Thomas Jefferson Papers

Hendrick W. Gordon to Thomas Jefferson, 22 February 1817

From Hendrick W. Gordon

Merrimack, N, Hampshire, February 22nd 1817.

Sir

The interest you have taken in the manufactures of our Country, has induced me to offer for your examination the scraps of cloth herewith enclosed; they are from peices spun & wove in my own family, and dressed in this neighbourhood by a native born American. Either of the peices would afford a profit at $3 dolls a yard, single width. Let the enemies of American manufactures say what they will, we are not an independent people without them.

With great consideration of Respect & Esteem, I am, Sir, Your most Obedient Servant,

Hendrick W Gordon.

RC (MHi); endorsed by TJ as a letter of 2 Feb. 1817 received 15 Mar. 1817 and so recorded in SJL. RC (DLC); address cover only; with PoC of TJ to John Barnes, 17 May 1817, on verso; addressed: “Honourable Thomas Jefferson, Esquire, Late President of the U States. Monticello”; franked.

Hendrick W. Gordon (ca. 1782–1819), merchant, operated a hotel near Boston in 1804 and by 1806 was the proprietor of a mercantile firm in that city. In 1814 President James Madison followed up his recess appointment of Gordon as federal tax collector for the 10th Collection District in Massachusetts by nominating him for the same position, but the Senate declined to confirm him. Although Gordon applied for federal offices multiple times between 1813 and 1817 and was recommended by John Adams, he secured no other post. Secretary of the Navy William Jones described him to Madison in 1813 as “not long since a Federalist and unfit.” By July 1815 Gordon had relocated permanently to Merrimack, New Hampshire, where he acted as a justice of the peace (Gordon to John Quincy Adams, 13 Sept. 1817, and other material in his files in DNA: RG 59, LAR, 1809–25; Madison, Papers, Pres. Ser., 5:635–6, 6:54, 693; Boston Gazette, 21 May 1804, 23 Oct. 1806; JEP description begins Journal of the Executive Proceedings of the Senate of the United States description ends , 2:455, 468 [18 Jan., 4 Feb. 1814]; The New-Hampshire Register, and Pocket Almanack, for the year 1817 [Exeter and Concord, N.H., 1816], 52; Portsmouth Oracle, 3 Apr. 1819).

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