Thomas Jefferson

THOMAS JEFFERSON, author of the Declaration of Independence, was born on April 13, 1743 and grew up on the family plantation at Shadwell in Albermarle County, Virginia. His father was Peter Jefferson, who, with the aid of thirty slaves, tilled a tobacco and wheat farm of 1,900 acres and like his fathers before him, was a justice of the peace, a vestryman of his parish and a member of the colonial legislature. The first of the Virginia Jefferson's of Welsh extraction, Peter in 1738 married Jane Randolph. Of their ten children, Thomas was the third. Thomas inherited a full measure of his father's bodily strength and stature, both having been esteemed in their prime as the strongest men of their county. He also inherited his father's inclination to liberal politics, his taste for literature and his aptitude for mathematics. The Jefferson's were a musical family; the girls sang the songs of the time, and Thomas, practicing the violin assiduously from boyhood, became an excellent performer.

In 1757, when Thomas was only fourteen, his father died, leaving him heir to an enormous estate. On his deathbed, his father left an order that his son's education, already well advanced in a preparatory school, should be completed at the College of William and Mary, a circumstance which Thomas always remembered with gratitude, saying that if he had to choose between the education and the estate his father left him, he would choose the education.

At seventeen, when young Jefferson entered the College of William and Mary he was tall, raw-boned, freckled, and sandy haired, with large feet and hands, thick wrists, and prominent cheekbones and chin. His classmates described him as far from handsome, a fresh, healthy looking youth, very erect, agile and strong, with something of rusticity in his air and demeanor. The college at that time had one truly outstanding educator, Dr. William Small of Scotland, professor of mathematics. Jefferson said in his autobiography that his coming under the influence of Dr. Small "probably fixed the destinies of my life". Dr. Small gave Jefferson the views of the connection of the sciences and of the system of things of which man is a part, which then prevailed in the advanced scientific circles of Europe. As a student, Jefferson attended the musical parties that the lieutenant governor, Francis Fauquier hosted. Jefferson was always present with his violin and participated in the concert, the governor himself also was a performer.