The 601 documents in this volume cover the period from 16 September 1822 to 30 June 1823. Jefferson’s daily life was complicated in November 1822 when a fall from the steps leading off of one of the terraces at Monticello left him with a broken left arm and an injured wrist. Within a few weeks of the accident he observed to his friend John Barnes that “for three days past I have begun to take my habitual exercise on horseback,” but in May 1823, during a ride “without a servant to attend him” and with his arm still in a sling, Jefferson tumbled into the Rivanna River when his horse became stuck in the muddy riverbed. While uninjured, he remarked that had he drowned, it might have been believed “that he had committed suicide,” presumably a wry comment on his insolvency. During this period Jefferson found temporary relief from his most pressing financial difficulty. Early in 1823 he succeeded in transferring from the Bank of the United States to the College of William and Mary the $20,000 debt he had incurred by cosigning notes for Wilson C. Nicholas. Jefferson’s grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph, a son-in-law and executor of Nicholas, assumed responsibility for the loan, which was never fully repaid.
Public awareness of the new University of Virginia was further enhanced with the publication of Peter Maverick’s engraving of the ground plan, which included the school’s architectural centerpiece, the Rotunda. Before Jefferson and the Board of Visitors approached the Virginia General Assembly for a final loan to complete that structure, the board requested an evaluation of the account books of the university and its predecessor, Central College. The resulting investigation, which showed that expenditures had been properly distributed and recorded, helped persuade the Virginia General Assembly to approve an additional $60,000 loan for the university in February 1823. Although construction continued, the opening date for the school remained uncertain. Nevertheless, educators reached out in search of employment. To bolster his claim for a post teaching languages, Thomas J. O’Flaherty sent a portfolio that included compositions in Greek, Latin, and French. Like others before him, he soon learned from Jefferson that his candidacy was “premature.”
Despite Jefferson’s complaints of age and difficulty writing, numerous unsolicited letters continued to arrive. Henry Roi, a Swiss-born clock- and watchmaker in Hamburg, Pennsylvania, sent a lengthy essay describing his vision for a new utopian community where “an abundance of the necessairys of life” would “prevent the mischiefs that need creats.” Jefferson also received letters from France and the Netherlands, and he learned of the death of Giovanni Fabbroni, an old acquaintance from Florence. He continued to correspond with John Adams, although in April 1823 Jefferson wrote but apparently did not send him a particularly revealing letter on the subject of religion.
Political and foreign affairs also occupied the thoughts of Jefferson and his correspondents at this time. France’s 1823 invasion of Spain in a successful effort to crush the revolutionary movement there and restore King Ferdinand VII to absolute power was discussed with James Monroe and William Short. The family at Monticello enjoyed a visit from the dashing José Antonio Miralla, with whom Jefferson talked about that revolutionary’s hopes for Cuban independence. On the domestic front Jefferson exchanged long letters with United States Supreme Court justice William Johnson in which both men commented on that tribunal’s history, composition, and jurisdiction. Other writers raised the issue of the approaching 1824 presidential contest, leading Jefferson to permit James O. Morse to publish a letter in which the ex-president emphasized his steadfast determination to “take no part in that election.” Jefferson similarly disappointed the hopes of Robert Mayo and William A. Bartow for a personal endorsement of their “library system of education,” but he subscribed to the newly formed Albemarle Library Society and helped prepare a list of books recommended for acquisition by that institution. His granddaughter Virginia J. Randolph (Trist) observed that the exclusion of novels from this catalogue was likely to disappoint the ladies of the county.
Jefferson’s family expanded in November 1822, when his grandson Francis Eppes married Mary Elizabeth Randolph. Jefferson turned over to the newlyweds the mansion he had designed at Poplar Forest in Bedford County and made his last visit there in May 1823. He was saddened to learn that his neighbor James Monroe did not plan to return to live in Albemarle County when his presidency ended, but Jefferson understood his friend’s desire to be closer to his family, noting that “the society of our children is the sovereign balm of life, and the older we grow the more we need it, to fill up the void made by the daily losses of the companions and friends of our youth.” Discussing his own health and outlook in the same letter to Monroe, Jefferson wrote and then canceled “but my race is near it’s term, and not nearer, I assure you, than I wish.”
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