To Thomas Jefferson from Edward Pole, 20 September 1804
From Edward Pole
Philadelphia September 20. 1804
May it please the President
In the Course of my business as an Auctioneer of Books &ca. I have obtained Fifteen Volumes of the Journals of the British House of Commons, a description of which I have hereunto annexed, I thought it was possible they might be an acquisition to the National Library at the Seat of Government; it may perhaps be a long time before such an Opportunity may offer again, I believe they were originally a part of the Library of the late Celebrated and venerable Doctor Franklin.
The Books are in full Folio about the Size of Chambers’s Dictionary, they are in half binding not Cut, the binding [is] somewhat wore, but in tolerable good order, The Print [. . .]k is in very good preservation, which is executed with the Letter according to the Type Founders term is English and the whole of them may be had for Fifty dollars.
I would not have trouble the President upon this occasion, but I did not Know who was the Librarian or where else to apply
I am with the highest Respect & Esteem The Presidents Sincere Friend and Fellow Citizen
Edward Pole
RC (ViW: Tucker-Coleman Collection); torn; at head of text: “To Thomas Jefferson Esquire President of the United States”; endorsed by TJ as received 1 Oct. and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: description of 15 nonconsecutive volumes of the journals of the House of Commons ranging from 1642 to 1764, with dates of each session and number of pages (MS in same; in Pole’s hand).
Edward Pole (d. 1815) was a prominent Philadelphia auctioneer, notary public, and mercantile broker who conducted business from multiple locations in the city, including Dock Street in 1804. He sold books, horses, carriages, livestock, real estate, dry goods, and groceries as well as his own manufactured fishing tackle and other merchandise (Philadelphia Independent Gazetteer, 6 Feb. 1788, 22 May 1790; Philadelphia Dunlap and Claypoole’s American Daily Advertiser, 9 Dec. 1793; Gazette of the United States, 26 Jan. 1799; Aurora, 17 Sep. 1804; Poulson’s American Daily Advertiser, 9 Oct. 1815; James Robinson, The Philadelphia Directory for 1804 [Philadelphia, 1804], 184).
Nicolas Gouin Dufief, in his letter to TJ of 22 Oct. 1801, indicated that he had acquired the residue of Benjamin Franklin’s library from William Temple Franklin. This included 15 folio volumes of the Journals of the British House of Commons available for purchase for $40. Dufief offered the books for sale to the Library of Congress in 1803, but did not meet with a favorable response (Vol. 35:482-4; Vol. 36:607-8; Vol. 39:419-21).
Chambers’s Dictionary: Ephraim Chambers’s Cyclopædia, or An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, first published in London in 1728 in two folio volumes, went through several editions and was also translated into French ( No. 4892).