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A small archive of two items relating to Dr. William Franklin Bache's efforts to secure a government appointment, consisting of a partially printed document, signed by both Thomas Jefferson as president and James Madison as secretary of state, accomplished in a clerical hand, and dated November 22, 1804, appointing Bache surveyor of the port of Philadelphia and a letter from Catherine Wistar Bache to her brother, Caspar Wistar, dated October 31, [1803], requesting that he write to President Jefferson on her husband's behalf. A Philadelphia physician, William Franklin Bache (1773 1820) was the grandson of Benjamin Franklin, brother of Benjamin Franklin Bache, and a friend of Thomas Jefferson, who had known Bache since he was a boy. Bache married Catherine Wistar Bache in 1797. That same year, he was elected a member of the American Philosophical Society. (Jefferson was then the society's president and Bache's brother-in-law and fellow Philadelphia physician Caspar Wistar its vice president.) In 1799, following one of a series of yellow fever outbreaks that plagued Philadelphia in the 1790s and which had claimed the life of William's brother Richard, and at the urging of Thomas Jefferson, Bache and his wife moved to Albemarle County, Virginia. After several months' stay at Monticello, in 1800, they moved to a farm that Bache would come to call Franklin in honor of his grandfather. In 1802 and in the face of growing financial difficulties, Bache sought a government appointment. During a stay in Albemarle County in May, Jefferson apparently offered Bache the position of director of the newly established marine hospital at New Orleans. Writing on July 14, 1802, to Bache's brother-in-law, Caspar Wistar, who had previously recommended William Barnwell for the position, Jefferson explained that, after "learning.that Doctr. Bache had determined to remove to the Missisipi, I could have no hesitation to offer the place to him, as eminently qualified for it." Bache arrived in New Orleans the following March. Some seven months later, however, the burden of caring for hundreds of merchant mariners in a foreign port was taking its toll on Bache. In the present letter, dated October 31, Catherine Wistar Bache (1805 1886) writes to her brother, Caspar Wistar, asking him to intercede with President Jefferson on her husband's behalf, mentioning, in passing, the pending Louisiana Purchase: "Two days ago I received letters from Doct. Bache.in which Doct. B. wishes me to have an application made to the President for him. He thought of my applying to Mrs. Randolph [i.e. Martha Jefferson Randolph, daughter of Thomas Jefferson and the wife of then-Congressman Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr.] but Congress being now engaged on the Louisiana business I think the more immediately an application is made the greater the probability of success and I also believe that an application from a Philadela. friend particularly from Doct. Wistar will have more weight. William wishes to obtain the Land Office or Surveyor Generalship. The Business of the Hospital is extremely laborious without an adequate compensation from excessive fatigue. Doct. B. has again been attack'd with a Bilious fever which confined him to his Bed for a week. He has been in the habit of seeing from 30 to 40 Patients daily and without any assistance even to put up Medicine which renders it too fatiguing for any person to continue it long without a more liberal establishment. His exertions have been attended with great success having lost but 7 out of 400 patients and 6 of those were drunkards.If it is not disagreeable to you to write to the President on the subject it will be conferring on us a very weighty obligation. If you think this request improper don't hesitate to decline it.From a conversation Dr. Bache had with Mr. Gallatin last Winter there is great reason to believe the appointment may be obtained if applyed for before the vacancy is filled" [punctuation added and first words of sentences.
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