Joseph Hopper Nicholson (1770–1817), legislator and judge, was a native of Maryland’s Eastern Shore. After studying law, he served in the Maryland House of Delegates, 1796–98, and in the United States House of Representatives, 1799–1806. Nicholson strongly supported TJ during the 1800 presidential election and became a Republican leader closely allied with fellow congressmen John Randolph of Roanoke and Nathaniel Macon. From 1806 until his death Nicholson served as chief justice of Maryland’s sixth judicial district, in which capacity he also served on the Court of Appeals, the state’s highest tribunal. In 1810 he became president of the Commercial and Farmers’ Bank of Baltimore. During the War of 1812 Nicholson raised and commanded a company of artillery and was present at the successful September 1814 defense of Baltimore. Shortly thereafter he assisted his brother-in-law Francis Scott Key in publishing “The Defence of Fort McHenry,” a poem that became better known as “The Star Spangled Banner.” TJ and Nicholson corresponded occasionally on governmental matters early in the 1800s (DAB description begins Allen Johnson and Dumas Malone, eds., Dictionary of American Biography, 1928–36, 20 vols. description ends ; PTJ description begins Julian P. Boyd, Charles T. Cullen, John Catanzariti, Barbara B. Oberg, and others, eds., The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950– , 34 vols. description ends , esp. 32:512–3; Scott S. Sheads, “Joseph Hopper Nicholson: Citizen-Soldier of Maryland,” Maryland Historical Magazine 98 [2003]: 133–51; Baltimore Niles’ Weekly Register, 8 Mar. 1817).

James H. McCulloh (ca. 1792–1869), physician, banker, and author, attended the College of New Jersey (later Princeton University) and earned a medical degree from the University of Pennsylvania in 1814, with a final essay on the castor-oil plant. That same year he was appointed a garrison surgeon in the United States Army in his native Maryland, serving until 1816. McCulloh assisted Louis H. Girardin in 1822 in organizing the Academy of Science and Literature in Baltimore. He served as deputy collector for the port of Baltimore under his father, James H. McCulloch (1756–1836), from roughly 1827 until about 1835. McCulloh served as president of the Bank of Baltimore, 1841–53. He wrote books on the origins of Native Americans and on Christianity (General Catalogue of the American Whig-Cliosophic Society of Princeton University [ca. 1952], 63; Catalogue of the Alumni of the Medical Department of the University of Pennsylvania, 1765–1877 [1877], 113; Heitman, U.S. Army description begins Francis B. Heitman, comp., Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1903, 2 vols. description ends , 1:661; TJ to McCulloh, 7 Nov. 1817; McCulloh to TJ, 14 Nov. 1817; John R. Quinan, Medical Annals of Baltimore From 1608 to 1880 [1884], 32; R. J. Matchett, Matchett’s Baltimore Directory for 1827 [1827], 177; Matchett’s Baltimore Director, Corrected up to September, 1835. For 1835–6 [1835], 170; J. Thomas Smith, “The National Bank of Baltimore,” Bankers’ Magazine 52 [1896]: 620–32; McCulloh, An Impartial Exposition of the Evidences and Doctrines of the Christian Religion [1836]; McCulloh, On the Credibility of the Scriptures [1867]; DNA: RG 29, CS, Md., Baltimore City, 1850, 1860; Baltimore Sun, 25, 28 Dec. 1869).

McCulloh’s work on the aboriginal history of the United States resulted in a book entitled Researches on America; being an attempt to settle some points relative to the Aborigines of America, &c. (Baltimore, 1816; Poor, Jefferson’s Library description begins Nathaniel P. Poor, Catalogue. President Jefferson’s Library, 1829 description ends , 5 [no. 173]; TJ’s copy in MiU-C).