17

Jefferson, who was already " eager "to have his voice in" the "great questions of the session" and who thus learned of the action of the Convention, was inspired 18 to draft a plan for the new government (of Virginia), and this (now in the New York Public Library, Lenox) he gave to Wythe (who was present in Congress on June 8th or 10th or on both days, we know, and who departed probably on the 13th) to lay before that body.

Meanwhile, as shown by a letter, dated Williamsburg, June 15th, from William Fleming, to Jefferson: "[S] The progress of the business in the convention is, according to the custom, but slow. - The Declaration of rights which is to serve as the basis of a new government, you will see in the news papers; the form or constitution of which is yet in embryo.

Indeed, at 3 o'clock on the afternoon of the 22d, Fleming wrote, again to Jefferson from the same place : "[S] I being inform'd that the post is to set out in an hour, have just left the committee appointed to prepare a form of governm' to give you a summary of their proceeding. The inclos'd, printed, plan was drawn by col. G. Mason and by him laid before the committee. They proceeded to examine it clause by clause, and have made such alterations as you will observe by examining the printed copy and the manuscript together; tho' I am fearful you will not readily understand them, having made my notes in a hurry at the Table, as the alterations were made. I left the committee debating on some amendments proposed to the last clause, which they have probably finished, as the bell, for the meeting of the house, is now ringing. This business has

already taken up about a fortnights time, I mean in Committee.

When this letter was written, Wythe evidently had not yet arrived. He was in attendance upon the Convention certainly as early as June 29th, however; and, on July 27th, he himself writes, from Williamsburg to Jefferson: "[S] When I came here the plan of government had been committed to the whole house. To those who had the chief hand in forming it the one you put into my hands was shewn. hands was shewn. Two or three parts of this were, with little alteration, inserted in that: but such was the impatience of sitting long enough to discuss several important points in which they differ, and so many other matters were necessarily to be despatched before the adjournment that I was persuaded the revision of a subject the members seemed tired of would at that time have been unsuccessfully proposed."

We have also a letter from Pendleton to Jefferson, dated July 22d, which says: [S] I expected you had in the Preamble to our form of Government, exhausted the Subject of complaint ag! Geo. 3 & was at a loss to discover what the Congress would do for one to their Declaration of Independance without copying, but find you have acquitted your selves very well on that score; We are now engaged beyond the Power of withdrawing, and I think cannot fail of success in happiness, if we do not defeat our selves by intrigue & Canvassing to be uppermost in Offices of Power & Lucre. I fancy there was much of this in our last Convention, but not being of the party or in the Jurat, I cannot speak of it wth certainty, but am not otherwise able to account for the

unmerited, cruel degredation 19 of my friend Col: Harrison, who in my Opinion yields to no member of the Congress in point of Judgment or Integrity, unless he is strangely altered since I left them. . . As to my friend Braxton they have been ever at him, and whatever his own sentiments & conduct may have been, his connections furnished a plausible foundation for Opposition, and I was not surprised when he was left out . . . If Col: Harrison is not come away, tell him I expected he would be 20, or should have wrote him; I hope to see him on his return [.]"

"[V] The place of writing the Declaration", says Watson," has been differently 21 stated."

Indeed, as early as September 8, 1825, Dr. James Mease of Philadelphia wrote to Jefferson himself and inquired "[S] in which house, and in which room of the house, you composed it. If a private house, the name of the person who kept it at the time would be acceptable."

Jefferson, who was then at Monticello, replied, on the 16th 22:

23 at the time 24 of writing that instrument I lodged in the house of a mr Graaf, a new brick house 25 3. stories high of which I rented the 2 floor consisting of a parlour and bed room ready furnished. in that parlour I wrote habitually and in it wrote this paper particularly, so far I state from written papers in my

the following addn.

following

are but a

proofs

too

possession. th other specifns Lean give from memory much

much

Λ

decayed to be relied on with confidence. the proprietor Gra the proprietor Graaf was a young man, son of a German, & then

newly married. I think he was a bricklayer, and that his house was on the S. side of Market street, probably between 7th &

or perhaps higher

626th and if not then the only house on that part of the street,

Λ

near it

I am sure there were few others 27 yet built if there be extant a Directory of that year it will ascertain probably lead to a recognition of the identical house, for the name of the owner may be relied on, while it's I may misremember the particular

location. I have some idea, but very faint that it was a corner house, but

A

street. have no other recollection throwing any light on the question, or worth communication

28 P.S. further reflection leads me to think more strongly that it might be the S.E. corner house of it's square, fronting Eastwardly.

This reply was corrected 29, four days later, by the following:

In the P.S. of my letter of the 16th I made the mistake of

if my conjecture be right &

Λ

writing S.E. instead of N.E. it was the N.E. corner house be pleased so to correct it.

Again, on October 30th, he writes:

[P] Your letter of September 8. enquir'ng after the house and room in which the Declaration of independance was written has excited my curiosity to know whether my recollections were such as to enable you to find out the house.

Mease answers, November 4th: "[S] I duly received the three letters with which you favoured me, on the subject of the house in which you wrote the declaration of Independance Upon reference to the sons of your landlord, I find that the house in which you resided in 1776, is at the South West Corner of Market

Market Street

and Seventh Streets. It has been for many years owned and occupied by Mess Simon and Hyman Gratz, merchants. M' Fred. Graff informed me that his parents often mentioned to him, the circumstance of your residing with them. The rooms which you occupied, are generally filled with goods. - - I shall be deprived therefore of the pleasure of joining my friends to celebrate the anniversary of our national independance in them, but I still feel happy in being able to designate the house . . ."

Following the receipt of this letter, Jefferson adds to what we think is the rough draft of his original letter (of the 16th) below the appended copy 30 of his letter

of the 20th:

31 [S] see Mease's Ife of Nov. 4. that the house was in fact at the S. W. corner of Market and 7th streets 32

A diagram of "the 2 floor consisting of a parlour and bed room ready furnished" which Jefferson occupied is given by Agnes Y. McAllister in Potter's, etc., (N) for March, 1875, and is as follows:

Mr. Jefferson

my

Of it, she says:

33

"Mr. Hyman Gratz sketched for

father a plan of the house as it was in 1776. This, with some account of the property, which my father had