Colonel Tobias Lear

Early today I learned about the man named Colonel Tobias Lear. For many years a trusted aide and personal secretary to George Washington, Lear is also noteworthy as "The Man Who Stole from the Father of Our Country" - having embezzled rents he was collecting for General George following his years as president. Lear is most famous as the man who was present as Washington passed, immortalizing his final words "'Tis Well." Following Washington's death, Lear became custodian of the late president's papers and personal effects...ostensibly with the intention of co-authoring a definitive biography of the country's first commander in chief. When this honor fell to Justice John Marshall and Lear was instructed to forward the source materials to him, large portions of Washington's diaries along with much of his correspondence had gone missing. Most poignantly absent were a series of letters from a heated exchange with Thomas Jefferson. During Washington's presidency, Jefferson criticized his administration as "Anglican, Monarchial, and Aristocratical" in a letter to an Italian friend. The letter found its way into publication abroad and was eventually translated for the American public by Noah Webster. Washington was understandably furious and initiated a correspondence that one of Washington's servants described as being so dire that it could only end in a duel.

It is suspected that Lear destroyed this correspondence at Jefferson's request and this theory is supported by Lear's appointment to diplomatic positions in the Caribbean and on the Barbary Coast during Jefferson's presidency. While my early education painted a stellar portrait of Thomas Jefferson, history's soft, white, underbelly continues to reveal a less than moral if not wholly unpleasant man behind the myth.