To Thomas Jefferson from Navy Yard Tradesmen, 1 March 1805
From Navy Yard Tradesmen
[1 Mch. 1805]
To Thomas Jefferson President
of the United States of America
The Subscribers, Tradesmen of the Different Callings Exercised in the United States Navy Yard in this City beg leave to Offer to your Excellency a Small Expression of the Sentiments with which in Common with their Fellow Citizens they are Fully Impressed on this Happy Occasion On Addressing you in Consequence of the Event of your being Re, Elected by the Almost Unanimous Voice of your Country to the Important and Arduous Task of Chief Magistrate of a Great and Free People
They would be insensible were they not to Appreciate the Value of the Priviledge which as Americans they Enjoy
They Cannot but Reflect with Gratitude on that Supreme being who has Placed them in a Land of Equal Rights and Liberty’s, Where the Honest Industry of the Mechanic is Equally Supported with the Splendor of the Wealthy
Fully impressed with these Sentiments they Pray you may long be Spared a Blessing to your Country for whose ease and Safety you Continue Nobly to Sacrafice your Own.
RC (DLC: TJ Papers, 145:23739); undated; with 114 signatures on three sheets; incomplete endorsement by TJ: “Addre.” Recorded in SJL as received 1 Mch. 1805 with notation “Address. tradesmen of Navy yard.”
The first signatures on the list of Subscribers are those of James Owner and Benjamin King. King was head plumber and blacksmith at the Washington Navy Yard. He also worked on projects at both the President’s House and the Capitol Building (George Henry Preble, Navy Register, 1805-6 [Washington, D.C., 1875], 17; , 1:532n). Owner was a shipwright promoted to head carpenter by 1809 (Gentleman’s Annual Pocket Remembrancer for 1810 [Philadelphia, 1809], 143). Among others who signed were plumber John Davis of Abel, cooper Thomas Murray, model maker John Nowland, and gun carriage maker Robert Rose, who would all be working their trade at the navy yard as late as 1822 (Judah Delano, The Washington Directory: Showing the Name, Occupation, and Residence, of Each Head of a Family and Person in Business [Washington, D.C., 1822], 29, 60, 62, 68). For their Honest Industry, the skilled workers at the navy yard earned wages of $1.25 to $2.00 a day in 1806. By 1812, supervisors like King and Owner were earning yearly salaries of $1,500 to $2,200 (Henry B. Hibben, Navy-Yard, Washington: History from Organization 1799 to Present Date [Washington, D.C., 1890], 32; Letter from the Secretary of the Navy, Transmitting Sundry Statements of the Expenditure of Money at the Several Navy Yards, Pursuant to a Resolution of the Twenty-Seventh of January Last [Washington, D.C., 1812], 23).
long be Spared a Blessing: post-inauguration festivities on 4 Mch. included a procession “formed at the Navy Yard, composed of the several mechanics engaged, which marched to military music, displaying, with considerable taste, the various insignia of their professions” (National Intelligencer, 6 Mch.). Another address was evidently conveyed to TJ on that day; an undated “Address. Navy Yard” is recorded in SJL as received 4 Mch. but has not been found.