Jacob Constable to Thomas Jefferson, 24 April 1823
From Jacob Constable
Charlottesville Apl 24th 1823
Dr Sir/.
If there is any tie by which nature has a claim on man I Should be under the Strongest1 obligations to you if you would come here in time for the first Court here as I am confin,d within the walls of a prison and expect the Council of Genl Taylor. Mr Tazewell. & Wirt also Mr Southall & Barbour for me.2 Your presence would have great weight. I have been in Buisiness Unfortunate but never Unjust in all my Dealings with Mankind
Jacob Constable
PS. Republican principals have Great feeling.
RC (MHi); endorsed by TJ as received 27 Apr. 1823 and so recorded in SJL.
Constable was jailed in Charlottesville for “having on the night of the 20th of March, last … feloneously taking stealing and carrying away from the barroom of Elijah Brown of this County one pair of saddle bags containing five hundred dollars in Cash, and two pair of pantaloons of the property & goods and chattles of James Campbell” (Albemarle Co. Order Book [1822–23], 305). He pleaded not guilty at a 10 Oct. 1823 session of the Albemarle County Circuit Court, where he was described as a yeoman lately of Albemarle. The next day a jury convicted him and sentenced him to one year in the state penitentiary (Albemarle Co. Law Order Book [1822–31], 82, 83).
1. Manuscript: “Strogest.”
2. Omitted period at right margin editorially supplied.
Index Entries
- Albemarle County, Va.; jail and jailer search
- Albemarle County Circuit Court, Va. search
- Albemarle County Court, Va. search
- Barbour, Philip Pendleton; as attorney search
- Brown, Elijah; barroom of search
- Campbell, James (of Virginia); theft from search
- clothing; pantaloons search
- Constable, Jacob; jailed for theft search
- Constable, Jacob; letter from search
- currency; paper search
- household articles; saddlebags search
- jails; in Albemarle Co. search
- pantaloons search
- saddlebags search
- Southall, Valentine Wood; as attorney search
- Taylor, Robert Barraud; as attorney search
- Tazewell, Littleton Waller; as attorney search
- Wirt, William; as attorney general search