Memorandum from Eli Alexander, [ca. December 1794?]
Memorandum from Eli Alexander
[ca. Dec. 1794?]
| A computation of the corn it will take for the stock from now till April 1 or for one Hundred days. | Corn |
| 6 plough Horses from this till April the first or for one Hundred days when ploughing aught to have 2 gallons a day Each, suppose 40 ploughing days, which amounts to | bushels 60 corn |
| the same Horses when not in service one gallon of corn a day Each for 60 days is 45 bushil | 45 |
| 4 breding mares one gallon a day Each which is 50 bush | 50 |
| 2 plough horses to come fifty days a gallon & ½ Each is | 18¾ |
| 8 Oxen when hauling to have 2 gallons Each suppose 40 days is 80 bushels of corn | 80 |
| Hogs ½ bushel a day amount to 50 bushels. | 50 |
| 3 Coults in the above menshined time 10 bushels | 10 |
| Milk cows 3 gallons a day is 30½ | 30½ |
| 344¼ | |
| the consumsion of Shadwell will be 750 bushels of corn from this time till November next 25 theare is 320 barrels of corn measured but what theare is now I cant ascertain I suppose to be two hundred and sixty or seventy barrels. |
MS (MHi); entirely in Alexander’s hand; undated, but probably belonging to his term as overseer at Shadwell and Lego (see below); addressed: “Colo. Jefferson Monto cholo”; endorsed by TJ: “Corn for the winter Alexander’s estimate.”
Eli Alexander, a farmer at Elkton, Maryland, replaced Byrd Rogers as the overseer of TJ’s Shadwell and Lego plantations early in 1794 and probably continued until the autumn of 1795, after which he remained in Albemarle County. In 1805 he obtained a seven-year lease of Shadwell and part of Lego, but TJ found him a difficult tenant, slow to pay his rent and posing arguments over the terms of the agreement so contentious that the dispute could only be resolved by arbitration. Nonetheless, in 1827 Alexander signed a petition urging the state of Virginia to buy Giuseppe Ceracchi’s bust of TJ (TJ to Jacob Hollingsworth, 4 Dec. 1793; TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., 8 Dec. 1793; TJ to James Madison, 15 Feb. 1794; , 29, 47, 171–83; , 28 May 1794, 4, 7, 24 Nov. 1795, 20 July 1817, and note; , viii [1927], 244).