Thomas J. O’Flaherty to Thomas Jefferson, 10 March 1823
From Thomas J. O’Flaherty
Rappahannock Academy. Caroline. 10th March 1823.
Venerable and Patriotic Sage,
Your cooperative and successful efforts in procuring happiness not only for the present, but future generation of this Mighty Republic are encircled with immortal honours. Your triumphant exertions in erecting the house of mental illumination on the mountain-top will throw a light on the unborn sons of Virginia and direct and compel them to associate with the name of Jefferson every thing Patriotic, Enlightened and Great. In the proper organization of this nursery of Genius what may not she expect?
She will at length have the happy opportunity of condensing her resources, of preserving her domestic and public features, and of continuing to be, like some of her Sons, the first in War, in Peace, and in the Affection of the Sisterhood. Fortunate are they, who will be raised to the enviable station of infusing into the minds of her children the varied lights of Science and of Truth. Contented must be even the unsuccessful Candidates, by the reflection that others have been found, more worthy and better qualified than they. Will be deemed unseasonable if I enter the list, as Candidate for the Professorship of Languages? I should have had the honour of an interview, with you, had my duties, as Principal of this Institution permitted. As this honour is, at present, denied me, I herewith send for your inspection a few documents relative to my views.
Hoping to be honoured with an answer from you,
Thomas J OFlaherty
RC (ViU: TJP); written on a sheet folded to form four pages, with enclosures on pp. 1–2, letter on p. 3, and address on p. 4; dateline at foot of text; addressed: “Thomo Jefferson Civitatum fœdere populari Conjunctarum Ante-præsidi, hanc epistolam D.D.D Auctor” (“The author gave and dedicated this letter to Thomas Jefferson, former president of the states joined by a popular pact”); endorsed by TJ as received 13 Mar. 1823 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosed in TJ to James Madison, 14 Mar. 1823, and Madison to TJ, 21 Mar. 1823.
Thomas John O’Flaherty (ca. 1801–46), educator and Catholic clergyman, was born in County Kerry, Ireland. Having been educated in Ireland and France, he moved around 1820 to Virginia, where he was principal of the Rumford Academy in King William County and the Rappahannock Academy in Caroline County before conducting his own classical school in Richmond in 1823. O’Flaherty graduated from the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1828. He decided not to practice medicine, moving instead to Boston and soon being ordained into the Catholic priesthood. O’Flaherty coedited the Jesuit or Catholic Sentinel, a weekly journal in Boston, 1829–33, and became diocesan vicar general in 1830. After spending seven years in Ireland, he returned to Boston and officiated at Saint Mary’s Church, 1840–42. Due to a factional dispute with his co-pastor, in the latter year O’Flaherty transferred to Saint Mary’s Church in Salem, where he died (Robert H. Lord, John E. Sexton, and Edward T. Harrington, History of the Archdiocese of Boston [1944–45], 2:49, 198–200, 267, 273–4, 301–6; Richmond Enquirer, 28 Dec. 1820, 16 Sept., 24 Oct. 1823; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 11 Feb. 1822; George M. Gould, ed., The Jefferson Medical College of Philadelphia [1904], 2:82; Boston Daily Atlas, 31 Mar. 1846; Boston Emancipator, 8 Apr. 1846; O’Flaherty’s will in Essex Co., Mass., probate records, vol. 413, book 113, pp. 347–8).
house of mental illumination: the University of Virginia. first in war: O’Flaherty is evoking the famous description by Henry Lee (1756–1818) of George Washington as “First in war—first in peace—and first in the hearts of his countrymen” (Lee, A Funeral Oration, on the death of General Washington, delivered in the German Lutheran Church, Philadelphia: at the request of Congress, on the twenty-sixth of December, 1799 [Philadelphia: John Ormrod, 1800], 16). In addition to the demonstrations of skills in Greek, Latin, and French printed below, the few documents enclosed here also included a letter by Robert S. Garnett, another by Thomas Cooper, and two letters by O’Flaherty to which these were probably replies, with one or more of these otherwise unidentified documents probably among those sent to TJ by James Monroe on 12 Jan. 1824 and described there.
Index Entries
- Cooper, Thomas (1759–1839); and T. J. O’Flaherty search
- Garnett, Robert Selden; and T. J. O’Flaherty search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Correspondence; letters of application and recommendation to search
- Lee, Henry (1756–1818); funeral oration for G. Washington search
- O’Flaherty, Thomas John; identified search
- O’Flaherty, Thomas John; letter from search
- O’Flaherty, Thomas John; seeks professorship search
- patronage; letters of application and recommendation to TJ search
- Rappahannock Academy; principal of search
- schools and colleges; Rappahannock Academy search
- Virginia, University of; Faculty and Curriculum; faculty applicants search
- Washington, George; and H. Lee’s funeral oration search