From Thomas Jefferson to William Dunbar, 14 March 1805
To William Dunbar
Washington Mar. 14. 05.
Dear Sir
Your letters of the 2d. & 15th. of Feb. arrive just in the moment I am setting out on a short visit to Monticello. it will be necessary for us now to set on foot immediately the Arcansa & Red river expedition, Congress having given an additional appropriation of 5000. D. for these objects generally. I think you were not able to get any person in your quarter the last autumn fitted for the astronomical part of the undertaking. I have desired Genl. Dearborne to propose it to a mr Pease in the post office, who is fully equal to it, or if he will not accept, then to a mr Wily professor of an academy here. he will write to you fully on this subject, as my departure obliges me to leave to him the settling with you all details, not having time myself to read your journal before I set out. Accept my acknolegements for your services & assistance, my friendly salutations and assurances of great esteem & respect.
Th: Jefferson
PoC (DLC); at foot of text: “Mr. Dunbar.”
An act of 3 Mch. that authorized funds for obligations in treaties included an additional appropriation “for the purpose of exploring the Indian country, and of ascertaining proper and convenient places for establishing trading houses”; see TJ to the Senate and the House of Representatives, 13 Feb.
Seth Pease, surveyor and mathematician, was a brother-in-law of Gideon Granger. He had gained extensive surveying experience in western New York and the Western Reserve in Ohio (, 1:216n). Presbyterian minister David Wiley (Wily) was the principal of the Columbian Academy in Georgetown (Vol. 36:435n). In October 1804, they and Abraham Bradley, Jr., made astronomical observations that William Lambert used to calculate latitude and longitude (William Lambert, Calculations for Ascertaining the Latitude North of the Equator and the Longitude West of Greenwich Observatory, in England, of the Capitol, at the City of Washington, in the United States of America [Washington, D.C., 1805], 6; Lambert to TJ, 15 Dec. 1804).