From Thomas Jefferson to William Tunnicliff, 25 April 1805
To William Tunnicliff
Washington Apr. 25. 05
Sir
I avail myself with thankfulness of the opportunity your kindness offers of procuring certain articles from London, which I have long wanted, and only waited a special opportunity to acquire. you will find a list of them on the next leaf. I have been less scrupulous in enlarging it because you mentioned it as your wish to bring your property from England in some other form rather than money. I suppose these articles may cost about twenty guineas.
Having a friend in York, mr Strickland, eldest son of Sir George Strickland of that place, to whom I wish to send the model of the mouldboard of a plough with which he was much pleased when he was at my house in Virginia, I have put one for himself into a small box, & another into a second for the board of agriculture in London, of which we are both members, & which he will recieve & present. I ask the favor of you to take charge of these with the letter addressed to him, & to leave them with mr Monroe our Min. Plen. at London; unless you should propose to lengthen your journey to Stafford as far as York, in which case you would do me a favor by presenting them youself. Accept my thanks for the kind proffer of your services on this occasion, my wishes for a safe & pleasant voyage & return, and my salutations.
Th: Jefferson
PoC (CSmH); at foot of text: “Mr. Tunnicliff.” Enclosure: TJ to William Strickland, 25 Apr. Other enclosure printed below.
William Tunnicliff was proprietor of the Eastern Branch Hotel from 1796 to 1799 and the Washington City Hotel from 1799 to 1804. A native of England, he came to Washington in the 1790s as a surveyor and draftsman, working for Robert Morris’s land syndicate. He may have been the creator of topographical surveys and maps of several English counties published between 1787 and 1791. Tunnicliff sold his hotel interest to Pontius D. Stelle in 1804 and apparently entered the mercantile trade. Writing to TJ in 1810, he recalled the “little articles” he procured in London for the president and reminded him of his desire to secure a clerkship in an executive department for himself and his son (, 7 [1904], 79, 84-5, 90; 69-70 [1969-70], 39; , 2:142-3; , 2:1033, 1055n, 1170, 1184; Vol. 32:392n; William Jones to TJ, 3 Aug. 1805).