Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 35, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 May 1885 — Jefferson’s Horses. [ARTICLE]

Jefferson’s Horses.

Jefferson, like .most of his class m Virginia in those days, was “land poor,” and the practices of buying and selling on indefinitely long credits, of never paying or receiving cash for anything, of purchasing extensions of indebteness at ruinous rates, were enough of themselves to have ruined a man of larger means and of more frugal habits than Mr. Jefferson, and he, unfortunately, was never a njan either of large means or of frugal habits. His accounts show that he was continually buying things he could not afford, and indulging himself when he should have denied himself. Here are the prices paid for the horses of a Democratic President in those days: , 1801 Feby 3 Recd from Col. John Hoomes of the ~ Bowling Green a bay horse Wildair 7 yr old 16 hands high for which l am to pay him 300 D May 1. ' Gavethe servant an order on J. Barnes for his Expenses and trouble, 2oD. April 20 Reed from J. W. Eppes the following horses bought forme from Bell SOOD palable June 16 6 yr old last year 2 from Shore 800 D paiable July. 12 8 yr old from Haxhall GOOD paiable July 16 6 yr old. Thus it appears that our first Democratic President started with five horses, the cheapest of which cost S3OO, and the dearest SSOO. The Wildair referred to in the first of the foregoing entries as costing S3OO was “the magnificent Wildair” which Jefferson rode to the Capitol and hitched to the palisades while he went in to deliver his inaugural. There were neither wagon roads, pavements, sidewalks nor railroads in those days in Washington, and there was no getting about, therefore, for either sex without horses. But we have changed all this.— John Bigelow, in Harper's Magazine.