The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson Compiled From Family Letters and Reminiscences

Son to the Guardianship of Jefferson.-His faithful Discharge of the Trust.-Thomas Jefferson's earliest Recollections.-His Father's Hospitality.-First Acquaintance with Indians.-Life of the early

Memoir.-Sketch of

es are still left to mark the place, and two or three sycamores stretch out their long majestic arms over the greensward beneath, once the scene of young Jefferson's boyish games, but now a silent pasture, where cattle and sheep browse, und

orizon view, lying like a sleeping beauty, in the east; while long rolling hills, occasionally rising into mountain ranges until at last they are all lost in the gracefully-sweeping profile of the Blue Ridge, stretch wes

early life is given in the following quot

nd state some recollections of dates and facts concerning myself, fo

in that country. I have found it in our early records; but the first particular information I have of any ancestor was of my grandfather, who lived at the place in Chesterfield called Osborne's, and owned the lands afterwards the glebe of the parish. He had three sons: Thomas, who died young; Field, who settled on the waters of the Roanoke, and left numerous descendants; and Peter, my father, who set

inia and North Carolina, which had been begun by Colonel Byrd, and was afterwards employed with the same Mr. Fry to make the first map of Virginia which had ever been made, that of Captain Smith being merely a conjectural sketch. They possessed excellent materials for so much of the country as

me at the English school at five years of age, and at the Latin at nine, where I continued until his death. My teacher, Mr. Douglas, a clergyman from Scotland, with the rudiment

st extraordinary vigor, both of mind and body. His son never wearied of dwelling with all the pride of filial devotion and admiration on the noble traits of his character. To the regular duties of h

untered by Colonel Byrd and his party in forcing the same line through the forests and marshes of the Dismal Swamp in the year 1728. On this expedition Colonel Jefferson and his companions had often to defend themselves against the attacks of wild beasts during the day, and at night found but a broken rest, sleeping-as they were obliged to do for safety-i

he strong in body who are both the strong and free in mind." This, too, made him careful to have his young son early instructed in all the manly sports and exercises of his day; so that while still a school-boy he was a good rider, a good swimmer, and an ardent sportsman

n of considerable eminence in the colony, whose name associated itself in his day with all that was good and wise. In the year 1717 he married, in London, Jane Rogers. Possessing the polished and courteous manners of a gentleman of the colonial days, with a well-cultivated intellect, and a heart in which every thing that is n

excursions all round, and to return to his house at night.... One thing I must desire of thee, and do insist that thee must oblige me therein: that thou make up that drugget clothes, to go to Virginia in, and not appear to disgrace thyself or me; for though I should not esteem thee the less to come

ho I am also personally known to, I did not doubt his civility to thee. I only wish I had been there and shared it with thee."

heerful and hopeful temper and disposition, was a woman of a clear and strong under

hree days before Jefferson took out a patent for a thousand acres of land on the Rivanna River, Randolph had taken out one for twenty-four hundred acres adjoining. Jefferson, not finding a good site for a house on his l

" in honor of the field on which the Cavaliers and Roundheads first crossed swords. By an intermarriage between their grandchildren, these

in weather-boarded house, to which he took his young bride immediately after his marriage,

Colonel Jefferson removed his family to Tuckahoe, and remained there seven years, sacredly guarding, like a Knight of the Round Table, the solemn charge intrusted to him, without any other reward than the satisfaction of fully keeping the promise ma

occasion, handed up to a servant on horseback, by whom he was carried on a pillow for a long distance. He also remembered that later, when five years old, he one day

e spirit of Old Virginia hospitality, was thrown open to every guest. Here, too, the great Indian Chiefs stopped, on their journeys to and from the colonial capital, an

farewell oration to his people, the evening before his departure for England. The moon was in full splendor, and to her he seemed to address himself in his prayers for his own safety on the voyage,

led, and, in reply, said, "My father had a devoted friend, to whose house he would go, dine, spend the night, dine with him again on the second day, and return to Shadwell in the evening. His friend

eat hospitality for which Virginians have ever been so renowned. The process of farming was then so simple that the labor and cultivation of an estate were easily

minent group among the great historical characters of the world. Their devotion to the chase, to horsemanship, and to all the manly sports of the day, and the perils and adventures to be encountered in a new country

e inducements and temptations offered for the accumulation of wealth were few, while the abundance of the good things of the earth found on his own plantation rendered the Virginian lavish in his expenditures, and hence his unbounded hospitality. Of this we have ample proof in the accounts which have been handed down to us of their mode of life. Thomas Mann Randolph, of Tuckahoe, it is said, consumed annually a tho

ceived for the same twenty pounds. Colonel Jefferson's eagerness for information was inherited to an extraordinary degree by his son, who early evinced that thirst for knowledge which he preserved to the day of his death. He made rapid progress in his studies, and soon

as he was so early in life of the guidance and influence of such a father, were very touchingly described by him years afterw

all, Mr. Wythe, Peyton Randolph, do in this situation? What course in it will insure me their approbation? I am certain that this mode of deciding on my conduct tended more to correctness than any reasoning powers I possessed. Knowing the even and dignified lives they pursued, I could never doubt for a moment which of two courses would be in character for them; whereas, seeking the same object through a process of moral reasoning, and with the jaundiced eye of youth, I should often have erred. From the circumstances of my position, I was often thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox-hunters, sc

o a gentleman who was at the time his guardian. It was written when he was s

January

the loss of one fourth of my Time is inevitable, by Company's coming here and detaining me from School. And likewise my Absence will in a great measure, put a Stop to so much Company, and by that Means lessen the Expenses of the Estate in House-keeping. And on the other Hand by going to the Coll

JEFFE

Hervey, at

raceful pen which afterwards won for its author so high a ran

nd thither he accordingly went, in the year 1760. We again quot

the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed. Fortunately, the philosophical chair became vacant soon after my arrival at college, and he was appointed to fill it per interim; and he was the first who ever gave, in that college, regular lectures in Ethics, Rhetoric, and Belles Lettres. He returned to Europe in 1762, having previously filled up the measure of his goodness to me, by procuring for me, from his most intimate friend, George Wythe, a

nt of seventeen, to have won for him the friendship and esteem of such a profound scho

ollowing brilliant but sad picture, as drawn by the Virginia historian, Burke, of t

e whole of his patrimony; that afterwards, being captivated by the striking graces of this gentleman's person and conversation, he procured for him the government of Virginia. Unreclaimed by the former subversion of his fortune, he introduced the same fatal propensity to gaming into Virginia; and the example of so many virtues and accomplishments, alloyed but by a single vice, was but too successful in extending the influence of this pernicious and ruinous practice. He found among the people of his new government a character compounded of the sam

leman failed to give any attraction, for him at least, to the vice which was such a blot on Fauquier's fine ch

ferson of the equally gifted but pure and virtuous George Wythe. We can not refrain from giving the conclusion of his sketch

ll his habits gave him general good health, and his unaffected modesty and suavity of manners endeared him to every one. He was of easy elocution; his language chaste, methodical in the arrangement of his matter, learned and logical in the use of it, and of great urbanity in debate; not quick of apprehension, but, with a little time, profound in penetration and sound in conclusion. In his philosophy he was