Papers of John Adams, volume 21
y:10
th:1795.
The enclosed Letter to the Honble: Mr. Brown a Senator from
Kentucky, I would ask the favr. of you to
deliver to him. It is about the late Mr. Thos. Perkins’s affairs, who died at Kentucky. I
have desired Mr Brown to inform me (when he has
Leisure for it) what is become of the Lands that were located to Mr Perkins, and whether or not there is any
Estate of his remaining for his Heirs. I am in some degree interested, as I
supply’d him to some amount when he first went to Kentucky, for which he
engaged to interest me in a part of the Lands that should be located to him.
The Honble: Harry Innes Esqr. (then Attorney Genl. of the District of Kentucky) informed me, by Letter of March
27th. 1787, that Administration on Mr. Perkins’s Estate had been granted to him.1 If you should chance to have
any oportunity of helping forward this matter by putting it into such a
train as might produce the desir’d Information, I should thank you for
attending to it.
I am, with all the Sentiments of Affection and Esteem that moral and intellectual Worth demand, your obliged Brother.
P: S. Your Mother and Mrs. Adams, with the rest of our Connections are well. Mrs. Adams has recd Letters from your Sons in Holland of the 13th: of Decr.,
but I have not seen them.2 Your Sons were well, and Holland not taken.
RC (NAll:Cranch-Greenleaf Papers).
The enclosure has not been found. John Brown
(1757–1837), of Staunton, Va., represented Kentucky in the Senate from
1792 to 1805. Lawyer Thomas Perkins, originally of Bridgewater, Mass.,
Harvard 1779, was an Adams family friend who relocated to Kentucky and
died suddenly in 1786. Kentucky politician Harry Innes (1753–1816) had
served as attorney general of the district since 1785 (
Biog.
Dir. Cong.
;
AFC
, 4:309; Washington, Papers,
Presidential Series
, 1:189).
AFC
, 10:302–304.