From John Jay to Dorcas Montgomery, 20 January 1785
To Dorcas Montgomery
NYork 20 Jan. 1785
Madam
I have just been favored with yours of the 13th. Inst.1 and wish it was in my power to give you such an acct. of our College as might induce you to compleat the Education of your Son in it. Measures are taking to put it on a respectable Footing, but those Measures are not yet executed—These matters require some Time, & ^but^ I am persuaded that unnecessary Delays will be avoided. At present I think your Son would not derive sufficient advantages from it to justify my advising you to place him in it, tho perhaps in the Course of six or Eight Months it may become adviseable. ^there^2
I greatly regret my having been disappointed in repeated att ^by^ your being from Home every Time I called at your House when at Pha., and hope on my next visit to be more fortunate—Mrs. Jay has not had the pleasure of receiving the ^any^ Letter from you since her ^your^ arrival—she presents her Compts. to You and also to your Son—be pleased to add mine—I have the Honor to be Madam Your most obt. & very hble Servt
Mrs. Montgomery
Dft, NNC (EJ: 8857). Endorsed: “… in ansr to 13 Inst.”
1. See Dorcas Montgomery to JJ, 13 Jan. 1783, ALS, NNC (EJ: 6953). Mrs. Montgomery, a widow whom the Jays had known in Paris, was also corresponding with BF about the education of her son, Robert Montgomery, on whom see 35: 481n.
2. King’s College suspended operations in 1776. By an act of May 1784 the New York legislature rechartered the college, placing the power and property of the trustees in the hands of the newly created Regents of the University of the State of New York and renaming the school Columbia College. The first student was admitted on 17 May 1784. The college’s books and equipment were lost during the occupation, and the school was in serious financial straits. Administrative problems also inhibited Columbia’s development until its reorganization in 1787 and the naming of William Samuel Johnson (1727–1819) as president. David C. Humphrey, From King’s College to Columbia, 1746–1800 (New York, 1976), 269–80.