To Thomas Jefferson from Josiah Parker, 13 January 1800
From Josiah Parker
Phila. Jany. 13th. 1800.
Dear Sir,
Dr. Oliver a particular friend of mine from Massachusets. has requested me to apply to you for the price of the Statue erected at Richmond in honor of General Washington, also to know the price of an equestrian Statue, in Marble or Bronze, the object of his enquiry is to know the price of the different sorts of Statues that he may be able to inform a Committee, of which he is one, in Salem who are requested by the Citizens of that Town to procure a Statue to be erected in that Town in remembrance of General Washington—I would have done myself the pleasure to have called on you but from indisposition—
With much respect & esteem.
J: Parker
RC (DLC); endorsed by TJ as received on this date and so recorded in SJL.
Benjamin Lynde Oliver was a Salem, Massachusetts, physician. In 1802 the town’s selectmen renamed the common, to which improvements had been made by subscription the previous year, Washington Square. Local craftsman and house designer Samuel McIntire carved a wooden portrait medallion of the first president for one of the gates of the square (The Diary of William Bentley, D.D.: Pastor of the East Church, Salem, Massachusetts, 4 vols. [Salem, Mass., 1905–14], 3:30, 533; Charles S. Osgood and H. M. Batchelder, Historical Sketch of Salem, 1626–1879 [Salem, Mass., 1879], 244, 249; Samuel Chamberlain, A Stroll through Historic Salem [New York, 1969], 13–16, 45).