Ebenezer Stedman to Thomas Jefferson, 1 May 1810
From Ebenezer Stedman
Cambridge Ms May 1. 1810
Hond & respected Sir
The young man that Compliments (or rather) Insults you, with this Seditious Discourse, refused to put his Name to it, but after some severe Altercation with him for his Impudence, I informed him I should do it, which I here give you. Henry H. Fuller, Junior Sophester in the University—
Ebenr Stedman Post Master
RC (MHi); dateline at foot of text; endorsed by TJ as received 13 May 1810 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure not found.
Ebenezer Stedman (1743–1815), a lifelong resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts, graduated from Harvard College in 1765. Following a brief stint as a local schoolmaster, he tended the family farm, served as a selectman and town treasurer, and in 1802 became Cambridge’s first postmaster. Stedman committed suicide after public funds in his care were stolen (
, 16:240–l; DNA: RG 28, RAP).Henry Holton fuller graduated second in his class at Harvard in 1811 and became an attorney in Boston ( , 188; New England Historical and Genealogical Register 13 [1859]: 360).