Administrative Information

Access Restrictions

Collection is open to research.

Use Restrictions

See the University of Virginia Library’s use policy.

Preferred Citation

A Guide to a James Madison Letter, Accession 11201, Special Collections Department, University of Virginia Library

Acquisition Information

This letter was purchased by the University of Virginia Library on September 20, 1995.

Funding Note

Funded in part by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities

Scope and Content

This collection consists of an autograph one page letter, August 4, 1827, from James Madison , Rector of the University of Virginia , Montpellier, to Nicholas Philip Trist , Secretary of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, Tufton near Charlottesville, concerning the vacancy that occurred at the University when Thomas Hewitt Key , Professor of Mathematics, returned to England in 1827. Charles Bonnycastle, Professor of Natural Philosophy, filled Key's vacant chair in 1827, and Robert M. Patterson eventually replaced Bonnycastle as Professor of Natural Philosophy.

Madison also apologizes for asking Trist to search the works of Benjamin Franklin at the University Library for a portion that may have been, upon further reflection, omitted by the editors. He refers to the necessity of finding out the amount remaining in the fund formerly administered by the late Mr. Rufus King , U.S. minister to Great Britain, 1825-1826, in order to purchase some needed apparatus for the University. He promises to write to King's executor as soon as he finds the address, and asks Trist to search Thomas Jefferson's correspondence with King for information about the fund. Madison also mentions Mr. Albert Gallatin , U.S. minister to Great Britain, 1826-1827, whose "efforts promise no aid in filling the vacant chair. I shall write him a few lines, intimating the duties assigned & assignable to it; but without any certainty that he will be found in England. Mr. Bonnycastle, in the moment of taking leave of us, dropped an intimation that he had asked of Mr. [Peter] Barlow information as to an attainable & fit successor."