Yes, Steve, you're right: the relevant letter is the following:
Thomas Jefferson to Giovanni Fabbroni, June 8, 1778
Original (draft) is here:
http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=mtj1&fileName=mtj1page001.db&recNum=947
but, um, good luck with that; so transcript is here:
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=JefLett.sgm&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed&tag=public&part=12&division=div1
Hope this helps, Randy!
--Jurretta Heckscher
On Feb 10, 2009, at 8:28 AM, S. Corneliussen wrote:
>> I understand that he wrote somebody that he wanted to establish
>> a band at Monticello -- two oboes, two clarinets, two natural
>> horns, two bassoons ... I would appreciate it if any of you
>> Jefferson Scholars can pin down that letter for me so that
>> I can reference it.
>
> Interesting stuff. To me, this entry (below the dashed line) from
> the online Jeffersonian Cyclopedia at the U.Va. electronic text
> center looks suspiciously relevant. (So TJ wanted polymath servants.
> That guy was a real dreamer sometimes, wasn't he? Just like Adams
> said. Well, good for him.)
> Steve Corneliussen
> Poquoson, Virginia
>
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
>
> 5587. MUSIC, Domestic bands. -- The bounds of an American fortune
> will not admit the indulgence of a
> domestic band of musicians, yet I have thought that a passion for
> music
> might be reconciled with that economy which we are obliged to
> observe. I
> retain, for instance, among my domestic servants a gardener, a
> weaver, a
> cabinet-maker, and a stone-cutter, to which I would add a vigneron.
> In a
> country where, like yours [France] , music is cultivated and
> practiced by
> every class of men, I suppose there might be found persons of these
> trades
> who could perform on the French horn, clarionet, or hautboy, and
> bassoon, so
> that one might have a band of two French horns, two clarionets, two
> hautboys, and a bassoon, without enlarging his domestic expenses. A
> certainty of employment for a half dozen years, and at the end of
> that time,
> to find them, if they chose, a conveyance to their own country,
> might induce
> them to come here on reasonable wages. Without meaning to give you
> trouble,
> perhaps it might be practicable for you [* * *] to find out such men
> disposed to come to America. Sobriety and good nature would be
> desirable
> parts of their characters. If you think such a plan practicable, and
> will be
> so kind as to inform me what will be necessary to be done on my
> part, I will
> take care that it shall be done.
> TITLE: To -- -- .
> EDITION: Washington ed. i, 209.
> EDITION: Ford ed., ii, 159.
> PLACE: Williamsburg, Va.
> DATE: 1778
>
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