Thomas Jefferson to Christopher Hudson, 9 August 1815
To Christopher Hudson
Monticello Aug. 9. 15.
Dear Sir
When I had the pleasure of being with you the day before yesterday, you mentioned your1 want of a pair of hedge-shears, and that you had to wait till they could be imported from Europe. I knew I had had a pair but it had been so long since I had seen them that I was not sure they could now be found, and therefore said nothing. on my return it was my first object to have them sought for, and I am happy that being found I am enabled to ask your acceptance of them. you will percieve by their having never been used that I have no employment for them. Accept the assurance of my friendly esteem and respect.
Th: Jefferson
PoC (MHi); on verso of reused address cover of a missing letter from Brockholst Livingston to TJ, 8 June 1815, which is addressed in Livingston’s hand “Thos Jefferson Esqr Monticello,” to be delivered by “Mr Bruen,” and recorded in SJL as received 1 Aug. 1815 from New York “(by mr Bruen)”; at foot of text: “Capt Hudson”; endorsed by TJ.
Christopher Hudson (1758–1825), planter, lived at Mount Air, his estate near Keene in Albemarle County. He was active in the Virginia militia during the Revolutionary War and warned TJ on 4 June 1781 that British forces were approaching Monticello, thus allowing TJ to escape capture. Hudson helped TJ combat rumors of cowardly behavior as governor with an 1805 deposition describing TJ’s composure on this occasion as well as during an earlier British incursion into Virginia in April 1781. Hudson and TJ both held shares in a 400-acre, limestone-bearing tract along the Hardware River in Albemarle County. In 1819 they joined in a lawsuit against two men who claimed ownership of a portion of this land. At his death Hudson left thousands of acres of land as well as personal property valued at about $7,000, including at least twenty-eight slaves (“Bible Record of Hudson, Gilmer, Etc.,” TJ to Mary Stith, 7 Mar. 1811; TJ’s List of his Taxable Property in Albemarle County, 14 May 1815; TJ to Robert Anderson, 13 June 1819; Albemarle Co. Will Book, 8:101–3, 115–7, 9:243–4; gravestone inscription in family cemetery at Mount Air).
, 1st ser., 20 [1912]: 214–5; , 86, 98, 231; , 2:533; , 1:664, 668, 4:261, 277–8, 28:570–1;1. TJ here canceled “wish for.”