To Thomas Jefferson from Michael Leib, 1 March 1803
From Michael Leib
Washington March 1st. 1803
Sir,
The name of the gentleman about whom I convers’d with you is John Harrison—Permit me to suggest, that in addition to his fitness for the office of a commissioner of Bankruptcy, he has an additional recommendation in having been an uniform whig, and having sustained persecution on account of his unshaken adherence to our cause—As he is of a respectable quaker family and extensively connected with the society of friends, it may be of use and be gratifying to them to find a member of their body noticed by you—
If, Sir, such an appointment can be made without an interference with your arrangements, I need not say, how much many of your friends would be gratified by the appointment of Mr. Harrison
I am, Sir, With sentiments of sincere respect and regard Your obedt Servt.
M Leib
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); endorsed by TJ as received 1 Mch. and “Harrison John to be Commr. bkrpts vice Vancleve” and so recorded in SJL.
john harrison, a chemist, druggist, and Michael Leib’s brother-in-law, was also recommended by congressman-elect Joseph Clay, a Philadelphia bankruptcy commissioner, but Harrison did not receive the appointment. quaker family: Harrison’s parents were married at the Philadelphia meeting of the Society of Friends in 1764. His mother, Sarah Richards Harrison, was an eloquent speaker who traveled extensively as a Quaker minister (William Welsh Harrison, Waples and Allied Families: Being the Ancestry of George Leib Harrison of Philadelphia and of His Wife Sarah Ann Waples [Philadelphia, 1910], 10–18, 27; ; Vol. 38:119–20; Clay to TJ, 29 Mch. and 19 Oct. 1803; John Harrison to TJ, 1 Nov. 1808, in DLC).