To John Jay from Joel Bordwell, 2 October 1787
From Joel Bordwell
[Kent Octobr. 2d. 1787]
Sr
May it please your Excellency to accept a Line from us as a Token of Respect from me. Methinks your exalted Character will not forbid you to be glad to hear from the poor Clergyman & Family with whom in Times of Tribulation you & your Dr. Lady sojourned for a short Time.1 Our Family are Well—Children in Number eight—The three eldest Women grown—shall Remember your Kindness to us—Sr. we are prone to think that a Gentleman of your Rank would not be so free to converse with a Lower but Sr. I think it not of your Excellency or Lady & Methinks that your generous Kind free Sociabillity while with us has almost tempted me to come to New York that I might have particular Opportunity to hear you talk over your grand European Touer & many other Important affairs—Capt. Pratt brings this Line;
had I known a Little Sooner so that I could have got ready I should have tryd to have been his Company—but perhaps Now I never shall undertake the Journey. Sr. if you would not think it too much be pleasd to give us a Line it would be next to seeing your Faces it would be truly gratifying—it would revive us as when we used to talk over Burgoyns Defeat & other Matters in Favor of America in the other Room
Joel Bordwell
ALS, NNC (EJ: 5506). Endorsed: “… ansd 9 Octr 1787”. For JJ’s reply of 9 Oct., see below.
1. Joel Bordwell (1732–1811) graduated from Yale in 1756, and served as a Congregational minister at Kent, Litchfield County, Connecticut for 53 years. He married Jane Mills (d. 1829). One of their daughters, Sarah Day Bordwell, married a Peter Pratt of Kent, possibly the bearer of this letter. See Franklin B. Dexter, Biographical Sketches of the Graduates of Yale College, (6 vols.; New York, 1895–1912), 2: 404–5; Kent Historical Society, Burial Records of Good Hill Cemetery, Kent, Conn., http://kenthistoricalsociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/goodhill-cemetary.pdf. No other record of the Jays’ stay at their home during the Revolution has been found.