When Mrs. J. Amory Haskell purchased this tavern table, it was accompanied by two letters which were written and signed by a previous owner, Robert Grattan, and dated July 17, 1925. The letters recount the table’s history from Thomas Jefferson through the Gilmer and Grattan families of Virginia. Mr. Grattan states that Thomas Jefferson gave this table to George Gilmer (1743-1795), of Pen Park, Virginia, who was his friend, neighbor, and physician. Born in Williamsburg in 1743, George was the son of the Scottish physician George Gilmer and his wife, Mary Peachy Walker. He studied at the College of William and Mary before studying medicine with his uncle Dr. Thomas Walker at the University of Edinburgh.
In May 1766, George Gilmer provided Thomas Jefferson with a letter of introduction to Dr. John Morgan of Philadelphia, in order for Jefferson to obtain a smallpox inoculation. The following December, Gilmer announced his plan to pursue "the practice of medicine and the art of midwifery" in Williamsburg. He married his first cousin Lucy Walker and moved to Charlottesville before the Revolution. By 1782, they were living at Pen Park, a few miles north of town.

After his arrival in Albemarle County, Dr. Gilmer served as the attending physician to Jefferson and his family and his services to the Jefferson family from 1771-1775 are itemized in his personal "day book." In the summer of 1776, he attended the Fifth Virginia Convention in Williamsburg, acting in Jefferson's stead. During the Revolution, he became a Lieutenant in the Albemarle County First Independent Company of Gentleman Volunteers as well as a military surgeon. On August 9, 1780, Jefferson wrote to his friend stating his intention, while Governor, to contribute rice and money to Dr. Gilmer’s hospital.

After Jefferson gave this table to George Gilmer, it descended for four generations through the Grattan branch of his family to Robert Grattan, who sold it in 1925. Mr. Grattan’s letters regarding the tavern table’s history will accompany this lot. Additional information regarding Dr. George Gilmer is in the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia and available on Monticello's website www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/george-gilmer.