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Notes on Lease to Richard Gamble, 22 April 1804

Notes on Lease to Richard Gamble

Heads of a lease to Richard Gamble.

5. fields North of the road, of 40 acres each. to wit 4. on the Shadwell tract now leased to J. Perry, and one on the Lego tract, adjoining to the Upper field of Shadwell, including the ground already open there & about Reynolds’s house, & as much more to be opened adjacent as will make up 40. acres.

the lease to commence Oct. 15. 1804. (being John Perry’s yearly day) and to continue 5. years.

each of the said 5. fields to be in Indian corn but once in the 5. years, & to rest from culture & pasture 2. of the 5. years unless it be well in clover; and neither of the years of rest to be next after a year of Indian corn.

the tenant to have free use of the woodlands North of the road for fire, fencing & repairs, and of all the uninclosed Woodlands for the range of stock.

to keep all houses built or to be built in repair, except against the gradual decays of time; and to keep fences & gates in constant repair

the lease not to be assigned to any person to whom the landlord objects.

the rent 200. D. a year, payable at the end of the year to-wit Oct. 15. and if not paid by Christmas the landlord to have a right of reentry in aid of his right of distress.

in clearing the Lego field, the land-lord to cut down the trees, & maul the rails, & the tenant to clean up, grub, and put up the fence; and this clearing to be done the next winter & the winter following.

the names of the fields are the Chapel ridge.

 Mountain field

 Middle field

 Upper field

 Lego field.

the course of their culture, according to these conditions will be as follows1

1805 1806 1807 1808 1809.
Lego field nothing nothing small grain corn small grain
Upper field small grain clover clover small grain corn
Middle field corn small grain clover clover small grain
Mountain field small grain corn small grain clover clover
Chapel ridge nothing small grain corn small grain clover

by reading the column of each year downwards, it will be seen that the tenant has every year 2. fields of small grain, 1. of corn, & 2 of clover, and in which fields they are.

by reading the lines horizontally, it will be seen how each field will be cultivated for 5. years successively, so as that each will rest or be in clover twice, not following corn,

that each will be in small grain twice

and each in corn once.

Th:J.
Apr. 22. 04.

MS (MHi).

Richard Gamble was a Richmond merchant who rented Albemarle County lands from TJ and William Short (Margaret Bayard Smith, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, ed. Gaillard Hunt [New York, 1906], 317; RS description begins J. Jefferson Looney and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series, Princeton, 2004- , 13 vols. description ends , 4:198).

John Perry leased the shadwell tract in 1802-3 (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Princeton, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1023, 1106).

course of their culture: earlier, probably for Craven Peyton, TJ made a crop rotation table for five numbered lots with sequences of corn, wheat, rye, and perhaps clover (designated by an asterisk) from 1800 to 1804 (MS in ViU; undated; at foot of text: “the above proposed by Th:J.”; endorsed by TJ: “Peyton Craven”).

1TJ made a table of crop rotations for the five fields from 1805 to 1809 that, after making multiple emendations, he canceled in its entirety, substituting the version that follows.

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