IV. Draft Checklist of Preparations, 5 May 1804
IV. Draft Checklist of Preparations
[before 5 May 1804]
to be done here.
a copy of the plat of partition to be made out & accompany the bill.
a new deed to be prepared & executed by John R. Kerr & Sarah for her share as will descended from her father as from Wm.
Charles Henderson’s ratificn to be recorded // done
Kentucky.
mrs Henderson’s deed to be proved or acknoleged // done
James L’s mortgage do. // done
Isham’s deed to be ratified // done
mrs Henderson’s decln in writing or before witnesses that the articles of agreemt between her & John did not give him a title1—no considn
James L’s deed of the lands of the 5. infants to be recorded // done.
Hill, one of the 5. has confirmed his deed since coming of age, in Kentucky, proved there, & sent on here to be recorded.
Mr. Peyton to inform mr Stuart that on consultation here with his counsel & others he had found that from the variety of interests in the lands of Bennet Henderson still to be settled, and the complication of them, it would be better to throw the whole into a single suit in Chancery and put it into the hands of the Chancellor at Richmd. where he has nothing to fear from the combinations of the parties or ignorance or prejudices of the judge: that therefore he had got a bill embracing all the facts drawn here, where they are known in all their minutiae, and was advised to send it to him to get it substituted as an amended bill in place of the mere bill of injunction agt John, and asking process against other defs. that he has written to mr Hay to aid
has James L. any property here which can be attached
does not the Canal go thro’ his 2. ac. lot No. 9.
on whose land the warehouse? Sarah’s
the distillery? John’s
what are the lots in Milton to which we are entitled?
answer. the unsold back lots. about 15. or 20.
except John’s part in them.2
Dft (ViU); undated; in TJ’s hand on both sides of a partial address cover directed to “His Excellency Thomas Jefferson,” with postmaster’s notation of receipt on 7 Apr. 1804, postmarked Washington, 16 Apr., and franked; TJ also used space on the sheet for an unrelated financial calculation.
For the plat of partition showing the four tracts with ten allotments, each distributed among the Henderson coparceners, see Vol. 35:xlvi-xlviii, 382 (illus.), 580-1.
According to a later record of his accounts pertaining to the Henderson lands, TJ paid “Stewart,” perhaps Alexander stuart, £5 ($16.67) in cash “for bill in chancery” on 15 Mch. 1804, almost certainly an error for 15 May. That record also shows payments to a clerk of court for a writ against Henderson ($2); to a Kentucky clerk on 18 June for seals to deeds ($12); to Dabney Carr “in suits v. Henderson” ($38); to James Barbour for the same ($35); a payment toward “Henderson’s execution” ($26.05); and one to the Albemarle County sheriff “for tax on Henderson’s lands” ($10.58). None of those payments appears in TJ’s personal financial memoranda, although he did record drawing on Gibson & Jefferson on 8 May 1804 for £5 to George Hay “as fee in the suit Peyton v. Henderson” (, 5:426; , 2:1126).
1. In margin: “James had made affidavit of it.”
2. Below this text TJ wrote, and then canceled with a single diagonal stroke, “afterd committed to record” followed by “that when the said John shall thus have fraudulenty superseded the just rights of your orator in the sd dower lands, he has still to prostrate your orators feesimple right in the 2. acre lot No. 8. originally assigned to the sd James L. and by him conveyed to your orator by continuing his canal thro’ the same without which it can never get to the site No. 8. claimed by the sd John under the sd Charles, & lying below & adjacent to the sd No. 9. of your orator which wrong neither the pretended agreement of the sd Eliz. nor any other instrument real or pretended could give him authority to commit.”