Thomas Jefferson to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp, 19 January 1823
To Francis Adrian Van der Kemp
Monticello Jan. 19. 23.
Dear Sir
Your favor of Dec. 19. was long on it’s passage to me, and finds me in a condition but shortly to acknolege it’s reciept. a dislocation of my right wrist while in Paris, and the impracticability of reducing the carpal bones to their order has always been an impediment in my writing, and the effect of age has been gradually increasing the difficulty till now the motion of the wrist is nearly lost, the fingers of the hand become distorted and their joints1 almost inflexible; and I am under the physical necessity of giving up writing. this disability imposed on me by nature must excuse me to my friends for not doing what it is impossible for me to do. perhaps too it may have been a providential favor to prevent my2 betraying on paper that wane of the mind which is the necessary3 effect of the decline of body, and of which we are apt to be insensible ourselves when become very obvious to others. I shall still hope however to hear from my friends occasionally altho’ I cannot answer them, and from none with more pleasure than from yourself, of the continuance of your health & happiness of which I pray you to be entirely assured.
Th: Jefferson
RC (Sotheby’s, New York City, auction 5575, 13 May 1987, lot 76); addressed: “Mr Fr. Adr. Vander Kemp Oldenbarneveld New York”; franked; postmarked Milton, 21 Jan.; endorsed by Van der Kemp as answered 26 May. Dft (DLC); on verso of RC of Van der Kemp to TJ, 19 Dec. 1822.
TJ’s recent injury to his left arm also continued to trouble him. Ellen W. Randolph (Coolidge) reported to Nicholas P. Trist from Monticello on 20 Jan. 1823 that “Grandpapa has got his arm freed from the bandages, but still wears it in a sling, and has scarcely at all recovered the use of it” (RC in DLC: NPT). The next day Elizabeth Trist wrote from Liberty to her grandson Nicholas P. Trist: “I presume you heard of Mr Jeffersons misfortune he fell down one of those flights of Steps that leads from the Terrace and hurt him self exceedingly; the inner bone of his arm was fractured at the wrist this was the most serious his hand was badly cut and his head and shoulders a little, they soon got Dr Watkins owing to his skill he has sufferd no pain since the first day and tho Cornelia says from his looks and voice which is always affected by the least indisposition he has not found it necessary to keep his room since the first day rest well at night and has a good appetite” (RC in DLC: NPT). And in a letter dated Carr’s-brook, 22 Jan. [1823], Martha J. Terrell Minor told Dabney C. Terrell that “Mr Jefferson broke his left arm in the fall, and it is supposed, from his advanced age, that he will never entirely recover the use of it. It has not however ‘cost him a day.’ He [has] always appeared at meals, and never even suff[ered a] servant to make up his fire for him” (RC in ViU); partially dated; torn at seal and crease).
1. Preceding two words interlined in Dft.
2. Reworked in Dft from “providential care to hinder me from.”
3. Word interlined in Dft in place of “constant.”
Index Entries
- aging; TJ on his own search
- bandages search
- Coolidge, Ellen Wayles Randolph (TJ’s granddaughter); and TJ’s health search
- Coolidge, Ellen Wayles Randolph (TJ’s granddaughter); correspondence with N. P. Trist search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Correspondence; fatiguing or painful to search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Descriptions of; appearance search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Descriptions of; appetite search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Descriptions of; by C. J. Randolph search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Descriptions of; voice search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Health; aging search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Health; broken arm search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Health; injured in fall search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Health; wrist injury search
- medicine; bandages search
- medicine; slings search
- Minor, Martha Jefferson Terrell (TJ’s sister Martha Jefferson Carr’s granddaughter; Dabney Minor’s second wife); and TJ’s health search
- Minor, Martha Jefferson Terrell (TJ’s sister Martha Jefferson Carr’s granddaughter; Dabney Minor’s second wife); correspondence of search
- Monticello (TJ’s Albemarle Co. estate); terraces at search
- Randolph, Cornelia Jefferson (TJ’s granddaughter); and TJ’s health search
- Terrell, Dabney Carr (TJ’s grandnephew); correspondence of search
- Trist, Elizabeth House; and TJ’s health search
- Trist, Elizabeth House; correspondence with N. P. Trist search
- Trist, Elizabeth House; visits Liberty, Va. search
- Trist, Nicholas Philip; correspondence with E. W. R. Coolidge search
- Van der Kemp, Francis Adrian; and TJ’s health search
- Van der Kemp, Francis Adrian; letters to search
- Watkins, Thomas G.; and TJ’s health search