To Thomas Jefferson from Richard Napier, 20 April 1804
From Richard Napier
Dickson County (State Tennessee) April 20th 1804
Honourable Sir
The happiness I have had in a former Acquaintance with you will I hope be a Sufficient Apology as well as a Justification on my part for the Liberty I have taken in troubling you with those few lines
You will think it less presumptuous when you take into View the Remote Situation in which I am placd. and the Difficulties we labour under in Acquiring the Necessary Information Relative to publick Affairs
It has now been Almost Nineteen years Since I left the State of Virginia during which period I have with assiduity Explored Different Countries and Climes within the Limits of the United States at length have Settled in that Tract of Country Calld Cumberland within the State of Tennessee—With which I am well pleasd. and have been fortunate Enough to Acquire a Sufficient Body of Fertile Lands to Settle all my Children Comfortably. But I feel much at a loss for the want of that Agreeable Society which my native Country so Copiously Abounded in—yet I Still have the pleasure of a Communication at times with my Connections the Claiborne family whose private Characters as well as political you no doubt are Acquainted With
I shall now Address you on the Object of my present Communication … permit me Sir to have the Singular favour of you to honour me with a line Stating the Existance (if any Such thing there be) of the Mountain of Salt in that new Acquision of Territory which you have with Immortal Honour to yourself as well as Inesteemable Benefits to greater part of the Citizens who has the Honour to be Governed by your Wisdom in Executive Authority Added a New Emporum to the Sons of Liberty to possess … At the Same time does Such a phenonema Exist I shall ever feel myself under the greatest Obligations would you be so good in Condescention as to let me know where it is Situated the Nature and Various Concomitant Circumstances Relative thereunto … Your Compliance with the same Shall Sir ever be Rememberd. and Gratefully Acknowledgd by your Cordial friend and
Most Obt Hb St
Richard Napier
RC (MHi); ellipses in original; endorsed by TJ as received 22 May and so recorded in SJL.
Richard Claiborne Napier (1773-1834) was from Albemarle County, Virginia. His mother was a Claiborne, and William C. C. Claiborne was a first cousin. By 1798, Napier lived in Tennessee, eventually settling in Dickson County. He married Charlotte Robertson, whose father, General James Robertson, founded Nashville. Napier served in the Tennessee militia during the War of 1812, rising to the rank of colonel. In 1817, he established the Laurel Furnace, which he operated with slave labor. According to his tombstone, he died one of the “Oldest Iron Masters of Middle Tennessee” (John Warner Barber and Henry Howe, Our Whole Country; or The Past and Present of the United States, 2 vols. [New York, 1861], 2:880; Federal Writers’ Project, Tennessee: A Guide to the State [New York, 1949], 201, 455; John Bennett Boddie, Virginia Historical Genealogies [Redwood City, Calif., 1954], 40-1; Lavinia R. [Hill] Brown, “The Family of Gen. James Robertson,” American Historical Magazine, 1 [1896], 177).
For accounts of a mountain of salt, see Nashville Tennessee Gazette, 4 Jan. 1804; Vol. 42:54-5; Thomas Rodney to TJ, 14 May.