To James Madison from Frederick Bates, 23 November 1809 (Abstract)
§ From Frederick Bates1
23 November 1809, Secretary’s Office, St. Louis. Encloses an address requesting the appointment of John Coburn as territorial governor.
RC and enclosure (DNA: RG 59, LAR, 1809–17, filed under “Coburn”). RC 1 p. Enclosure (8 pp.) is an address dated 3 Nov. 1810 and signed in three sections. The first section is signed by Clement B. Penrose and thirty-eight others, the second by Macky Wherry and fifteen others, and the third by James Baldridge and thirty-eight others. Printed in Carter, Territorial Papers, Louisiana-Missouri, 14:339–42.
1. Frederick Bates (1777–1825) had been appointed secretary of Louisiana Territory in 1807. He served as acting governor, 1809–10, during the period between Meriwether Lewis’s death and the arrival of his successor, Benjamin Howard (Thomas M. Marshall, The Life and Papers of Frederick Bates [1926; 2 vols.; New York, 1975 reprint], 1:3–41).