Amongst documents from the prominent Bringhurst family was a letter from Thomas Jefferson to John Dickinson
Graduate students Amanda Daddona and Matt Davis discovered a Jefferson letter while sorting through hundreds of historic documents from the Rockwood Museum archives. The letter was unexpectedly found in the midst of maps, business records, and deeds dating back to the 17th century.
The letter, dated Feb. 24, 1808, was posted from Washington and addressed to Dr. Joseph Bringhurst, who had informed Jefferson, in a letter of Feb. 16, 1808, about the recent death, in Wilmington, of John Dickinson on Feb. 14, 1808. Jefferson's letter is an eloquent tribute and expression of condolence on the loss of Dickinson: “a more estimable man, or truer patriot, could not have left us.”
Jefferson said Dickinson was “among the first of the advocates for the rights of his country when assailed by Great Britain” and “one of the great worthies of the revolution.” Jefferson described himself in relation to Dickinson as a “junior companion of his labors in the early part of our revolution” and he noted “it is a great comfort of his labors in the early part of our revolution” and “it is a great comfort to me to have retained his friendship to the last moment of his life.”
In addition to the Thomas Jefferson letter, Daddona and Davis found two John Dickinson letters, which are notable in their own right. Dickinson was known as the “Penman of the Revolution” for his early “Letters from a Farmer in Pennsylvania to the Inhabitants of the British Colonies,” which argued the cause of American liberty and were read on both sides of the Atlantic. Dickinson served in the Continental congresses and in 1781 was elected president of Delaware, a position he resigned to be elected president of the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania. Dickinson worked with James Madison on the Articles of Confederation and was a delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1787.
John Dickinson and his wife were intimate friends of Wilmingtonians Dr. Joseph Bringhurst and his wife Deborah (Ferris), who named their daughter Mary Dickinson Bringhurst when she was born in 1806. Joseph Bringhurst (1767-1834) practiced medicine and established a drug business on Market Street that was carried on as a family business for more than a century. He attended John Dickinson in his final illness, recording notes from those days that served future biographers. Bringhurst was the first to inform Jefferson of Dickinson's death.
Doddona remembers the November day she discovered the letter. "The first thing I recognized was his signature," she said. "Just to know he had written it and had it on his desk-- it's incredible. This letter was like a link to Jefferson himself."
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