Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson Letter

Following the example of Esther de Berdt Reed in Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, headed a women’s fundraising effort in the South to raise money for the Continental Army. Four of Jefferson’s fundraising letters survive, almost identical in content to this letter written to a “Mrs. Madison,” likely Sarah Tate Madison, the wife of Bishop James Madison of Williamsburg.