To Thomas Jefferson from Elizabeth Wayles Eppes, 10 October 1797
From Elizabeth Wayles Eppes
Eppington Oct. 10 1797
Dear Sir
The contents of your friendly letter gave me the highest satisfaction, and I long for the happy moment to call dear Maria my daughter, to say how much poor Betsy, and myself are disappoint’d at not being present requires a better pen than mine.
We look forward with the utmost pleasure for a happy meeting, and hope you will be able to visit us this month, we will then talk of their settling, you are too generous, I am sure not to let us have half their company. Yours affectionatly
EE
RC (MHi); endorsed by TJ as received 11 Oct. 1797 and so recorded in SJL.
Your friendly letter: TJ to Eppes, 25 Sep. 1797 (recorded in SJL, but not found). disappointed at not being present: the marriage between John Wayles Eppes and Mary Jefferson took place on 13 Oct. 1797, which TJ recorded without any other details ([John C. Wyllie, ed.], Thomas Jefferson’s Prayer Book [Charlottesville, 1952], pl. IX; , ii, 972). For Mary Jefferson’s previous relationship with the Eppes family, see TJ to Elizabeth Wayles Eppes, 15 May 1791.