MS (ViU: Edgehill-Randolph Papers); in Carpenter’s hand; addressed: “Mr Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ.

OVERHAWLES: overalls were trousers or leggings worn over other clothing while traveling or as protection against wet weather. The cloth that Carpenter used in this case was very likely a material more commonly known as queen, or queen’s, cord, a ribbed cotton fabric of English origin (OED description begins J. A. Simpson and E. S. C. Weiner, eds., The Oxford English Dictionary, Oxford, 1989, 20 vols. description ends ; Phyllis G. Tortora, ed., Robert S. Merkel, consulting ed., Fairchild’s Dictionary of Textiles, 7th ed. [New York, 1996], 453; Newburyport Herald, 2 Nov. 1802; New-York Gazette and General Advertiser, 12 Nov. 1803; Salem, Mass., Essex Register, 22 May 1822).

JOHN FREEMAN, a Maryland slave whose labor TJ hired in this period, worked in the dining room of the President’s House (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Princeton, 1997, 2 vols. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1043; Vol. 33:508n).

On 21 June, TJ wrote an order on John Barnes to pay Carpenter the $42.25 for his account to 26 Apr. In his financial memoranda, TJ designated that $7.75 of the amount (apparently a mistotaling of the final two entries in Carpenter’s statement) was “for servts.” He noted that the remainder of the payment—which he recorded as $34.50, due to his mistake in adding the amount for the servants’ clothing—was for his own clothing (MB description begins James A. Bear, Jr., and Lucia C. Stanton, eds., Jefferson’s Memorandum Books: Accounts, with Legal Records and Miscellany, 1767-1826, Princeton, 1997, 2 vols. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Second Series description ends , 2:1076).