Agreement with Youen Carden, 29 November 1809
Agreement with Youen Carden
On settlement with Huein Carden there was due to him on the 15th day of this month 40. Dollars for his year’s service as per agreement, to which I now add ten Dollars as a gratuity, making it up fifty dollars for that year, now due to him. I further agree that his wages for the second year shall be fifty dollars which I do voluntarily in consideration of the satisfaction he has given me by his services as miller at my toll mill at Shadwell. witness my hand this 29th day of November 1809.
Th: Jefferson
1809. Dec. 2. paid him 25.D.
MS (MHi); entirely in TJ’s hand; endorsed by TJ: “Carden H. Nov. 1809.” Not recorded in SJL.
Youen (Ewen) Carden (ca. 1762–1850), of Cumberland County, served as a private in the 3d Regiment of Continental Light Dragoons from 1781 to 1783, taking part in the siege of Yorktown and serving thereafter in and around Charleston, South Carolina. In November 1808 TJ hired Carden as miller of his Albemarle County toll mill. With one brief exception when Thomas Mann Randolph leased the mill, Carden retained that position until March 1824. Thereafter, he resided in Fluvanna and Greene counties. In support of his successful pension application, Thomas Jefferson Randolph remarked in 1845 that because Carden had “a singular Christian name which he could not write himself, no one knew exactly what the name was,” but TJ’s usage and the pension documents both eventually settled on Youen (John F. Dorman, Virginia Revolutionary Pension Applications [1958], 15:59–61; , 370; , 2:1250, 1403; , 515).