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Partly-printed DS, signed “Th: Jefferson,” one page, 7 x 3, September 24, 1824. Promissory note in which Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson’s eldest grandson, promises to pay his grandfather $5,000, “Sixty days after date,” through the Bank of Virginia’s Office of Discount and Deposit at Lynchburg. Signed at the conclusion by Randolph and prominently endorsed on the reverse by Thomas Jefferson. In very good condition, with archival repairs to the reverse.
By 1824, Jefferson was deeply entangled in the financial difficulties that would dominate the final years of his life. Among his largest burdens was a $20,000 debt he had guaranteed for his friend Wilson Cary Nicholas, who died insolvent in 1820, leaving Jefferson responsible for repayment. Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson’s eldest grandson and Nicholas’s son-in-law, had assumed management of his grandfather’s affairs and became increasingly involved in restructuring his debts; in 1823, Randolph himself assumed responsibility for the Nicholas loan through an arrangement with the College of William and Mary.
Promissory notes offered one means of raising badly needed funds, as they could be discounted by banks in exchange for an immediate advance against the credit of the maker and endorser. The $5,000 face value of this note represented a substantial sum, equivalent to roughly $170,000 in modern purchasing power. Randolph’s involvement in Jefferson’s finances ultimately extended far beyond such transactions: after Jefferson died owing more than $100,000 in 1826, his grandson spent decades working to satisfy his creditors. The last payment on the principal of Jefferson’s debts was not made until fifty years after his death.
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