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This declaration indicates that Thomas Jefferson imported a clock, which arrived in Philadelphia on the ship Minerva under the command of Captain Wood from Le Havre, France, on October 17, 1791. On May 12, 1792, Jefferson paid an import duty of $7.52 on the clock according to the provisions of the Tariff of 1790.
Consisting of a pair of black marble obelisks between which a brass clock was suspended, Jefferson commissioned this piece in the Spring of 1790 to replace a similar one stolen from his Paris residence. An unusual feature of the clock is the use of a complex pinwheel escapement, often used in regulators of the finest quality in that period but rarely used in mantel clocks. He later had it mounted on a shelf above the foot of his bed. Susan Stein, the Richard Gilder Senior Curator at Monticello, described the obelisk clock as “arguably one of the most important and interesting objects at Monticello.” After Jefferson’s death, his daughter Martha called it the object “I should have prized beyond anything on earth.”[1] The original clock was passed down through the Jefferson family until it was donated to Monticello in 2016.
This is a rare record of payment of the tariffs that funded the nascent federal government, in effect bringing together Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, in the temporary capital of Philadelphia.
[1] Martha Jefferson Randolph to her daughter, February 13, 1827, quoted in Sarah Butler Wister and Agnes Irwin, eds., Worthy Women of Our First Century (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1877), 59. Randolph wrote, “The marble clock I should have prized beyond anything on earth, and if, in our circumstances, I had felt myself justifiable in retaining a luxury of that value, that clock, in preference to everything else but the immediate furniture of his bedroom, I should have retained. However, in addition to the loss of the clock, which I regret more bitterly since I know how near we were getting it, let us not alienate so near a relation and friend, who, I dare say, is sorry for it now that it is past.”
THOMAS JEFFERSON.
Manuscript Document Signed, October 17, 1791, [Philadelphia, Pennsylvania]. 1 p., 8 x 13 in.
Inventory #27514
Price: $14,000
Complete Transcript
Imported in the Ship Minerva, Wood, from Havre, by Thomas Jefferson
a Box, contg a Clock value 360
adv 36
Livres 396
Doll. 73.26
Duty 10 prC’ – 7.32
add for the permit 20
7.52
I do solemnly swear to the best of my knowledge & belief that the above entry is Just & true & contains as therein specified the whole of the Goods Wares & Merchandize Imported by, or to
consigned and that the Invoice produced is the true Original one & contains the net prime cost thereof & that if I shall hereafter discover or Know of any other Goods Wares or Merchandize belonging to or to
consigned I will forthwith make known the same to the Collector of the District of Pennsylvania for the time being in order to the due entry thereof and the paying or securing the duties thereupon.
recorded
Th: Jefferson
adminisd by / John Graff D C W
A Engle Dnoff
[Docketing on verso:]
17th Octor 1791
Ship Minerva
Wood
Thos Jefferson
(Pd May 12, 1792)
Historical Background
On July 4, 1789, Congress passed “An act for laying a duty on Goods, wares, and Merchandizes, imported into the United States,” commonly known as the Tariff Act of 1789 as its first major piece of legislation after the ratification of the United States Constitution. The act laid duties on imported goods, wares, and merchandise “for the support of government, for the discharge of the debts of the United States, and the encouragement and protection of manufactures.” Because the new federal government could not meet its obligations under the rates established by the Tariff of 1789, Congress passed “An Act making further provisions for the payment of the debts of the United States” on August 10, 1790. This revision, called the Tariff of 1790, revised the rates of duties and added some specific luxury items, including “clocks and watches,” which were subject to a 10 percent ad valorem duty.[1]
Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton allowed Jefferson’s furniture and household items shipped from Paris to enter the country without paying any duties, but this clock, newly manufactured in Paris, was not part of Jefferson’s furnishings there (though it replaced a stolen item). The 10-percent duty for the clock was $7.32. Although the line “add for the permit .20” is crossed out, Jefferson wrote in his account book for 1792 that he paid $7.52 on May 12 for “duty on clock importd. last year.”[2]
This declaration is also signed by John Graff, the weigher and later deputy collector in the customs office at Philadelphia, and Archibald Engle (d. 1796), a deputy naval officer for the district of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.
Thomas Jefferson had a special interest in timepieces, both clocks and watches. Approximately six months before leaving for Paris as Ambassador to France, he purchased a clock by correspondence from France and purchased at least three more while in Paris from 1784 to 1789. Virtually every room of his home at Monticello contained at least one clock.
After he returned to the United States, Jefferson wrote in April 1790 to William Short, his private secretary when Jefferson was a peace commissioner in France, asking Short to obtain and arrange packing and shipping of several items, including books and pieces of furniture.
Jefferson also enclosed a sketch of a “little clock which was stolen from the chimney of my study.” Jefferson provided a detailed description to accompany his drawing: “The parts a.b. c.d. were parts of a cone, being round and tapering to the top, where a gilt head was put on. I would wish one to be made like that, as to the pedestal part, but with obelisks as is represented here a.b. c.d. instead of conical columns as the former had. No gilt head to be on the obelisk, but to be in plain marble, cut off obliquely as is always done in the obelisk. The section of an obelisk, you know, is a square; I mean it’s ichnography [horizontal section, usually a ground plan of a building, to scale].
“The clock to have a pendulum vibrating half seconds exactly. To have a second hand, but none for the days of the week, month or moon. To strike the hours and half hours. The dial plate to be open work, or as the French workmen say, le cadran à jour, of black marble. The superintendant of the Salle des ventes (where I bought mine) undertook to have a clock on the above plan made for me, for either 12. or 15. guineas, I forget which. He required only 3. or 4. weeks. I shall be obliged to Mr. Short to have one made immediately for me, that it may be done in time to come with my other things.”[3]
On June 14, Short informed Jefferson, “The Directeur de la salle des ventes, has the model of the clock, with a verbal and written explanation which I gave him. He began by asking twenty guineas for it, and says it will require four weeks to have it made. As he found I would not give him the price he asked he is to let me know in a day or two if he will undertake it for fifteen. If not I shall endeavour to get it made elsewhere.”[4] Nearly two months later, on August 4, Short wrote, “All your commissions have been executed, except that of the clock. The workman after promising faithfully it should be finished for the 15th. of July, had not at that term even begun it. I am at a loss whether to have it made at present, as I know not whether you would wish to have it sent alone.” He asked for further instructions from Jefferson.[5]
On January 24, 1791, Jefferson wrote to Short from Philadelphia, “I must pray you to keep in mind and execute the commissions for the clock (which must come entirely by water from Paris to this place) and two epreuves d’etains of P. Jones’s medal.”[6] Three months later, on April 26, Short wrote to Jefferson that the clock would be ready “in three weeks and immediately sent to Havre.” The price Chanterot asked was the same as that for “the salle des ventes (15. guineas).”[7] On May 2, Short again wrote to Jefferson, “You will receive by Petit your reveille watch mended by Chanterot who assures me it is now in perfect order. He is making the clock for 15. louis. He assures me also with respect to it that he does not gain a sol and that it is altogether for the honor and pleasure of serving you. It will be sent as soon as finished, by water to Havre.”[8]
The clock was still not ready by July 17, when Short wrote in frustration, “The clock which I am now promised daily and the mending your reveille watch will be to be paid out of this balance and I shall accordingly draw on it for that purpose when Chanterot shall be ready.”[9] The ship Minerva, under the command of Captain Wood, left Le Havre, France, in late July or early August, with a stop in Amsterdam, before sailing on to Philadelphia, where it arrived in mid-October with Jefferson’s clock.
Condition: Some chipping at edges; vertical fold through Jefferson’s signature; colored pencil arrows at top left and lower right; docketing on verso.
[1] On October 31, 1791, Jefferson noted that he “Pd. Duty &c. on a clock 2.38.” Although this entry appeared two weeks after his obelisk clock arrived in Philadelphia, it may have been for a different clock that arrived earlier. The document here and other evidence indicate that the obelisk clock arrived in Philadelphia on October 17, 1791, aboard the Minerva, Captain Wood, and that Jefferson paid the impost duty on it in May 1792. Thomas Jefferson, Memorandum Books, 1791 (Entry for October 31), Library of Congress.
