Thomas Jefferson Papers
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Enclosure: Certificate of Henry Remsen and David Gelston, 11 January 1812

Enclosure

Certificate of Henry Remsen and David Gelston

We have seen Mr Jefferson’s name to a subscription for publishing a new Encyclopædia or Universal Dictionary of Arts & Sciences by John Low. It is the first on the subscription and we think it genuine. New York January 11th 1812

Henry Remsen
David Gelston

MS (DLC); in Remsen’s hand, signed by Remsen and Gelston.

Henry Remsen (ca. 1763–1843), banker and real-estate investor, was a clerk in the United States Office of Foreign Affairs by 1784 and served as chief clerk in the Department of State during the first part of TJ’s tenure as secretary of state. He left that post in 1792 to become first teller of the New York branch of the Bank of the United States. Remsen became a cashier at the Manhattan Bank about 1801 and served as its president from 1808 until about 1825. They seldom corresponded after TJ’s retirement, but Remsen maintained a friendly relationship with TJ throughout his career (NN: Remsen Papers; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 31 vols. description ends , 12:418, 612, 23:425–6; William Duncan, The New-York Directory, and Register, for the year 1793 [New York, 1793], 125; William Duncan, The New-York Directory, and Register, for the year 1795 [New York, 1795], 176; Longworth’s New York Directory description begins Longworth’s American Almanac, New-York Register, and City Directory. New York, 1796–1842 (title varies; cited by year of publication) description ends [1801], 258; [1825], 355; Waldron Phoenix Belknap Jr., The De Peyster Genealogy [1956], 89, 101; New York American Citizen, 18 Feb. 1808; Nathan Miller, The Enterprise of a Free People: Aspects of Economic Development in New York State during the Canal Period, 1792–1838 [1962], 199, 200, 201; New York Evening Post, 20 Feb. 1843).

Index Entries

  • Gelston, David; verifies TJ’s subscription to work search
  • Jefferson, Thomas; Books & Library; subscriptions search
  • Low, John (ca.1790–1829); TJ subscribes to The New and Complete American Encyclopædia search
  • Remsen, Henry; identified search
  • Remsen, Henry; verifies TJ’s subscription to work search
  • subscriptions, for publications; encyclopedias search
  • The New and Complete American Encyclopædia: or, Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences search