To Thomas Jefferson from John Barnes, 16 April 1801
From John Barnes
George Town 16th. April 1801.
Sir
I was last Evening honred: with your favr: Monticello 11th. Inst: with Memdm: for, 250 square feet sheet Copper, for covering, part, of your house—
The exact particulars—I have by this post, transmitted to my Correspondt: Mr Richards Philada. who I have no doubt, will Attend Minutely to your instructions—and shipp it, with the files and Chissills—by very first Vessel, with Bill Lading, to Messrs. Gibson & Jeffersons, Address, at Richmond. Invoice of particulars, I have Ordered to be charged to my a/c & sent—to me here—nothing of consequence transpires—at Washington for Noticing—all is—peace & quiet.
I am sir, Your mst Obedt: H st
John Barnes
I was informed Yesterday—Mr Marshalls late dwelling House-(6 buildings) was to let. If Mr Madison—wanted One, it would I presume be a most elegible situation—but I dare not, do any thing in it—without Order—
RC (ViU); addressed: “Thomas Jefferson Esqr. President, US—at Monticello”; franked; postmarked 17 Apr.; added notation in unidentified hand: “Milton”; endorsed by TJ as received 24 Apr. and so recorded in SJL.
TJ’s letter to Barnes of the 11th, recorded in SJL with the notation “(copper, tools, &c.),” has not been found.
6 buildings: on Pennsylvania Avenue at 22d Street were the “Six Buildings,” one of the few clusters of buildings standing in the new capital city when the national government moved there from Philadelphia. In the last months of the Adams administration the structures housed, in addition to some residences, the offices of the State Department and the Navy Department. John Marshall left Washington for Virginia on 6 Mch., and when he returned in August he and his colleagues on the Supreme Court all took up residence at Conrad & McMunn’s. James and Dolley Madison, after their stay with TJ at the President’s House, apparently lived in one of the Six Buildings temporarily before taking up residence near William Thornton’s house (Evelyn Levow Greenberg, “Isaac Polock: Early Settler in Washington, D.C.,” Publication of the American Jewish Historical Society, 48 [1958], 1, 9–10; , 1:233n; Jean Edward Smith, John Marshall: Definer of a Nation [New York, 1996], 286; Madison, Papers, Sec. of State Ser., 1:113n, 165, 166n).