To Thomas Jefferson from William Cooch, 19 November 1804
From William Cooch
Newcastle County Delaware Novr. th. 19. 1804
Honoured Sir
I took the liberty some time since of expressing to your Honour a wish that I might be considered an applicant for the Collectors Office of the District of Delaware should a change take place therein.
I do not at this time reiterate the wish, under an impression of superior claims to those Gentlemen who have made similar applications, or of my deserving Executive Patronage—. No Sir—unambitious for office. And indeed preferring the walks of private life. No considerations but the concurrence of unfavourable Events in my Private affairs, together with the Situation of a widowed Sister, left destitute with a large Family of Children, could have induced me to have made the application; And as Mr Tilton has lately recieved an appointment from the Govr. of our own State, And as the Situation of the other Gentleman, is I presume perfectly easy—I thought I might with propriety claim the consideration of your Honours attention—.
But Permit me to hope, that the preceeding observation will not be so deem’d, as having been made with a View to excite an Attention that would militate against the Rep. cause, Or as derogating from the characters of those Gentlemen who are like applicants with myself
As I have not pursued the Steps taken by my competitors, (by procuring recommendations) because I wish not to increase a Scism which has already produced a Deriliction of Principle by some formerly viewed as Friends. I hope your Honour will not receive this Communication as intrusive, But as a candid statement of the motives of my proceedure—
I am very respectfully your Friend
William Cooch
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received 22 Nov. and “to be Collector v. Mc.lane” but recorded in SJL as received 24 Nov.
William Cooch (1762-1837) was the grandson of Thomas Cooch, a wealthy miller whose land became the site in September 1777 of Delaware’s only significant Revolutionary War battle. Forced to flee after the British destroyed the mill and confiscated the family home, William Cooch enlisted on a privateer. The ship was captured and he spent the remainder of the war in an English prison. He inherited the family estate and rebuilt the flour mill, then helped incorporate the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal, worked to establish Delaware College, and served in the Delaware House of Representatives and state senate. In a letter of introduction in 1806, Caesar A. Rodney called him a “very reputable & influential citizen” and a “genuine Republican” (Mary Evarts Cooch, Ancestry and Descendants of Nancy Allyn [Foote] Webb, Rev. Edward Webb, and Joseph Wilkins Cooch [Wilmington, Del., 1919], 119, 121-2; , Rev. War Ser., 11:136-7n; Baltimore Sun, 2 Oct. 1837; Caesar A. Rodney to TJ, 16 Jan. 1806).
expressing to your Honour: Cooch’s letter of 3 Aug. 1801 has not been found (see Vol. 35:752).
In April, Governor David Hall appointed Nehemiah Tilton register of New Castle County. Tilton was a popular candidate among Republicans to replace Federalist Allen McLane as port collector at Wilmington (Wilmington Mirror of the Times, & General Advertiser, 21 Apr.; Vol. 39:557).
Gentleman: probably Wilmington merchant James Brobson, one of several applicants interested in replacing McLane. See Brobson to TJ, 7 Nov., and Vol. 39:479-80.