Have you thoroughly checked out all the old papers you have in
the attic? Perhaps you should. A Belmont, Massachusetts attic was recently inventoried
as part of an estate settlement, revealing a two-page letter, dated 14 August
1811, from Thomas Jefferson to Henry Dearborn, former cabinet secretary.
"Apparently it was just one of those classic moments where
someone went poking into papers that had not been disturbed for fifty years
in an attic and discovered Thomas Jefferson," said Kenneth Gloss, who bought
the letter recently from members of an estate in Belmont who wished to remain
anonymous. Gloss, owner of Boston's Brattle Street Book Shop, said he expects
to sell the letter for upwards of $45,000 dollars. He said he will sell the
letter privately.
The Belmont house once belonged to a lawyer distantly related
to Dearborn, a former Jefferson secretary, and at the time of the correspondence
was a customs agent for the Port of Boston. In the letter, Jefferson, then two
years out of the White House, criticizes Bostonians’ lack of appetite for the
upcoming War of 1812.
"The powers & preeminences conferred on them are daggers
put into the hands of assassins, to be plunged into our own bosoms in the moment
the thrust can go home to the heart," Jefferson wrote.
Also among the papers were letters from John Quincy Adams. Those
were donated to the Massachusetts Historical Society. "A sensational little
find," said William Fowler, the society's director.
Dick Eastman Online
