William Roscoe
Jefferson kept a bust of British historian and abolitionist William Roscoe at Monticello and owned several of his books and writings.
Thomas Jefferson exchanged occasional letters with historian, abolitionist, and Liverpool resident William Roscoe between 1805 and 1820. Roscoe first contacted Jefferson in 1805 when he sent him a copy of The Life and Pontificate of Leo X (1805), which Jefferson said would "stand worthily on the shelf with the Life of Lorenzo de Medici [also by Roscoe] and both will contribute to mark honorably the age we live in."1 Roscoe was not only a historian, but also a banker, and botanist who wrote A Catalogue of Plants in the Botanic Garden, at Liverpool (1808), which he also sent to Jefferson.
In 1820 Jefferson's boyhood friend James Maury sent a bust of Roscoe to his former classmate. Upon learning of its arrival, Jefferson wrote to Roscoe that he would receive it "with great pleasure and thankfulness, and shall arrange it in honorable file with those of some cherished characters."2
Jefferson also kept a copy of Roscoe's poem The Butterfly's Ball and The Grasshopper's Feast, in a scrapbook and sent a copy of it from Washington, DC, to his granddaughter Cornelia in 1807. 3
- Text drawn from Stein, Worlds, 228-29 (1993) and expanded slightly in 2025
Further Sources
Footnotes
- Jefferson to Roscoe, July 1, 1806, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Polygraph copy available online. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- Jefferson to Roscoe, December 27, 1820, Thomas Jefferson Papers, Library of Congress. Polygraph copy available online. Transcription available at Founders Online.
- Jefferson to Ellen Wayles Randolph, March 1, 1807, in Family Letters, 296. Transcription available at Founders Online.