t has
excited in the North envelopes him in the South also ... and
the county of Albemarle will exhibit its great affection and
unending means in a dinner given the General in the building of
the University, to which they have given accepted invitations
to Mr. and Mrs. James Madison and myself as guests; and at
which your presence as my guest would give high pleasure to us
all, and to name, I assure you more cordially than sincerely
your friend;

(Signed) "THOMAS JEFFERSON."

The wedding accounts give the names of fifty distinguished Americans who
came to pay their respects to Ellenora and her husband. Every
distinguished foreigner came in person; besides these, there came many
of the men who had known and loved Jefferson during all his years of
service. Imagine all the horses that had to be fed, all the gigs and
coaches and all the Negro servants who had to be quartered. No one is
surprised that what the man had accumulated was fast disappearing with
so much hospitality.

But Ellenora had her troubles upon arriving in Boston. Her presents and
other possessions had been sent by boat and it had sunk! Her letter
tells of her great distress at losing the trinkets associated with her
happy girlhood. But most of all, she expressed her grief upon losing a
writing desk which Grandfather Jefferson had had made for her by his
master carpenter, a Negro servant. This was a very talented carver who
had faithfully carried out each detailed design which his master had
given him. Now he was old and had grown blind and he could no longer
make one. This is Jefferson's letter to his granddaughter--and explains
how a most historic desk went a-travelling:

"It has occurred to me that perhaps I can replace it (desk) not
indeed to you, but to Mr. Coolidge, by a substitute, not
claiming the same value from its decorations but the part it
has bourne in our history, and the event with which it has been
associated.... Now I happen to possess the writing box on which
the Declaration of Independence was written. It was made from a
drawing of my own, by Ben Randall, a cabinetmaker in whose
house I took lodging on my first arrival in Philadelphia, in
May, 1776, and I have had it ever since. It claims no merit of
particular beauty. It is plain, neat and convenient and taking
no more room on a writing table than a modern quarto volume