THOMAS JEFFERSON An Appendix to the Notes on Virginia Relati

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THOMAS JEFFERSON. An Appendix to the Notes on Virginia, Relative to the Murder of Logan's Family. Map (on page 52). 58 pages. 8vo, contemporary calf, worn, rear joint split; minor foxing, ink marks on page 36. Philadelphia: Samuel H. Smith, 1800

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Second edition, with an appendix of 3 extra sheets added to the original sheets of the first edition. In 1774, a family of eight Mingo Indians was murdered by a white settler across the Ohio River from Yellow Creek, west of Pittsburgh, on what is now the Ohio-West Virginia border. A survivor, James Logan, named one Colonel Michael Cresap as the killer. In Jefferson's 1784 first edition of Notes on the State of Virginia, he discussed the murder at length. Cresap's son-in-law, Maryland politician Luther Martin, claimed that Cresap was not the killer, and in 1797 he launched a public campaign to correct the record. Jefferson did not engage with Martin's angry open letters, but did launch his own investigation into the killings. He published this appendix to correct the record.

The appendix was initially issued separately with 51 pages. Soon afterward, a 6-page "Declaration of John Sappington" was added to the original sheets. The expanded appendix was also issued bound up with remaining copies of the 1794 edition of Jefferson's Notes, as found here. Later editions of the Notes issued from 1800 onward incorporate the appendix into a revised text. This edition: Evans 37701; Howes J74 ("aa"); Streeter sale III:1728; Vail, Old Frontier 1235; Verner, Notes on Virginia 1794 and 1800A.

Bound with: Jefferson. "Notes on the State of Virginia." Second American edition. With folding table (worn) but lacking the folding map. [4], 336 pages; first 3 leaves creased, moderate foxing and dampstaining; early owners' inscriptions on title page and front pastedown. Philadelphia, 1794.