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Thomas Jefferson autograph letter signed with initials ("Th: J") as President. ...
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Description
Thomas Jefferson autograph letter signed with initials ("Th: J") as President. One page, 7.75" x 9.75", no place; July 12, 1806. Addressed to Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1761-1849).President Thomas Jefferson addresses the Secretary of the Treasury concerning the salaries of lighthouse keepers.
Letter from Jefferson as president of the United States to Albert Gallatin (1761-1849), Secretary of the Treasury, concerning the salaries of lighthouse keepers. Jefferson writes, in full:
"Th:J. to mr Gallatin
I have kept the papers on the subject of raising the salaries of certain light-house keepers longer than usual, because I know that the systematic pressure on every government for augmenting salaries requires serious consideration. however if the salaries at present are not properly proportioned among themselves, I think it will be just and expedient to make them so, once for all, & hereafter to withstand individual sollicitations [sic] for particular augmentations. under this view I approve of the augmentations you propose. affectionate salutations."
President Thomas Jefferson is replying to Albert Gallatin's letter of July 5, 1806, in which the Treasury Secretary enclosed a communication from an unnamed individual in New London, Connecticut, requesting a salary increase for the keeper of the lighthouse on Little Gull Island in the Long Island Sound. Gallatin also informs Jefferson that the present keeper of the lighthouse at Sag Harbor, Long Island, will not remain at his post without a pay increase. The secretary recommends that increasing the salaries of these two keepers plus those of others that are found to be too low, proposing that the keepers of lighthouses in Newport, Rhode Island, Little Gull Island, and Portsmouth, New Hampshire, are most entitled, followed by those at Montauk, New York; Sandy Hook, New Jersey; and Tybee, Georgia. He then provided a list of keepers and the salary increases he recommends. In this letter, Jefferson conveys his agreement with Gallatin's recommendations. That Jefferson signed with his initials suggest that the letter may have been written in haste. It is accompanied by a hand-colored steel engraving of Jefferson by J. B. Forrest, circa 1840s, and a steel engraving of Gallatin by Johnson, Fry & Co.
Abraham Alfonse Albert Gallatin (1761-1849) is chiefly remembered as the founder of New York University and for his role as a politician and diplomat in the early United States. He represented Pennsylvania in the U.S. House and Senate before being appointed U.S. Secretary of the Treasury by President Thomas Jefferson. Under Jefferson and President James Madison, Gallatin served as secretary from 1801-1814, the longest in American history; he oversaw a reduction of the national debt prior to the War of 1812 and served on the American commission for the Treaty of Ghent, ending the War of 1812, after which he assisted in founding the Second Bank of the United States.
Condition: Four minor closed tears along horizontal folds since repaired.
Auction Info
2022 June 25 The Founding Fathers' Fight for Liberty and the Birth of a New Nation - Part I Manuscripts Signature® Auction #6257 (go to Auction Home page)
Auction Dates
June, 2022
25th
Saturday
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