George Washington Papers
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https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-04-02-0024

Tobias Lear to Clement Biddle, 16 September 1789

Tobias Lear to Clement Biddle

New York September 16th 1789

Dear Sir,

The President has sent to Virginia a German who is to be a Gardener for him there.1

As he cannot speak the English Language and is unacquainted with the Country—I have paid his passage in the Stage to Philadelphia; and have written to Mr Inskeep—proprieter of the Stage there,2 to forward him from thence to Alexandria, and have informed him that the Amount of his Passage to the latter place would be paid by you upon his delivering this Letter— which I request you to do & charge the same to the Ac[coun]t of the President of the United States. I am Dr Sir, with great esteem, Your Most Obt Servt

Tobias Lear.

P.S. The Man has a trunk which I presume will require to be paid for also.

ALS, PHi: Washington-Biddle Correspondence; ADf, ViMtvL; LB, DLC:GW.

1For background to this letter, see John Christian Ehlers to GW, 24 June 1789, and Diaries description begins Donald Jackson and Dorothy Twohig, eds. The Diaries of George Washington. 6 vols. Charlottesville, Va., 1976–79. description ends , 5:422–23.

2See Lear to John Inskeep, 16 Sept. 1789 (DLC:GW). Inskeep (1757–1834), the second son of Abraham and Sarah Ward Inskeep of Marlton, N.J., held several posts in the New Jersey militia during the Revolution before moving in the early 1780s to Philadelphia, where he purchased George Tavern at Second and Arch (Mulberry) streets, from which the stage left for New York and Baltimore. He later became director of the Insurance Company of North America and a partner in the publishing house of Bradford & Inskeep, as well as a founding member of the city’s chamber of commerce. Inskeep served Philadelphia as alderman, associate judge of common pleas, and mayor (1800, 1806). As a china and glassware merchant he sold GW a set of china for $22.33 (Household Account Book, 13 Feb. 1797, DLC:GW, and Edward Wallace, “Sketch of John Inskeep,” description begins Henry Edward Wallace, Jr. “Sketch of John Inskeep, Mayor, and President of the Insurance Company of North America, Philadelphia.” Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography 28 (1904): 129–35. description ends 129–35.

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