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SALE OF FLOUR IN RICHMOND

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"Consider the garden as your main business, and push it with all your might when the interruptions permit.

"Rake and sweep the charcoal on the level into little heaps, and carry them off. Rather do this when the grass seed is ripe.'

"I used to sell a good deal of the flour in Richmond. The mill was on the Fluvana, the north prong of the James River, and I used to send it down on bateaux. I remember sending off at one time three bateau loads-between two hundred and fifty and three hundred barrels-made of new wheat. I started on horseback in time to get to Richmond before the flour. When I told the landlord I had new flour on the way, 'Well, sir,' said he, 'you will be certain to get a good price for it, for there is hardly a barrel in the city.' I had notice circulated that a lot of new flour would arrive, and be sold at the river at four o'clock. There was a large crowd, and I sold every barrel, at fourteen dollars a barrel, as fast as it could be rolled ashore, and it didn't begin to supply the demand. I got my money from the bank, and started after supper, and rode home that night. It was just sixty-three miles; but I had a fine sorrel mare that Mr. Jefferson appropriated for my use, and I made it easily. As soon as I got home, I

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went directly to Mr. Jefferson's room with the money. I remember it distinctly. It was the first money of the old United States Bank I had ever seen. The bills were new out of the bank, and very pretty. Mr. Jefferson, you know, was always very strongly opposed to the United States Bank. As I paid it over to him, I remarked that it was very handsome money. Yes, sir,' said he, and very convenient, if people would only use it prop erly. But they will not. It will lead to speculation, inflation, and trouble.'

"Mr. Jefferson had a nail factory a good many years, which was a great convenience to the people, and very profitable. He worked ten hands in ithad two fires, and five hands at a fire. These hands could clear two dollars a day, besides paying for the coal and iron rods. After the embargo and the war of 1812, we could not get rods, and were obliged to give it up. We supplied the stores all over that country with nails, and sold a great many to the people to build their houses. I sold Mr. Monroe the nails to build his house.

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Mr. Jefferson also had a factory for making domestic cloth. He got his cotton from Richmond in bateaux. He had in his factory three spinning machines. One had thirty-six spindles, one eighteen, and one six. The hands used to learn on the little one. He made cloth for all his servants,

MR. JEFFERSON'S MECHANICS.

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and a great deal besides. I have sold wagon loads of it to the merchants.

"He had a good blacksmith shop. A man named Stewart was at the head of that. He was a fine workman, but he would have his spreeswould get drunk. Mr. Jefferson kept him a good many years longer than he would have done, because he wanted him to teach some of his own hands.

"Dinsmore, who lived with him a good many years, was the most ingenious hand to work with wood I ever knew. He could make any thing. He made a great deal of nice mahogany furniture, helped make the carriage, worked on the University, and could do any kind of fine work that was wanted. Burwell was a fine painter. With all these he could have almost any thing that he needed made on his own plantation."

CHAPTER VI.

MR. JEFFERSON'S PERSONAL APPEARANCE AND HABITS.

MR. JEFFERSON'S HEIGHT- ་་ straight as a GUN-BARREL"-HEALTH, STRENGTH, COMPLEXION, SELF-POSSESSION-ANECDOTE-PERSONAL HABITS-EARLY RISING HIS FIRE-TOBACCO-CARDS-DIET-INGENUITY-EXERCISE-ATTENDANCE ON PREACHING-ANECDOTE-THE BAPTIST PREACHER-KINDNESS TO THE POOR-FROST OF 1816-ANECDOTE-THE OLD WOMAN AND THE MULE DOLPHIN-BUSINESS HABITS-A WRITTEN ACCOUNT OF EVERY THING-CROP ACCOUNT-CONTRACT FOR WOOD-CONTRACT WITH CARPENTER-WRITTEN

CONTRACTS PREVENTED DIFFICULTIES.

"MR. JEFFERSON was six feet two and a half inches high, well proportioned, and straight as a gunbarrel. He was like a fine horse-he had no surplus flesh. He had an iron constitution, and was very strong. He had a machine for measuring strength. There were very few men that I have seen try it, that were as strong in the arms as his son-in-law, Col. Thomas Mann Randolph ; but Mr. Jefferson was stronger than he. He always enjoyed the best of health. I don't think he was ever really sick, until his last sickness. His skin was very clear and pure-just like he was in principle. He had blue eyes. His countenance was always mild

ANECDOTE-THE MILLDAM.

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and pleasant. You never saw it ruffled. No odds what happened, it always maintained the same expression. When I was sometimes very much fretted and disturbed, his countenance was perfectly unmoved. I remember one case in particular. We had about eleven thousand bushels of wheat in the mill, and coopers and every thing else employed. There was a big freshet-the first after the dam was finished. It was raining powerfully. I got up early in the morning, and went up to the dam. While I stood there, it began to break, and I stood and saw the freshet sweep it all away. I never felt worse. I did not know what we should do. I went up to see Mr. Jefferson. He had just come from breakfast. 'Well, sir,' said he, have you heard from the river?' I said, 'Yes, sir; I have just come from there with very bad news. The milldam is all swept away.' 'Well, sir,' said he, just as calm and quiet as though nothing had happened, 'we can't make a new dam this summer, but we will get Lewis' ferry-boat, with our own, and get the hands from all the quarters, and boat in rock enough in place of the dam, to answer for the present and next summer. I will send to Baltimore and get ship-bolts, and we will make a dam that the freshet can't wash away.' He then went on and explained to me in detail just how he would have the dam built. We repaired the dam

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