Joseph C. Cabell to Thomas Jefferson, 27 October 1823
From Joseph C. Cabell
Edgewood. 27 Oct: 1823.
Dear Sir.
I herewith return you Mr Coffey’s work on the state Prison of New York, with my best thanks for the use of it. I will take the liberty to retain Roscoe’s work a little longer, as I have been so much engaged in my brother’s affairs of late as to have been unable to read it. I am sorry to inform you that I am unable to find the Oxford & Cambridge Guide any where about my House, & that I know not what has become of it. It is probably in the hands of some one to whom it has been lent, but I fear it will not be recovered. I will send it to you without delay, if I ever get hold of it. Looking to a better eventual arrangement of my property, I became, at my brother’s sale, the purchaser of his Midway tract of land, which sold for $17,725. This purchase will greatly augment, for a few years, my pecuniary difficulties, and will probably render it necessary for me to withdraw for a time altogether from public business. I shall attend the next session of the Legislature, & if I should sell my farm here or in Lancaster, I might still persevere in my present course. But as neither of these events is probable, I have thought it proper to apprize you of the purchase & of its probable consequences, that you might not be unprepared with a fit person to execute your views in Europe.
Joseph C. Cabell
RC (ViU: TJP-PC); endorsed by TJ as received 4 Nov. 1823 and so recorded in SJL. Enclosure: “One Who Knows” [William A. Coffey], Inside Out; or, An Interior View of the New-York State Prison; together with biographical sketches of the lives of several of the convicts (New York, 1823; Poor, Jefferson’s Library, 11 [no. 632]). Enclosed in TJ to James Madison, 6 Nov. 1823, and Madison to TJ, 11 Nov. 1823.
The midway tract of about 1,600 acres was located on the James River near Warminster in Nelson County. It had formerly been the home of Cabell’s brother William H. Cabell (Richmond Enquirer, 10 Oct. 1823). Up to this point Cabell had been considered a fit person to travel to Europe and hire the University of Virginia’s first faculty.
Index Entries
- books; on jails and prisons search
- Cabell, Joseph Carrington; and recruitment of University of Virginia faculty search
- Cabell, Joseph Carrington; as Va. state senator search
- Cabell, Joseph Carrington; books owned by search
- Cabell, Joseph Carrington; finances of search
- Cabell, Joseph Carrington; letters from search
- Cabell, Joseph Carrington; purchases land search
- Cabell, William H.; finances of search
- Cambridge University search
- Coffey, William A.; Inside Out; or, An Interior View of the New-York State Prison (written as “One Who Knows”) search
- Europe; and recruitment of faculty for University of Virginia search
- Inside Out; or, An Interior View of the New-York State Prison (”One Who Knows” [W. A. Coffey]) search
- jails and prisons; books on search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Books & Library; works sent to search
- New York (state); prisons in search
- New-York State Prison (New York City) search
- Observations on Penal Jurisprudence, and the Reformation of Criminals (W. Roscoe) search
- Oxford, University of search
- Roscoe, William; Observations on Penal Jurisprudence, and the Reformation of Criminals search
- schools and colleges; Cambridge University search
- schools and colleges; laws and regulations governing search
- schools and colleges; University of Oxford search
- United States; prisons in search
- Virginia, University of; Faculty and Curriculum; recruitment of faculty search
- Virginia; General Assembly search