“ house and his friendship and best wishes toward his much esteemed connections; and he is satisfied that the life of such a man must offer a model & useful lesson to mankind in generall. he salutes m ( ^~r ) Barton with friendship & respect.”

On August 4, 1814, at the end of a long letter to Jefferson in which he discusses the prospects of undertaking an American biographical work, Barton wrote: “Having been very lately in Philadelphia, my Bookseller informed me he had forwarded to you the six copies of my “Memoirs.”--Will you permit me to request, that the amount of your Subscription ($18) may be remitted to me.”

Jefferson sent the money on August 16, through Dufief of Philadelphia, with a request that he pay certain bills for him, owing to the difficulty of remitting small & fractional sums. The bills included: W. Barton, Lancaster (for Rittenhouse’s life) D18.

The work contains many references to Jefferson, and several of his letters to Rittenhouse are quoted in full. The passage from the Notes on Virginia in answer to the Abbé Raynal, with eulogies on Washington, Franklin, and Rittenhouse, is also quoted, ending: He [i.e. Rittenhouse] has not indeed made a world; but he has by imitation approached nearer its Maker, than any man who has lived from the creation to this day.

Jefferson sent a copy of this work to John Adams. The postscript to a long letter written on January 24, 1814, reads: “ I return your letter of Nov. 15. as it requests: and supposing that the late publication of the life of our good & really great Rittenhouse may not have reached you I send a copy for your acceptance. even it’s episodes and digressions may add to the amusement it will furnish you. but if the history of the world were written on the same scale, the whole world would not hold it. Rittenhouse, as an astronomer, would stand on a line with any of his time, and as a mechanician he certainly has not been equalled. in this view he was truly great. but, placed alongside of Newton, every human character must appear diminutive, & none would have shrunk more feelingly from the painful parallel than the modest and amiable Rittenhouse, whose genius and merit are not the less for this exaggerated comparison of his over zealous biographer. ”

This book was at one period missing from the Library, and is on the manuscript list of Books Missing from Congress Library made after 1815.

William Barton, 1739-1823, Counsellor-at-Law, was the nephew of David Rittenhouse, and the brother of Benjamin Smith Barton. He was a member of the American Philosophical Society and of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

David Rittenhouse, 1732-1796, Philadelphia instrument maker, astronomer and mathematician, was the first director of the United States Mint. He was closely associated with Jefferson on various projects, including the establishment of a decimal system of weights and measures.

Jefferson’s copy was bound in calf, gilt, by John March on April 26, 1806, cost $1.00.

Hugh Henry Brackenridge, 1748-1816, was born in Scotland, but brought to America at the age of five. This work is concerned with his part in the Whiskey Rebellion. The original intention was to publish it in three volumes, and the sheets are so marked; the pagination of vol. II and III begins with (5), and the last page of vol. I has the catchword Appendix. He corresponded with Jefferson relative to the Notes on Virginia and on other matters.