Thomas Jefferson Papers

Peter B. Read to Thomas Jefferson, 12 June 1822

From Peter B. Read

June 12th 1822

Sir,

You will please to send down your waggon or ox cart for the purpose of moveing down, to shadwell about half a dozen, peices of thin sawd, timber for, the posts of the Mill boalting chest, which will be all that, I shall want likewise, the1 grind stone, as we shall want to grind every day & the coopers dont grind2 but once a week. tharfor, thay can easily come down to do it,—

I cant think of crossing the river to eat or, sleep. you will tharefor be so good, as to send down with the waggon a straw bed as I prefer it to feather one, & I will lodge in the counting room of the mill & informe me by the bearer, how I am to board, at shadwell3 the sooner the waggon or cart comes the better as I want to get all arrangements made my benches &C fixd this evening ready to comence by Sunrise in the morning

P. B Read

RC (MHi); written on a half sheet; dateline beneath signature; at foot of text: “Thos Jefferson Esqr”; endorsed by TJ, with penciled notations presumably relating to his letter to Bernard Peyton of 20 June 1822 in an unidentified hand beneath endorsement: “fish Laval nail rod fish.”

A boalting chest is the case in which a bolt, or flour-sieve, operates (OED description begins James A. H. Murray, J. A. Simpson, E. S. C. Weiner, and others, eds., The Oxford English Dictionary, 2d ed., 1989, 20 vols. description ends , “bolt”).

1Manuscript: “the the.”

2Manuscript: “girnd.”

3Manuscript: “shadweell.”

Index Entries

  • beds; feather search
  • beds; straw search
  • building materials; timber search
  • carts; ox search
  • grindstones search
  • mills; stones for search
  • Monticello (TJ’s Albemarle Co. estate); coopers at search
  • Read, Peter B.; as miller and millwright search
  • Read, Peter B.; letters from search
  • Shadwell mills; counting room search
  • Shadwell mills; flour sieve at search
  • Shadwell mills; repairs to search
  • tools; grindstones search
  • wagons; mentioned search