Thomas Jefferson Papers
Documents filtered by: Period="Madison Presidency"
sorted by: date (ascending)
Permanent link for this document:
https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-01-02-0001

Thomas Jefferson’s Account with Joseph Dougherty, [4–10 March 1809]

Account with Joseph Dougherty

Washington Feb. 17th 1809
[4–10 Mar. 1809]

Thomas Jefferson Esqr

To Jos Dougherty Dr
D –cts
To 30 bushels oats a 40 cts per bushel 12 –00
To a stable broom 00 –14
Mar  1st To paid the stage office for freight of a box containing bust 00 –75
To a roap 00 –20
To 6 trunks a 4 Dollars each 24 –00
To 2 Do for the girls 8 –50
4 To hack hire to a ball 4 –00
To paid the stage1 office, freight of a small box 0 –25
To 2 saddle girths 1 –25
To cash paid Shorter going after horse 2 –18½
To cash paid for hawling packages 3 –62½
To cash paid for a toy 0 –25
To 3 groce screws 2 –70
To the blacksmith for horshoeing & repairs to the waggon 1 –50
61 –35

Washington March 10th 1809

Received payment Jos Dougherty

MS (MHi); in Dougherty’s hand; date revised based on internal evidence discussed below; endorsed by TJ with the notation: “acct pd Mar. 10. 09.”

Joseph Dougherty (ca. 1774–1832) was a native of Londonderry, Ireland, who lived in Washington, D.C., and served as TJ’s coachman there. He corresponded regularly with TJ on the breeding of dogs and merino sheep. A porter and ale bottling business Dougherty started in 1810 failed three years later, when TJ recommended him for a revenue post, and as late as 1823 his wife was requesting financial aid from TJ. In 1830 Margaret Bayard Smith described him as a “favorite and confidential servant of Mr. Jefferson” possessed of “a degree of elevation and refinement of feelings and views, seldom or ever found in his class” (Dougherty to TJ, 6 Dec. 1810, 8 Aug. 1813; TJ to Samuel H. Smith, 15 Aug. 1813; Mary Dougherty to TJ, 25 Oct., 7 Dec. 1823, 27 Jan. 1824; Smith, Forty Years description begins Gaillard Hunt, ed., The First Forty Years of Washington Society, Portrayed by the Family Letters of Mrs. Samuel Harrison Smith [1906] description ends , 313–4; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 25 July 1832).

Despite its inscribed date of 17 Feb. 1809, which presumably applies to the first two entries, Dougherty evidently submitted this account to TJ between 4 Mar. 1809, the date of the last entry, and 10 Mar. 1809, when Dougherty added the receipt for TJ’s payment, also confirmed in MB description begins James A. Bear Jr. and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767–1826, 1997, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1243.

1Manuscript: “sage.”

Index Entries

  • blacksmiths; charges from search
  • brooms; stable search
  • dogs; breeding of search
  • Dougherty, Joseph; account with TJ search
  • Dougherty, Joseph; and merino sheep search
  • Dougherty, Joseph; identified search
  • Dougherty, Mary (Joseph Dougherty’s wife) search
  • food; oats search
  • household articles; brooms search
  • household articles; saddles search
  • Jefferson, Thomas; Business & Financial Affairs; account with J. Dougherty search
  • Monticello (TJ’s estate); freight charges to search
  • oats; purchased by TJ search
  • saddles search
  • Shorter, Jack; as hosteler search
  • Smith, Margaret Bayard (Samuel H. Smith’s wife); on J. Dougherty search
  • stable; brooms search
  • wagons; repair of search