Thomas B. Robertson to Thomas Jefferson, 15 May 1821
From Thomas B. Robertson
New Orleans 15 May 1821
Dear Sir
I beg leave to introduce to you Mr Henry Bry—He is an old inhabitant of Louisiana—you will find him an intelligent and agreeable man
Th B Robertson
RC (MHi); at foot of text: “Mr Jefferson”; endorsed by TJ as received 28 June 1821 “by mr Bry” and so recorded (with additional bracketed notation: “Bry”) in SJL.
Henry Bry (1781–1858), farmer and public official, was born in Geneva, Switzerland. By 1807 he had established himself in Ouachita Parish, Louisiana, where he was a parish judge. In 1810 Bry was one of ten persons nominated but was not chosen to sit on the five-member territorial council. He was receiver of public moneys for the Ouachita district from at least 1821 until his removal in 1830. Bry was interested in experimental agriculture, promoted sericulture in the region, and authored a geographical and cultural sketch of Ouachita published in 1847. In 1850 Bry owned twenty-nine slaves in addition to real estate valued at $59,450 (Bry to James Madison, 1 Sept. 1807 [DNA: RG 107, LRSW]; Dunbar Rowland, ed., Official Letter Books of W. C. C. Claiborne, 1801–1816 [1917], 4:221, 327, 6:4; DNA: RG 29, CS, La., Ouachita Parish, 1810, 1850, 1850 slave schedules; Madison, Papers, Pres. Ser., 2:260–2; , 9:896; , 3:251, 253, 437, 443, 4:9, 130 [28 Feb., 2 Mar. 1821, 5, 7 Mar. 1825, 9 Mar. 1829, 16 Dec. 1830]; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 12 July 1827; Journal of the Rev. Timothy Flint, from the Red River, to the Ouachitta or Washita, in Louisiana, in 1835 [1835], 21–2; Bry, “The Louisiana Ouachita Region,” Commercial Review of the South and West 3 [1847]: 225–30, 324–5, 407–11; gravestone inscription in Bry Cemetery, Monroe, Ouachita Parish).
Index Entries
- Bry, Henry; identified search
- Bry, Henry; introduced to TJ search
- Bry, Henry; visits Monticello search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Correspondence; letters of introduction to search
- Monticello (TJ’s Albemarle Co. estate); Visitors to; Bry, Henry search
- Robertson, Thomas Bolling; introduces H. Bry search
- Robertson, Thomas Bolling; letters from search