To Thomas Jefferson from Jacob Nixon, 15 August 1801
From Jacob Nixon
Norfolk Augt. 15, 1801
Sir
As a total stranger to you an apology is necessary, for intruding with this letter, this I hope you will excuse when I mention I am an Irish Exile. Henry Jackson who probably has the happiness of your acquaintance, formerly of Dublin is my freind, & formerly in Coercisien with me.—
I have been bred a Surgeon, If you will, so as its not disagreeable to you, to allow me, either, in Army, or Navy, the same situation I will not do less than render much service
It wd. be wrong to say any thing without trial.—I am with very good wish. Yr. truly Obt Servant
Jacob Nixon
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); endorsed by TJ as received 27 Aug. and “to be Surgeon” and so recorded in SJL.
Jacob Nixon, a “physician, surgeon and man-midwife,” lived at 125 Main Street in Norfolk (Simmons’s Norfolk Directory [Norfolk, 1801], 25).
Henry Jackson was an ironfounder in Dublin and a prominent member of the Society of United Irishmen when he was imprisoned by the British during the Irish rebellion of 1798. Following his release from Kilmainham prison in 1799, Jackson emigrated to the United States (Jane Hayter Hames, Arthur O’Connor, United Irishman [Doughcloyne, Ireland, 2001], 188; David A. Wilson, United Irishmen, United States: Immigrant Radicals in the Early Republic [Ithaca, 1998], 19, 29; William Adamson to TJ, 28 Dec. 1801; Edward Hudson to Henry Jackson, 20 Jan. 1803, enclosed in Adamson to TJ, 30 Jan. 1803).