1Benjamin Waterhouse to Thomas Jefferson, 8 July 1822 (Jefferson Papers)
Your letter of the 26 th of June I have read again & again, with renewed satisfaction ; and believe with you that “there is not a young man now living in the U. S. who will not die an Unitarian.” Yet must the young be enlightened, and the Platonizing christians counteracted; and I have seen nothing so likely to do so much good in the process as your letter, if you will allow me to give it...
2To John Adams from Benjamin Waterhouse, 13 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
I received your letter with pleasure, and read it with high satisfaction. You have paid the highest compliment on the President’s Message or rather, Elogium, that I have yet seen, or have ever heard of—Our proud federalists however are displeased & mortified that he did not tell the whole world, how grand, how rich, how powerful, how gifted & how virtuous they in Boston are above all other...
3To John Adams from Benjamin Waterhouse, 29 December 1817 (Adams Papers)
Habituated as I have long been to consider your judgement as infallible, I have not found it exactly so on the subject of our two last letters. When I wrote to you on that subject of the heart, I had come to a fixed resolution of following the advice of my family & friends. I have penetrated their thoughts, & have discovered their opinion which taken collectively amounts to this— we censure...
4To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Waterhouse, 3 July 1824 (Jefferson Papers)
In reflecting on my late journey south, I found one omission to regret, and especially as I remember you seemed to urge it—I mean my declining the invitation of M r Monroe—and I have accordingly explained it in a letter to him thus— It was spoken of at the Presidential house, in Washington (at my intimation) that I should go to the examination at West Point; on the high probability that M r...
5To James Madison from Benjamin Waterhouse, 12 December 1822 (Madison Papers)
I have just read in one of the Boston News-papers, a paragraph to this effect—that through the agency of the late President Madison, a Professorship of Agriculture was about to be established in the University in Virginia. It directly occurred to me to send you some publications of mine on that highly important subject. By the “Heads of Lectures,” and by the “ Botanist ,” you can see how far...
6Benjamin Waterhouse to James Madison, 14 February 1829 (Madison Papers)
Here send for your acceptance a production of early life, being my inaugural oration, when inducted into the office of Profr. of the Theory & Practice of Physic in this University, nearly half a century since. On recollecting the labour & study it cost me, at that time, I have spared it from the flames with a few other papers. I have no hesitation in saying, that if it be not classical, it has...
7To James Madison from Benjamin Waterhouse, 30 June 1825 (Madison Papers)
Having reached home but a few days since, I seize the first day of leisure to express to you, and your good Lady my grateful acknowledgements for your polite attention, while sojourning in your hospitable mansion, where I experienced what I had often heard from the voice of fame. After passing about a week at Washington, principally with my greatly esteemed, & highly venerated friend, I left...
8To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Waterhouse, 8 February 1823 (Jefferson Papers)
To read every letter sent to you must be no small task; but to read every book which vanity may transmit would be inflicting an honour upon you, enough, almost, to make a man wish he had never learnt to read. Here, e.g. you have one on the childish subject of whooping-cough ; the title of which is sufficient to make most men, not of the profession, turn from my “ essay ,” as from a dose of...
9Benjamin Waterhouse to James Madison, 30 May 1833 (Madison Papers)
It was a saying of one of the wise men of antiquity that a Great Book was a Great Evil ; thereby implying that a little book might be a good thing. Under this hope I here send for your amusement a little book ; which I made for a youth who sat out with about twenty others, older than himself, to go to the Pacific Ocean by land , by the way of the Rocky mountains; and absolutely proceeded to...
10To Thomas Jefferson from Benjamin Waterhouse, 11 February 1825 (Jefferson Papers)
I, in some measure, regret that you have no spare niche for the Rev d M r Bertrum, yet I should be loathe to part with such a learned neighbour. He has since, expressed a wish to enter the service of the Rhode Island College, at Providence, but I do not encourage it, for there he would be “Condemn’d to trudge, “Without an equal, and without a judge.” It would be almost as bad at Dartmouth...