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Jefferson ALS as President, Debt Inherited From Father-in-Law's Estate of 135 Slaves, Including Sally Hemings
Jefferson ALS as President, Debt Inherited From Father-in-Law's Estate of 135 Slaves, Including Sally Hemings
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Jefferson ALS as President, Debt Inherited From Father-in-Law's Estate of 135 Slaves, Including Sally Hemings

Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826). Autograph Letter Signed, "Th: Jefferson", as President, 1p, 6.75" x 7.75", Washington, February 27, 1807. Faint pencil notations from previous collector at left. Folds and light creases; toning; some areas of ink haloing; else, in near fine condition. Extremely scarce. Only a handful of letters regarding Jefferson's struggle with debt have reached the public sale market in the last four decades.

John Wayles (1715-1773) is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson. He was a colonial American planter, slave trader and lawyer in colonial Virginia. Wayles left a huge estate to his three daughters, and the Wayles heirs decided to divide up the estate’s land and slaves among themselves. The Jeffersons’ share was 11,000 acres and 135 slaves, and among the slaves was the Hemings family, which included Sally Hemings (c.1773-1835), the mother of six children by Thomas Jefferson and half-sister of Martha Jefferson. But the heirs also inherited Wayles’ substantial debt. Much of this was owed to British creditors, such as the London mercantile firm of Robert Cary & Company. 

In 1774, the heirs - Jefferson and his brothers-in-law Francis Eppes and Henry Skipwith - made a plan to sell the less-desirable lands and liquidate the British debts. The Revolution came the very next year, but Jefferson proceeded with the sale of his portion of the land, accepting installment payments, as was customary. These payments ended up being made in the depreciated paper money issued during the war. Under Virginia’s wartime legal tender act, Jefferson was obligated to accept the money, of which he would later remark “The paper-money for which my lands were sold with a view to pay off Mr. Wayles’ debts, leave this work to be done over again.”

The recipient of the here offered letter is Littleton Waller Tazewell (1774-1860), an attorney who served six years in the Virginia House of Delegates and sat in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1800 to 1801. Politically, Tazewell was a Jeffersonian Republican. In 1798 Tazewell’s nephew Benjamin Carter Waller was the agent for Robert Cary & Company, so Tazewell got involved in trying to collect the remaining debt due from the Wayles estate. As early as 1799, Jefferson wrote Tazewell about the debt, saying “I fear you will have considered me as improperly in default.”

Years pass, and Jefferson continues to struggle with the Wayles debt. On January 15, 1807, Tazewell wrote to President Jefferson, apologizing to him for the intrusion, but nonetheless, looking for payment: "A recent communication from those to whom I am accountable for what I do relative to the business of the late firm of Robt. Cary & Co. of London which has been committed to my charge, makes it necessary for me again to address you upon that part of this subject in which you are concerned. I have forborne to trouble you sooner, under the assurance that whensoever you could find it convenient to discharge the whole or any important part of your debt I should hear from you. And still influenced by the same consideration I should not now have made this application. But acting under the directions of others I am reluctantly compelled to request, that you will be so good as to make payment of this debt, or such part of it as you can find it convenient to discharge, at the earliest period which your own arrangements will admit.”

Jefferson responds by putting Tazewell off, while implying, but not promising, he would pay. The here offered letter, in full: "Although your letter of Jan. 15. was received soon after that date, it has not been in my power sooner to notice it; nor can I at this time do more than acknowledge it’s receipt. My papers relative to Mr. Wayles’s debt to Robt. Cary & co. are at Monticello, to which place I make a short visit every spring in order to pay some attention to my private affairs. I shall go there in the ensuing month, and will from thence write you on the subject of your letter. In the mean time accept my friendly salutations and assurances of great esteem & respect."

For the next 53 years, the debt would remain unpaid. This burden was a constant companion for Jefferson throughout the Revolutionary War, his term as vice president, his two terms as president, and his entire retirement.

This item comes with a Certificate from John Reznikoff, a premier authenticator for both major 3rd party authentication services, PSA and JSA (James Spence Authentications), as well as numerous auction houses.

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