To James Madison from Samuel Sterett (Abstract), 9 March 1805
§ From Samuel Sterett
9 March 1805, Baltimore. “Mr. Charles Pochon,1 who is known to me to be a Citizen of the United States and a young Gentleman of Respectability, solicits a Passport from the Department of State, as he is about visiting the West Indies for a short Time.
“I would also solicit a Passport for Mr. Lewis Bernard,2 who was a Citizen of the United States, and served in our Army, during the revolutionary War. He has lived in this City for about Twenty Years with his Family and finds it necessary to go to the Havana about some mercantile Concerns.”
RC (DNA: RG 59, Letters Requesting Passports). 2 pp.; docketed by Wagner as received 10 Apr.
1. Charles F. Pochon (ca. 1789–1857) came to Pennsylvania with his parents in 1790 from Saint-Domingue. He became a grocery and dry-goods merchant in Baltimore (“Letters of Father Gallitzin, the Prince-Priest of the Alleghanies,” American Catholic Historical Researches 20 [1903]: 15–18; Baltimore Patriot & Mercantile Advertiser, 14 Feb. 1828; Baltimore Sun, 6 Apr. 1857).
2. Lewis Bernard owned a grocery business in Baltimore and also served as interpreter for Sterett (Robinson, Baltimore Directory for 1804 [ 5764], 20; , 4:336 n. 1).