concieved that a Congregationalist, after the pollution of his pulpit by the prayers of an Unitarian, would have again officiated in it, without lustrations, purifications & exorcisms...
3From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 December 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I am indebted to you for several favors unacknoleged . I have waited till I could inform you that some variolous after vaccine inoculations had proved that I had preserved the matter of the cow pox in it’s genuine form. Dr. Coxe of Philadelphia has ascertained this, having recieved his vaccine matter from hence. to this is added your information that the matter I sent you produced the genuine...
4From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 21 March 1803 (Jefferson Papers)
Th: Jefferson returns his acknolegements to Doctr. Waterhouse for his letter of the lst. inst. & the book accompanying it, which he recieved & will have the pleasure of perusing here, where he is on a visit of a fortnight, engaged in the rural operations of the season. the small pox having got into a neighborhood about 30. miles from this, he was enabled yesterday, with some vaccine matter he...
5From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 January 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of Dec. 20. is recieved. the Professors of our University, 8. in number, are all engaged. those of antient & Modern languages are already on the spot. three more are hourly expected to arrive, and on their arrival the whole will assemble and enter on their duties. there remains therefore no place in which we can avail ourselves of the services of the rev d mr Bertrum as a teacher. I...
6From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 March 1805 (Jefferson Papers)
Legerat hujus Amor titulum nomenque libelli. Bella mihi, video, bella parantur, ait. So Ovid introduces his book Remediorum amoris, a lecture against tobacco was calculated to excite a similar alarm in a Virginian, & a cultivator of tobacco. however being a friend neither to it’s culture nor consequences, I thank you for the pamphlet, and wish a succesful opposition to this organ of Virginia...
7From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 December 1800 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved last night, and have read with great satisfaction your pamphlet on the subject of the kine-pox, and pray you to accept [my] thanks for the communication of it. I had before attended to your publications on the subject in the newspapers, and took much interest in the result of the experiments you were making. every friend of humanity must look with pleasure on this discovery, by...
8From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 21 August 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I had the pleasure of informing you on the 14th. inst. that I supposed the inoculation of the kine pox to have taken effect in two subjects. these were from the matter you were kind enough to send July 24. that of July 26. succeeded with 2. others. that of Aug. 1. with 4. on the 16th. inst. we inoculated from the 2. first subjects 15. others, 14. of whom very evidently have the infection, so...
9From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 26 June 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 8th. inst. came safely to hand with the several matters accompanying it. as the longer the vaccine matter should be unemployed, I knew the chance of it’s success would be the less, I thought it would be more likely to answer your benevolent views by having it employed here rather than risking it by a further mission to Virginia. I therefore put it immediately into the hands...
10From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 1 December 1808 (Jefferson Papers)
In answer to the enquiries of the benevolent Dr de Carro on the subject of the Upland, or Mountain rice, Oryza Mutica, I will state to you what I know of it. I first became informed of the existence of a rice which would grow in up-lands without any more water than the common rains, by reading a book of Mr. de Poyvre who had been governor of the Isle of France, who mentions it as growing there...
11Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 20 July 1816 (Jefferson Papers)
I thank you, dear Sir, for the new Robinson Crusoe you have been so good as to send me . the name of it’s hero, like that of the old, merits to be known as should that also of the new Defoe . I have read it with avidity, for a more attaching narrative I have not met with; and it may be truly said of the whole edifice, that the bricks and the mortar are worthy of each other, and promise to be a...
12From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 17 September 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I recieved by the last post your favor of Aug. 28. and by the same a letter from Doctr. Gantt informing me that the matter I first sent him from hence had taken in three of the subjects into whom it had been inserted, that from these he had inoculated others, so that they are now in full possession of the disease at Washington. I have also sent matter to Richmond , Petersburg , and several...
13Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 31 January 1819 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 15 th was recieved on the 27 th and I am glad to find the name and character of Samuel Adams coming forward, and in so good hands as I suppose them to be. but I have to regret that I can add no facts to the stores possessed. I was the youngest man but one in the old Congress , and he the oldest but one, as I believe. his only senior, I suppose, was Stephen Hopkins , of and by...
14From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 14 August 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I wrote you on the 8th. inst. that your favors of July 24. & 26. had come to me here. Doctr. Wardlaw on the 7th. inoculated two persons with the matter of the 24th. & 4. with that of the 26th. the latter has no effect, but the two former shew inflammation & matter. one of them complains of pain under the arm pit, & yesterday was a little feverish. the matter is of this size & form. the...
15From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 August 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
I had the pleasure of writing you on the 25th. of July and of acknoleging the receipt of yours of July 17. with the vaccine matter which was immediately delivered to Doctr. Gantt. your favors of the 24th. & 26th. came to me at this place on the 6th. inst. and the matter accompanying them was, by a skilful physician of the neighborhood, Dr. Wardlaw, immediately inserted into six persons of my...
16From Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 25 July 1801 (Jefferson Papers)
Your favor of the 17th. arrived last night, together with the new Vaccine matter which was immediately sent to Doctr. Gantt . the 2d. as well as the 1st. supply of matter had failed. we hope the 3d. will be more succesful. how might it answer to put the matter into a phial of the smallest size, well corked, & immersed in a larger one filled with water & well corked. it would be effectually...
17Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 9 March 1813 (Jefferson Papers)
I thank you for the book you have been so kind as to send me. it puts a dry subject into a pleasant dress; and explaining the principles of vegetation as well as of Botany, it will be a better preparation to a student than the elementary books generally are. that it’s sale should have succeeded only South of Connecticut proves two things; one which I have long observed, that the scale of...
18Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 26 June 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
I have recieved and read with thankfulness & pleasure your denunciation of the abuses of tobacco & wine. yet however sound in it’s principles, I expect it will be but a sermon to the wind. you will find it as difficult to inculcate these sanative precepts on the sensualists of the present day, as to convince an Athanasian that there is but one God. I wish success to both attempts, and am happy...
19Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 3 March 1818 (Jefferson Papers)
I have just recieved your favor of Feb. 20. in which you observe that mr Wirt , in pa. 47. of his Life of Patrick Henry , quotes me as saying that ‘ mr Henry certainly gave the first impulse to the ball of revolution.’ I well recollect to have used some such expression in a letter to him; and am tolerably certain that, our own state being the subject under contemplation, I must have used it...
20Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 13 October 1815 (Jefferson Papers)
I was highly gratified with the receipt of your letter of Sep. 1. by Gen l and mrs Dearborne ; and by the evidence it furnished me of your bearing up with firmness and perseverance against your the persecutions of your enemies, religious, political and professional. these last I suppose have not yet forgiven you the introduction of vaccination, and annihilation of the great variolous field of...
21Thomas Jefferson to Benjamin Waterhouse, 19 July 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
An antiently dislocated, and now stiffening wrist makes writing an operation so slow and painful to me that I should not so soon have troubled you with an acknolegement of your favor of the 8 th but for the request it contained of my consent to the publication of my letter of June 26 . No, my dear Sir, not for the world. into what a nest of hornets would it thrust my head! the genus irritabile...