Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library
Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library© 2001 By the Rector and Visitors of the University of Virginia. All rights reserved.
Funding: Web version of the finding aid funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Processed by: Special Collections Department
There are no restrictions.
See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.
Thomas Jefferson letter to Robert Patterson, 1814 November 23, Accession #11032, Special Collections Dept., University of Virginia Library, Charlottesville, Va.
The Jefferson letter was purchased by the Library from Andrew Cahan, Bookseller, Hillsborough, North Carolina, on April 2, 1992.
This letter was accompanied by an electrostatic copy of a letter from Julian Boyd, January 26, 1944, to Dr. Joseph B. Ringland, Oswego, New York, requesting a copy for the Jefferson Papers at Princeton, New Jersey.
This collection consists of an autograph letter signed, one page, from Thomas Jefferson, Monticello, November 23, 1814, to Dr. Robert Patterson (1743-1824) of Philadelphia, resigning as chairman of the American Philosophical Society. Jefferson writes, "for in truth I cannot be easy in holding as a sinecure an honor so justly due the talents and services of others." Patterson served as a professor of mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, 1779-1814, was appointed the director of the Philadelphia Mint by Jefferson in 1805, was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1783, and served as president of the Society from 1819 to 1824.