To Thomas Jefferson from Mary Osborne, 29 November 1803
From Mary Osborne
City of Washington Dec [i.e. Nov.] 29 [1803]
Sir
you who have studied your peopels happiness and so generaly bestowed it will no dought be suprised to be individually asked for assistance and from an intire stranger
the motives which induce me to so an action as appling to one in the station Mr Jefferson holds if I was to relate particularly would plead my pardon for so bold an intersession
a daughter beges for a widowed mother whose misfortuns have bean many and who has long suferd bodly and mentily with a tender family whose sex will not permit them to seak a livly hood from under her protection—my Mother keeping a shop of Ladys goods and as the summer being very dull and this faul unhealthy in canciquence my Mother could not intirely pay her Merchant and as this is the only seson of year which bisness can be done with the help of som friend my Mother cauld free her self from all incombrence and doe very well at her imployment
the many libral bestowments Mr Jefferson has give in incoragin arts and industry and his munificence to the unfortunate has made me hope and dare [. . .] him to be my mothers friend and if Mr j—n can put so much confidence [. . .] word and honesty of a femail and Lend my mother five hundred dollers [. . .] Mounths for with in that time it shall be returnd it will inabel my [mother] with industry and the incom of a small property establish her self in her bisness and free her self from all det
if Mr Jefferson can make it convenint and find satisfaction in granting my requst and make a mother and family comfortible and happy he will never have cause to repent a bounty and charity which will never be for got and ever greatfull for and punctually returnt
I am sencibel I have broke throw thos ruls prescrib to my sex and actied undutifull with out my Mothers knowledg and unnone to any person solisited Mr J—ns friendship and for fear of miscarage asked it in a fictitious name if ancred1 shall be knawn
if Mr Jefferson is so Beneficent as to grant the above favour he will please to anceret this week and derect it to
Susana P Roboson
City of Washington
PS Mr jefferson will blame but if he new my unhappy resons for so bold a solisitation which principels and sentiment makes shuder at he would pity pardon and grant and with the hope he will I conclude a letter which I am sencibel the manar is not proper but the motives great
with Obd. & Rrct.
S P Roboson
RC (MHi); partially dated; torn; addressed: “Mr Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as a letter of 29 Dec. corrected to November, received 2 Dec., and so recorded in SJL.
Mary Osborne wrote to TJ from Havre de Grace, Maryland, in 1808, revealing that she had written the letter printed above, “concealing my real name.” She stated that her mother had died in the interval since her first letter. Her mother was perhaps Susanna or Susannah Osborne, a resident of Washington who owed taxes on property in the city and who died in the spring of 1806. Mary Osborne may have been of a young age when she made her first appeal to TJ, for a notice of Susanna Osborne’s death declared that “her children have suffered an irreparable loss.” In 1808, Mary was living with a married sister, and “in the space of 12 Months from this I shall inherit a small portion from the wreck of my Mothers estate.” She asked the president for a loan of $50 to enable her sister and brother-in-law to move to Ohio (Washington Federalist, 2 Apr. 1806; National Intelligencer, 7 May 1806; Mary Osborne to TJ, 12 Oct. 1808, in MHi).
1. That is, “answered.”