Dodge & Oxnard to Thomas Jefferson, 1 October 1821
From Dodge & Oxnard
Marseilles 1st October 1821
Esteemed Sir
We have the honor to annex a Copy of the letter our Joshua Dodge addressed to you on the 24th Ultimo & to inclose a Duplicate Bill of lading of the articles shipped for your account & risk per Brig Packet. We remain respectfully
Dodge & Oxnard
RC (MHi); on a sheet folded to form four pages, with first enclosure on pp. 1–2, letter on p. 3, and address on p. 4; in a clerk’s hand, signed in a second unidentified hand; addressed: “Thos Jefferson Esq Monticello Virginia”; stamped “SHIP”; franked; postmarked New York, 29 Dec.; endorsed by TJ as received 3 Jan. 1822 and so recorded in SJL; with possibly unrelated calculations by TJ on address leaf. Enclosures: (1) Dupl of Joshua Dodge to TJ, 24 Sept. 1821. (2) Bill of lading, Marseille, 27 Sept. 1821, according to which Dodge & Oxnard had shipped to TJ, bound for Boston aboard the brigantine Packet of Newburyport, commanded by George Campbell, twenty-five cases of wine, olive oil, macaroni, and anchovies (corresponding to the list in TJ to Dodge, 19 Apr. 1821) via Henry A. S. Dearborn, customs collector for Boston, who was to pay the freight of “fourteen Dollars per ton <to be measured in Boston> with ten pr % Primage and Average” (printed form in DLC; with blanks, filled by a clerk, rendered above in boldface; signed by Campbell).
Dodge & Oxnard was a Marseille mercantile partnership between Joshua Dodge and Thomas Oxnard (1775–1840). It announced its formation early in 1821 and lasted until at least 1827. TJ ordered wine and food from the firm between 1821 and the end of his life. Oxnard was a native of Portland, Maine. During the War of 1812 he commanded the privateer True Blooded Yankee. Oxnard married in Marseille in 1810 and ultimately settled there, engaging in mercantile business in that city and Gibraltar. He applied unsuccessfully in 1829 to replace Dodge as United States consul at Marseille and eventually died there (; P. P. F. Degrand, comp., Revenue Laws and Customhouse Regulations [2d ed.; Boston, 1821], 139; Boston Daily Advertiser, 18 Feb. 1823; Portland Gazette of Maine, 1 May 1827; Oxnard to Andrew Jackson, 13 Mar. 1829 [DNA: RG 59, LAR, 1829–37]; George Henry Preble, Genealogical Sketch of the First Three Generations of Prebles in America [1868], 145–6, 148; Salem, Mass., Essex Register, 12 Mar. 1814; Boston Daily Atlas, 11 Dec. 1834; New-York Spectator, 22 Aug. 1840).
Index Entries
- anchovies search
- Campbell, George (ship captain) search
- Dearborn, Henry Alexander Scammell; as Boston customs collector search
- Dodge, Joshua; and wine and groceries for TJ search
- Dodge & Oxnard (Marseille firm); and wine and groceries for TJ search
- Dodge & Oxnard (Marseille firm); identified search
- Dodge & Oxnard (Marseille firm); letter from search
- food; anchovies search
- food; macaroni search
- food; olive oil search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Business & Financial Affairs; orders wine from Dodge & Oxnard search
- macaroni; sent to TJ search
- oil; olive search
- olives; oil search
- Oxnard, Thomas; identified search
- Packet (brigantine) search
- wine; TJ orders from Dodge & Oxnard search