




                   *The Riverside Biographical Series*

                                 NUMBER 5

                             THOMAS JEFFERSON

                                    BY

                           HENRY CHILDS MERWIN

                      [Illustration: Th. Jefferson]





                            THOMAS JEFFERSON

                                   BY

                           HENRY CHILDS MERWIN


                           [Publisher's emblem]


HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
Boston: 4 Park Street; New York: 11 East Seventeenth Street
Chicago: 378-388 Wabash Avenue
*The Riverside Press, Cambridge*





                   COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HENRY C. MERWIN

                           ALL RIGHTS RESERVED





                                 CONTENTS


 CHAP.                                        PAGE
    I.   YOUTH AND TRAINING                      1
   II.   VIRGINIA IN JEFFERSON'S DAY            16
  III.   MONTICELLO AND ITS HOUSEHOLD           28
   IV.   JEFFERSON IN THE REVOLUTION            36
    V.   REFORM WORK IN VIRGINIA                45
   VI.   GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA                   59
  VII.   ENVOY AT PARIS                         71
 VIII.   SECRETARY OF STATE                     82
   IX.   THE TWO PARTIES                        98
    X.   PRESIDENT JEFFERSON                   114
   XI.   SECOND PRESIDENTIAL TERM              130
  XII.   A PUBLIC MAN IN PRIVATE LIFE          149






                             THOMAS JEFFERSON





                                    I


                            YOUTH AND TRAINING


Thomas Jefferson was born upon a frontier estate in Albemarle County,
Virginia, April 13, 1743. His father, Peter Jefferson, was of Welsh
descent, not of aristocratic birth, but of that yeoman class which
constitutes the backbone of all societies. The elder Jefferson had
uncommon powers both of mind and body. His strength was such that he could
simultaneously "head up"--that is, raise from their sides to an upright
position--two hogsheads of tobacco, weighing nearly one thousand pounds
apiece. Like Washington, he was a surveyor; and there is a tradition that
once, while running his lines through a vast wilderness, his assistants
gave out from famine and fatigue, and Peter Jefferson pushed on alone,
sleeping at night in hollow trees, amidst howling beasts of prey, and
subsisting on the flesh of a pack mule which he had been obliged to kill.

Thomas Jefferson inherited from his father a love of mathematics and of
literature. Peter Jefferson had not received a classical education, but he
was a diligent reader of a few good books, chiefly Shakespeare, The
Spectator, Pope, and Swift; and in mastering these he was forming his mind
on great literature after the manner of many another Virginian,--for the
houses of that colony held English books as they held English furniture.
The edition of Shakespeare (and it is a handsome one) which Peter
Jefferson used is still preserved among the heirlooms of his descendants.

It was probably in his capacity of surveyor that Mr. Jefferson made the
acquaintance of the Randolph family, and he soon became the bosom friend
of William Randolph, the young proprietor of Tuckahoe. The Randolphs had
been for ages a family of consideration in the midland counties of
England, claiming descent from the Scotch Earls of Murray, and connected
by blood or marriage with many of the English nobility. In 1735 Peter
Jefferson established himself as a planter by patenting a thousand acres
of land in Goochland County, his estate lying near and partly including
the outlying hills, which form a sort of picket line for the Blue Mountain
range. At the same time his friend William Randolph patented an adjoining
estate of twenty-four hundred acres; and inasmuch as there was no good
site for a house on Jefferson's estate, Mr. Randolph conveyed to him four
hundred acres for that purpose, the consideration expressed in the deed,
which is still extant, being "Henry Weatherbourne's biggest bowl of Arrack
punch."

Here Peter Jefferson built his house, and here, three years later, he
brought his bride,--a handsome girl of nineteen, and a kinswoman of William
Randolph, being Jane, oldest child of Isham Randolph, then
Adjutant-General of Virginia. She was born in London, in the parish of
Shadwell, and Shadwell was the name given by Peter Jefferson to his
estate. This marriage was a fortunate union of the best aristocratic and
yeoman strains in Virginia.

In the year 1744 the new County of Albemarle was carved out of Goochland
County, and Peter Jefferson was appointed one of the three justices who
constituted the county court and were the real rulers of the shire. He was
made also Survey