To Thomas Jefferson from Thomas Hart and Others, 20 October 1804
From Thomas Hart and Others
Lexington 20h. October 1804.
Understanding that the Offices of Collector & Surveyor of the Port of New Orleans are vacant, and that Mr John Clay of that City is desirous of filling one of them, we beg leave to recommend him as a person properly qualified to discharge the duties attached to them. Previous to the year 1800 Mr Clay resided in this place, where he was engaged in the Mercantile business. In that year he removed to New Orleans and has lived chiefly there since. From Mr Clay’s capacity, integrity and acquaintance with the people of the place (whose general esteem we have learnt he possesses) we presume his pretensions in this application are well founded. Should he meet with success it will afford us much pleasure.
Thomas Hart
John Jordan jr
George Trotter
Alexr. Parker
John Bradford
Thos. Bodley
W. Macbean
Will. Morton
John W. Hunt
J. Postlethwait
B. Thruston
Saml Trotter
RC (DNA: RG 59, LAR); in a clerk’s hand, signed by all; endorsed by TJ (torn) as received 3 Dec. and “Clay John to be [Collector] or Surveyor of N.O.” and so recorded in SJL with a brace connecting it to letters received on the same date from John Breckinridge of 22 Oct., Christopher Greenup of 18 Oct., and John Rowan of 19 Oct.
Thomas Hart (1730-1808) was a Revolutionary War officer and North Carolina businessman who moved his family to Maryland during the war. He was an investor in Richard Henderson’s Transylvania Company and moved to Kentucky by 1794. He owned Olympian Springs, a health retreat and hotel east of Lexington. His daughter, Lucretia, married Henry Clay (Durward T. Stokes, “Thomas Hart in North Carolina,” North Carolina Historical Review, 41 [1964], 324-37; John E. Kleber, ed., The Kentucky Encyclopedia [Lexington, Ky., 1992], 203, 695-6, 894).