Born in Williamsburg, Virginia, William Pelham (1759-1827) served as a surgeon during the Revolutionary War. After traveling through Europe in the early 1790s, Pelham returned to the United States, purchased a bookshop in Boston in 1796, and eventually opened a lending library. In the early 1800s, Pelham also entered the publishing business. He sold his Boston firm in 1811. After a series of moves through New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and Ohio, Pelham eventually joined Robert Owen’s utopian community in New Harmony, Indiana, in 1825, where he edited the New-Harmony Gazette until his death (Caroline Creese Pelham, “William Pelham,” WMQ description begins William and Mary Quarterly, 1892- description ends , 2d ser., 8 [1928], 42-5; Boston Columbian Centinel, 18 June 1796; William Pelham, William Pelham Respectfully Solicits the Attention of the Public to the Following Conditions of His Circulating Library [Boston, 1796]; William Pelham, Catalogue of Pelham’s Circulating Library [Charlestown, Mass., 1801]; New-Harmony Gazette, 7 Feb. 1827).

mr Austin’s book: with a letter dated Boston, 10 Aug., but not found, Pelham likely sent TJ a copy of William Austin’s travel letters (William Austin, Letters from London: Written during the Years 1802 & 1803 [Boston, 1804]; Sowerby, description begins E. Millicent Sowerby, comp., Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, Washington, D.C., 1952-59, 5 vols. description ends No. 3877).