To Thomas Jefferson from Isaac Neufville, 6 August 1804
From Isaac Neufville
Charleston South Carolina Augt. 6th. 1804.
Sir,
Death having put a period to the Sufferings of my revered and aged Parent, on the Evening of the 29th. ult.; it is with the utmost respect and diffidence, I offer myself to the Consideration of your Excellency, a Candidate to succeed him as Commissioner of the Loan Office for this state; embolden’d, in some degree, by assisting in the incipient Transactions, to the present Time, and humbly conceiving myself acquainted with the routine of the various duties of it.—
In aid of this application, I beg leave to refer to the Treasurer of the United states, to whom I have the pleasure of being made known.—
With the most respectful sentiments, I have the honor to be sir, Your Obedient Servant
Isaac Neufville
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); at foot of text: “To the President of the United states”; endorsed by TJ as received 21 Aug. and so recorded in SJL with notation: “to be Commr. loans.”
Isaac Neufville (d. 1817) was a lifelong resident of Charleston whose father, John Neufville, had served as commissioner of loans for South Carolina since 1790. TJ with some reluctance appointed the younger Neufville to the position in September. In 1808, Neufville became part of a group of citizens who worked to establish a cotton factory in Charleston, the result of TJ’s call for an increase in the domestic production of cloth. In early 1809, Gallatin, frustrated by Neufville’s repeated neglects of duty as commissioner of loans, removed him from that position. The South Carolina Homespun Company failed three years later. By the time of Neufville’s death, he had retired from community life, remembered in an obituary only as an amiable father of six (Richard W. Griffin, “An Origin of the New South: The South Carolina Homespun Company, 1808-1815,” Business History Review, 35 [1961], 405-9, 413; Charleston Carolina Gazette, 21 Oct. 1808; Charleston Courier, 2 Dec. 1808; Charleston Times, 17 Apr. 1817; Vol. 18:99; TJ to Gallatin, 1 Sep. 1804; Gallatin to TJ, 15 Feb. 1809).
For treasurer Thomas Tudor Tucker’s endorsement, see Gallatin to TJ, 20 Aug.