To Thomas Jefferson from Robert Moore, 28 February 1805
From Robert Moore
Baltimore 28th. February 1805
Sir
I feel great pleasure in transmiting to you the inclosed Letter, and a Small Box containing Jerusalem Wheat, which came to my Care from a Relation of Mine in Dublin—it is said to be of a Superior quality, producing double the Quantity of any other kind, and has very little Bran; The Climate & Soil of this Country, I hope will agree with it, in which case it will prove a source of wealth to the Farmers
with sentiments of regard & esteem I am Sir respectfully Yours
Robert Moore
RC (ViW: Tucker-Coleman Collection); endorsement by TJ torn; recorded in SJL as received 2 Mch. with notation “with Jerusalem wheat,” with a brace connecting it to the enclosure. Enclosure: William Moore to TJ, 19 Nov. 1804.
Robert Moore (1752-1807), a native of Ireland, had been a prominent ironmonger in Londonderry and a member of the United Irishmen. Following the failed uprising of 1798, he emigrated to America and eventually settled in Baltimore, where he established a dry goods firm, Robert Moore & Son, and was active in the city’s Benevolent Hibernian Society (Breandán Mac Suibhne, “Afterworld: The Gothic Travels of John Gamble [1770-1831],” Field Day Review, 4 [2008], 80-1; Tracy Matthew Melton, “‘We are All United as a Band of Brothers’: The Hibernian Society and Sectarian Relations in Baltimore,” Maryland Historical Magazine, 111 [2016], 48-9; Baltimore American, and Commercial Daily Advertiser, 19 June 1807).