To James Madison from John Graham, 12 November 1806
From John Graham
Pittsburg 12th. Novr. 1806
Sir
I had the Honor to receive your Letter of the 3d Inst, this morning, and have to request that the name of the Person mentioned therein may be forwarded to me at Washington Ky. for I apprehend that I do not read it accurately.
I have taken every proper occasion to make enquiries as to the state of the Public Mind on this side the mountains, and it gives me pleasure to say, that the accounts I receive from all descriptions of People, lead to a beleif, that no serious impressions have been made, unfriendly to the Union. In this quarter of the Country nothing has been attempted beyond what you already know so at least I am taught to beleive.
From Marietta Blennerhassett where I am told Mr Burr is now expected1 I shall write you more fully. I am induced to think that he has made no serious attempts2 above that place. With Sentiments of the Highest Respect I have the Honor to be, Sir, Your Mo: Obt Sert
John Graham
RC (DLC: Burr Conspiracy Collection). Docketed by Wagner. Italicized words are those encoded by Graham using a State Department code, partially decoded interlinearly by Wagner and by the editors with assistance from James E. Lewis’s partially reconstructed key.
1. After “Marietta,” Graham wrote the code for “Blennerhassett”; Wagner interlinearly deciphered the code as “Mr Blenner Hasset,” then canceled his decoding. “Expected” was encoded “expecteb,” but Wagner decoded it correctly. In the early fall of 1806, while visiting Blennerhassett Island just south of Marietta, Ohio, Aaron Burr had arranged for vessels to be built to carry men on his expedition west. In an attempt to thwart Burr’s plans, the Ohio militia seized those vessels in early December, and the Wood County militia invaded Blennerhassett’s estate on the island; Burr was in Frankfort, Kentucky, at the time (Nancy Isenberg, Fallen Founder: The Life of Aaron Burr [New York, 2007], 304, 315).
2. Graham wrote the code for “attempts”; Wagner interlinearly decoded it as “attempt.”