By Jenkins By George
You see this "by Jenkins" phrase often in the letters of the time.
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We ran into this again as we trek through 1757.
It's time to pause and dwell on this "by Jenkins" phrase.
Col George Washington while at Fort Loudoun in Winchester VA receives a letter from, Lt Gov Dinwiddie, 18 July 1757:
"Your two Letters of 10th & 11th I recd by Jenkins . . . "
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William Jenkins was the post office of that time.
Ben Franklin had earlier cut off the post going to Fort Loudoun earlier in August of 1756.
The picture imagines Jenkins job was not always easy.
The picture was originally drawn to imagine the "old waggoner," Daniel Morgan escaping from the Indians who were in hot pursuit in April 1756.
You could say Jenkins was the Pony Express of that time.
Colonel George Washington probably wants to continue paying Jenkins for his service.
He respectfully reminds Lt Gov Dinwiddie of this need to pay Jenkins by asking the Dinwiddie the question 10 July 1757:
" . . . I shou’d be glad to know whether your Honor intends to continue Jenkins’s pay?"
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Dinwiddie responds to Col George Washington's question about whether to continue paying this Jenkins in that same letter of 18 July 1757:
". . . Jenkins has recd £31.3.3 for the two Receipts for Skins for the Inds.—
& You are to continue Jenkins in Pay he giving close attendance. . . "
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William Jenkins Bio
From Founders Online in a footnote to a letter by GW to Adam Stephen 28 Nov 1755:
William Jenkins, whom GW hired as a “Servitor” during his mission in 1753 to the French commandant, also carried messages in the Fort Necessity campaign (Diaries, 1:130, 193).
GW used him in Nov. and Dec. 1755 to carry letters to and from Adam Stephen,
but after the spring of 1756 until the end of 1758 when GW left the regiment,
Jenkins seems to have been kept busy conveying letters back and forth between GW and Dinwiddie and,
subsequently, between GW and Dinwiddie’s successors, President John Blair and Gov. Francis Fauquier.
In 1758 Robert Stewart referred to Jenkins as “the old Gentn,” in a letter to GW of 5 Aug.
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And yes, there's that By George phrase.
"By (God and Saint) George" is an old English oath invoked immediately before charging into battle as late as World War I. A version of the oath can be found in Shakespeare's Henry VI (part I), written circa 1589 and set in 1431.
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The OED’s earliest example is from Ben Jonson’s 1598 play Every Man in His Humor: “I, Well! he knowes what to trust to, for George.”
The next citation in the dictionary is from John Dryden’s 1680 comedy The Kind Keeper: “Before George, ’tis so!”
The OED’s first “by George” quotation is from a 1694 translation of Rudens, a comedy by Plautus: “By George, you shan’t be a Sowce the better for what’s in it.”
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[Fort Loudoun, 17 September 1757] Copy of a letter to Governor Dinwiddie Honble Sir,
Your favour of the 2d instant came safe to hand: and Jenkins’s sickness has prevented my answering it sooner.
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