Christopher Winckelblech to Thomas Jefferson, 25 May 1819
From Christopher Winckelblech
Trapp 25 May 1819.
Montgomery County Pensilvania.
Your Eexellency!
A serie of misfortune, the influence of inconsideration, my guaranty for the passage of numbers of my Contrimens, in the Ship Liberty of Philadelphia in the year 1805. the sale of all my property at Vendüe deed bring sush a disordre in my transactions, that I deed recover only few days ago the inclosed letter for Your Exellency.
Knewing the respect I own to Your Exellency, as well as to seeled lettres confided to my care You will receive your letter intact.
Asshamed as I am for my impardownable neglect, for the great offence comitted against your Exelleny, it is decharging my consience by a candid aknewlegement of my fault—
I beg your Exellency pardon with all humility, knewing no other reparation wathever I could make, or offer to your Exellency, I pray Your Clemeny to receive my respectefull peccavi—
Your Eexellency.
| Christopher Winckelblech |
| 18 Years first secretary in the general Post office, in Basel switzerland. |
RC (MoSHi: TJC-BC); dateline at foot of text; endorsed by TJ as received 3 June 1819 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: Frédéric L. Hammer to TJ, 26 Mar. 1805 (DLC).
Christopher Winckelblech (b. 1753), postal official, labor contractor, artisan, and shopkeeper, was born in Basel, Switzerland, where he served as secretary of the postal service. He was a director of the academy of arts and sciences in Basel and a member of agricultural and learned societies in France and Germany. In 1804 Winckelblech inquired of TJ about moving to the United States with a large group of Swiss emigrants. He arrived in Philadelphia the following year and acted as an agent for contracting out the work of his fellow passengers. Winckelblech worked in 1806 as an optician in Philadelphia. He advertised his services cleaning and restoring paintings and engravings and repairing mechanical work in 1807 in Baltimore, and in 1819 he operated a crockery and toy shop in Philadelphia (Christian Friedrich Rassmann, Pantheon Deutscher jetzt lebender Dichter [Helmstedt, 1823], 366; Winckelblech to TJ, 20 Aug. 1804 [DLC]; Philadelphia General Aurora Advertiser, 1 Nov. 1805; Philadelphia Der Pelican, 23 Dec. 1805; James Robinson, The Philadelphia Directory for 1806 [(Philadelphia, 1806)]; Federal Gazette & Baltimore Daily Advertiser, 4 May 1807; John Adems Paxton, The Philadelphia Directory and Register, for 1819 [(Philadelphia, 1819)]).