Herbert, When one newspaper gets a "scoop" in a small city or town, the opposition paper is sure to declaim it. It is the ways newspapers go. I remember it that way from my childhood in a small city in PA, where the afternoon and the morning papers competed, as did the Times and the Dispatch in Richmond when I first got here. There is still the same old warfare between the Post and the Times in NY. I'm not sure that there are any other cities that still support two newspapers that compete. Your scenario of Dolley hearing YEARS before of the possible birth of a (disdain heard) male slave child.... is just plain silly and shows how little respect you have for the other people in this story other than your great, saintly hero. Maybe you can cite the Jan 19th even that Dolley was definitely hostessing in Washington on that date. Otherwise, I'm inclined to believe there is story here, and you/we are not yet tuned in to it. Go with the presumption that there was some exchange between Sally and Dolley over the naming of the forthcoming baby, and let your imagination fill in the details. If Dolley made the promise several months before the birth, it would likely confirm the fact that she forgot about promising a gift. That is consistent with the history of how white people did treat those "inhuman" slaves that they did not realize were the bedmates of their host! Knowing that his "urges" led him down the dark path he had declared in his principles that one should not go, it is not surprising that Jefferson swept as much proof as he could under the rug. That the minimal proof exists is that much more informative considering the dark privacy Jefferson wrapped around his "personal affairs". In today's world a person who hid their personal affairs so carefully from the public would never make it to the highest office in the country. He'd be consigned perhaps to be a dog-catcher... Anne Anne Pemberton [log in to unmask] http://www.erols.com/apembert http://www.educationalsynthesis.org ______________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html