Thomas Jefferson to Archibald Thweatt, 26 October 1817
To Archibald Thweatt
Monticello Oct. 26. 17.
Dear Sir
Your favor of the 12th did not reach me until the evening before the last. I have this day addressed a letter to mr Jones bearing willing testimony to truths which render you worthy of the trust you solicit, whatever may be the event of the application, and I sincerely wish you success because you wish it yourself. this service and any other in my power you had a right to expect from me, and if it should end in nothing more than an evidence of my esteem, I am glad to have had occasion to give that evidence. yet I confess I shall regret to see old Eppington announced For Sale. it has been the scene of too much of my happiness not to kindle very dear recollections, and which even elicit a tear while I say so. however it’s value is in making mrs Thweatt and yourself happy, and if it will do so more effectually by changing it’s form into money, I concur in wishing the change, from the sincerest affection and esteem for you both.
Th: Jefferson
PoC (CSmH: JF); on verso of reused letter from Joseph Milligan to an unidentified correspondent, Georgetown, 26 Dec. 1816; mutilated at seal, with two words rewritten by TJ; at foot of text: “Archibald Thweatt esq.”
Thweatt’s favor of the 12th to TJ, not found, is recorded in SJL as received 24 Oct. 1817 from eppington, his Chesterfield County estate. TJ had visited Eppington numerous times when it belonged to the Eppes family. His sister-in-law Elizabeth Eppes lived there after her marriage to Francis Eppes, and TJ left his daughters Maria and Lucy Elizabeth Jefferson there when he went to Paris. The latter died and was buried at Eppington in 1784, while the former married her first cousin John Wayles Eppes in 1797 and visited the estate for extended periods (Martha W. McCartney, “A Documentary History of Eppington, Chesterfield County, Virginia” [ViCMRL: unpublished research report, 1994], 37–57).
Index Entries
- Eppes, Elizabeth Wayles (TJ’s sister-in-law; John Wayles Eppes’s mother); and F. Eppes search
- Eppes, Francis (TJ’s brother-in-law); and Eppington search
- Eppes, John Wayles (TJ’s son-in-law); family of search
- Eppes, Maria (Mary) Jefferson (TJ’s daughter; John Wayles Eppes’s first wife); and Eppington search
- Eppington (Eppes’s Chesterfield Co. estate); and J. W. Eppes search
- Eppington (Eppes’s Chesterfield Co. estate); proposed sale of search
- Eppington (Eppes’s Chesterfield Co. estate); TJ visits search
- Jefferson, Lucy Elizabeth (1782–84; TJ’s daughter); and Eppington search
- Jones, William (ca.1761–1831); as president of Second Bank of the United States search
- Thweatt, Archibald; and Eppington search
- Thweatt, Archibald; letters from accounted for search
- Thweatt, Archibald; letters to search
- Thweatt, Archibald; seeks appointment search
- Thweatt, Archibald; TJ recommends search
- Thweatt, Lucy Eppes (Archibald Thweatt’s wife); TJ sends greetings to search