Day-by-Day / February 20, 1803

February 20, 1803

Rodney asks Jefferson

Dover, DE Thomas Rodney asks President Thomas Jefferson for a federal position. His eventual appointments in the Mississippi Territory led him to travel down the Ohio at the same time as Lewis.

Caesar Rodney (1728-1784)

profile sketch of Caesar Rodney sporting a cue

Published in J. Thomas Scharf’s History of Delaware, 1888.

The brothers Rodney, Caesar and Thomas, have no know contemporary portraits or illustrations. Both were revolutionary war heroes and early American politicians. Perhaps because Caesar was also a signer of the Declaration of Independence, the above image and several statues of him have been made. No image of Thomas Rodney is known to exist.

Dover February 20th. 1803.

Dear Sir

. . . it is with reluctance that I Take the Liberty of Troubling you with this letter, or of advising any thing respecting public appointments in any case, but on the present Occasion have been prevailed on by a number of leading Republicans to write a few lines . . . .

I Submit it to your own wisdom and better information to do what you May think best and beg leave to Conclude with assurances of My verry high respect and Esteem.

Your Most Obedient

Thomas Rodney[1]Thomas Rodney to Thomas Jefferson, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-39-02-0466 accessed 20 May 2022. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, … Continue reading

Thomas Rodney‘s eventual appointments in the Mississippi Territory (see June 17, 1803) led him down the Ohio River crossing paths with Meriwether Lewis on four occasions. His journal describes Ohio River travel in the fall of 1803 at a time when Lewis’s journal is mostly empty.

 

Notes

Notes
↑1 Thomas Rodney to Thomas Jefferson, Founders Online, National Archives, founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-39-02-0466 accessed 20 May 2022. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 39, 13 November 1802–3 March 1803, ed. Barbara B. Oberg. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012, p. 557.]

Discover More

  • The Lewis and Clark Expedition: Day by Day by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2018). The story in prose, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals: An American Epic of Discovery (abridged) by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 2003). Selected journal excerpts, 14 May 1804–23 September 1806.
  • The Lewis and Clark Journals. by Gary E. Moulton (University of Nebraska Press, 1983–2001). The complete story in 13 volumes.

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Unless otherwise noted, journal excerpts are from The Journals of the Lewis and Clark Expedition, edited by Gary E. Moulton, 13 vols. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1983-2001).