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Lot 76
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Newly-discovered letter re: his sister's estate from Thomas Jefferson to Col. Minor
Newly-discovered letter re: his sister's estate from Thomas Jefferson to Col. Minor
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Description:

Jefferson, Thomas (1743-1826) A compassionate family man, Thomas Jefferson helps his sister, Anne Scott "Nancy" Marks, recently widowed with settling her husband's estate, in a newly-discovered, and as yet, unpublished letter

Autograph Letter Signed, "Th:Jefferson," 1 page, 7.5" x 9.5" Monticello, October 25, 1814 to Colonel Lancelot Minor concerning the estate of his brother-in-law Hastings Marks. Formerly attached to a franked integral address leaf (color copy included for reference). Expected folds, extremely minor margin wear, else very fine.

Jefferson offers instructions to Minor, who served as a co-executor of his brother-in-law's estate, writing in full: "I am afraid I have waited too long expecting that the sheriff of Louisa [County] would send me a note of the amount of tax on mr Marks' land, as you mentioned in yours of Sep. 8 that you had requested him to do. I should immediately have inclosed him an order for it on Richmond. to supply both his & my omission I now inclose you 10.D by guess not knowing what the amount is. I have consulted mrs marks on the demand of mr Buck. She is entirely persuaded nothing is due to him from mr Marks. She observes that he was always a needy man and not likely to lie quietly so long out of his money. in this case the utmost an executor can do is to say that if mr Buck will produce such evidence as would be recieved [sic] in a court of justice, and would countervail the presumption of circumstances against it satisfactorily to your mind, or in other words if you believe from all circumstances the claim just, it will be paid. mrs Marks supposes he may be claiming against mr Hastings Marks the portion of payment which ought to have been made by Samuel Marks, and may be properly claimable against those who inherited his property. this however is only her conjecture of what is possible, & not from kno[w]ledge . Accept the assurance of my great esteem and respect."

Anne Scott "Nancy" Jefferson (1755-1828), Jefferson's youngest sister and twin of his brother Randolph Jefferson married Hastings Marks in 1787. In his will of 1805, Marks appointed Thomas Jefferson, together with Thomas M. Randolph, Lancelot Minor and his wife co-executor's of his estate. Following Marks' death in 1811, Anne came to Monticello to live, where she was known as "Aunt Marks," by Jefferson's children and grandchildren. (https://www.monticello.org/site/jefferson/anne-scott-jefferson-marks)

Lancelot Minor (1763-1848) was a Louisa County farmer who often served as a trustee, guardian, executor and agent for many of his neighbors. (http://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/03-04-02-0396)

Unpublished. Until the discovery of the present letter, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson: Retirement Series only records its existence recorded by Jefferson's epistolary journal housed at the Library of Congress (cited in Papers in volume 7, page 519n). The majority of Jefferson's correspondence with Minor is missing, and most extant surviving examples are housed in institutional holdings.

From the library of John Augustin Daly (1838-1899). Daly, one of the most important figures in nineteenth-century American theater, worked as a critic, manager, playwright and stage director. At the time of his death, he owned two major theaters, one in New York and the other in London. Daly is considered personally responsible for the careers of such acting greats as John Drew Jr. Maurice Barrymore, Fanny Davenport, Maude Adams, Sara Jewett, Isadora Duncan, Tyrone Power, Sr. and many others.

Daly was also an avid book lover and collector, amassing an enormous library of books and original manuscripts. That collection was dispersed in an epic, two-week auction at the American Art Association in New York in March 1900. The present letter was part of an extra-illustrated volume, described in the catalog as a "Unique copy, with autograph letters of all the Presidents inserted..." Walter Benjamin, writing in The Collector, described the sale as a "blaze of glory, due to the total having reached nearly $200,000." Benjamin attributed the sale's incredible success to "a small bookseller on 42d street, who appeared at the sale with apparently unlimited cash, and was soon the master of the situation." That "small bookseller," was George D. Smith (d. 1920), who, up until that time, had been an obscure and unsuccessful book dealer who began his career in 1883 with Dodd & Mead. Smith would dominate the market for the next two decades, working as an agent for some of the wealthiest collectors in the country, most notably Henry E. Huntington, for whom Smith purchased a portion of the Duke of Devonshire Library in 1914 for $1.5 million (American Art Association, Catalogue of the Valuable Literary and Art Property Gathered by the Late Augustin Daly, New York, 1900; The Collector, New York, May 1900, 1-2; Publisher's Weekly, March 13, 1920, 801; Ibid, March 21, 1914, 1008; "Geo. D. Smith Dies in HIs Book Store, New York Times, March 5, 1928, 13).

The extra-illustrated volume of presidents from which this piece derives fetched $850, nearly four times above the going rate for presidential sets at the time. According to Walter Benjamin, Smith quickly resold the volume for $1,000. The collection did not surface again until it appeared in a minor auction in early 2016. (The Collector, New York, May 1900, 1-2)

Provenance: John Augustin Daly; American Art Association, New York, March 19, 1900, Lot 3122; George D. Smith, New York.

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