Daily Record, 1 January 1784-28 February 1790

Massachusetts Historical Society: Coolidge Collection of Thomas Jefferson Manuscripts, 1705-1827, Other Volumes, 1766-1824, Account Book, 1783-1790.

16 pp. at the end of a book of cash accounts.

Printed in Memorandum Books, 1:771-806; see also 1:xl.

Entries for 1 January–10 May 1784, at Annapolis, have temperature columns headed “Sunrise” and “4. P.M.” and one column for notations headed “explanation”; following 10 May there is a gap on the page, after which entries resume at Paris, 9 June 1785; columns headed “morng” and “4. P.M.”; no column headings beginning 1 October 1785, then beginning 1 June 1788, columns headed “Th.” (thermometer) and “Hygr.” (hygrometer); beginning 1 September 1788 there are two hygrometer readings for morning and afternoon, labeled “Luc” and “Sauss.”; no column headings beginning 1 January 1789; then in September 1789, hygrometer columns are labeled “Luc” and “Saus.”; after 30 September 1789, with no gap on the page, entries resume at 5 January 1790 at Monticello, with columns for only temperature and conditions and no column headings.

Within the cash accounts is a table of temperatures and wind directions recorded during Jefferson’s voyage across the Atlantic to France; see Atlantic Crossing, July 1784.

Jefferson, with no explanation, struck through all of his afternoon temperature readings for the period from 9 January through 3 February 1784.

In February 1784, Jefferson began using abbreviations for his notations of weather conditions. He wrote a key to the abbreviations in space on the page with entries of January–April 1784 (see Explanation of Terms, February 1784).