From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Carstairs, 9 April 1798
To Thomas Carstairs
Apr. 9. 98.
Sir
The bearer hereof, Richard Richardson, is a bricklayer who has worked a great deal for me in Virginia. being industrious & desirous of improving in his art, he is come here by my advice to learn what is to be learnt here. he wishes now to work a while with a plaisterer, and understands that a mr Johnston of your acquaintance is engaged in that line of business: I take the liberty therefore of asking your interest with mr Johnston to recieve him, and so employ him as that he may gain insight into the plaistering business, which will oblige Sir
Your most obedt. servt
Th: Jefferson
RC (PWacD: Feinstone Collection, on deposit PPAmP); recipient not identified by TJ, but this and other correspondence between TJ and Carstairs were previously in the possession of Mrs. L. Carstairs Pierce, Wayne, Pennsylvania (see also note below). Not recorded in SJL.
In 1793 TJ had called upon Carstairs, a carpenter and architect, to develop estimates for the construction of the United States Capitol (TJ to Carstairs, 14 July 1793). John Johnston, stucco plasterer, was located at 39 Filbert Street (Cornelius William Stafford, The Philadelphia Directory for 1798 [Philadelphia, 1798], 79).