John P. Emmett, x1818
"Dr Emmett as is well known enjoyed a high standing in the Class to which he belonged, and I believe it will very readily be conceeded [sic] by all his companions that he was justly entitled to do so. By a rare and happy union of application and intellect he very soon distinguished himself for the facility with which he acquired the different branches of study and in consequence of this was selected by the then Professor of Mathematics [Ellicott] to act as an Assistant in that Dept which duty he performed in a very satisfactory manner until the state of his health rendered it necessary for him to leave the Academy."
This AdfS of David Douglass was a recommendation for Dr. John P. Emmett, x1818. He was a cadet in 1815-1816. This letter is in the David Douglass Papers at the Clements Library in Ann Arbor, Box 3.
The following is from a
Documentary History of the Construction of the
Buildings at the University of Virginia, 1817-1828
698. Emmet to TJ, 12 May 1825, DLC:TJ, and Emmet's Plan for Lecture Room and Chemical Laboratory, 12 May 1825, DLC:TJ; see also #19-13 and #19-14 in Lasala, "Thomas Jefferson's Designs for the University of Virginia." John Patton Emmet (1796-1842), who was born in Dublin, Ireland, was eight years old when his parents emigrated to New York. He attended West Point but left because of ill health and spent a year in southern Italy before deciding to return to New York and enter the College of Physicians and Surgeons, where he took a medical degree in 1822. At the University of Virginia Emmet first served as professor of natural history and then as professor of chemistry and materia medica. He lived in Pavilion I, where reportedly he "kept as pets snakes, a white owl, and a friendly bear" until his marriage in 1829 to Mary Byrd Tucker, a niece of George Tucker, University of Virginia professor of moral philosophy. Emmet later moved to Morea, an estate to the west of the university, where he pursued horticultural experiments. See Clemons, Notes on the Professors for whom the University of Virginia Halls and Residence Houses are named, 29-34.
There are letters of April 27 and May 2, 1826 from TJ (Thomas Jefferson) to JPE.