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, [pg 2]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 con[pg 3]sideration 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 [pg 4]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 Surveyor, and later Colonel of the county. This last office was regarded as the chief provincial honor in Virginia, and it was especially important when he held it, for it was the time of the French war, and Albemarle was in the debatable land.

In the midst of that war, in August, 1757, Peter Jefferson died suddenly, of a disease which is not recorded, but which was probably produced by fatigue and exposure. He was a strong, just, kindly man, sought for as a protector of the widow and the orphan, and respected and loved by Indians as well as white men. Upon his deathbed he left two injunctions regarding his son [pg 5]Thomas: one, that he should receive a classical education; the other, that he should never be permitted to neglect the physical exercises necessary for health and strength. Of these dying commands his son often spoke with gratitude; and he used to say that if he were obliged to choose between the education and the estate which his father gave him, he would choose the education. Peter Jefferson left eight children, but only one son besides Thomas, and that one died in infancy. Less is known of Jefferson’s mother; but he derived from her a love of music, an extraordinary keenness of susceptibility, and a corresponding refinement of taste.

His father’s death left Jefferson his own master. In one of his later letters he says: “At fourteen years of age the whole care and direction of myself were thrown on myself entirely, without a relative or a friend qualified to advise or guide me.”

The first use that he made of his liberty was to change his school, and to become a pupil of the Rev. James Maury,—an ex[pg 6]cellent clergyman and scholar, of Huguenot descent, who had recently settled in Albemarle County. With him young Jefferson continued for two years, studying Greek and Latin, and becoming noted, as a schoolmate afterward reported, for scholarship, industry, and shyness. He was a good runner, a keen fox-hunter, and a bold and graceful rider.

At the age of sixteen, in the spring of 1760, he set out on horseback for Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, where he proposed to enter the college of William and Mary. Up to this time he had never seen a town, or even a village, except the hamlet of Charlottesville, which is about four miles from Shadwell. Williamsburg—described in contemporary language as “the centre of taste, fashion, and refinement”—was an unpaved village, of about one thousand inhabitants, surrounded by an expanse of dark green tobacco fields as far as the eye could reach. It was, however, well situated upon a plateau midway between the York and James rivers, and was swept by breezes [pg 7]which tempered the heat of the summer sun and kept the town free from mosquitoes.

Williamsburg was also well laid out, and it has the honor of having served as a model for the city of Washington. It consisted chiefly of a single street, one hundred feet broad and three quarters of a mile long, with the capitol at one end, the college at the other, and a ten-acre square with public buildings in the middle. Here in his palace lived the colonial governor. The town also contained “ten or twelve gentlemen’s families, besides merchants and tradesmen.” These were the permanent inhabitants; and during the “season”—the midwinter months—the planters’ families came to town in their coaches, the gentlemen on horseback, and the little capital was then a scene of gayety and dissipation.

Such was Williamsburg in 1760 when Thomas Jefferson, the frontier planter’s son, rode slowly into town at the close of an early spring day, surveying with the outward indifference, but keen inward curiosity of a countryman, the place which was to be his [pg 8]residence for seven years,—in one sense the most important, because the most formative, period of his life. He was a tall stripling, rather slightly built,—after the model of the Randolphs,—but extremely well-knit, muscular, and agile. His face was freckled, and his features were somewhat pointed. His hair is variously described as red, reddish, and sandy, and the color of his eyes as blue, gray, and also hazel. The expression of his face was frank, cheerful, and engaging. He was not handsome in youth, but “a very good-looking man in middle age, and quite a handsome old man.” At maturity he stood six feet two and a half inches. “Mr. Jefferson,” said Mr. Bacon, at one time the superintendent of his estate, “was well proportioned and straight as a gun-barrel. He was like a fine horse, he had no surplus flesh. He had an iron constitution, and was very strong.”

Jefferson was always the most cheerful and optimistic of men. He once said, after remarking that something must depend “on the chapter of events:” “I am in the habit [pg 9]of turning over the next leaf with hope, and, though it often fails me, there is still another and another behind.” No doubt this sanguine trait was due in part at least to his almost perfect health. He was, to use his own language, “blessed with organs of digestion which accepted and concocted, without ever murmuring, whatever the palate chose to consign to them.” His habits through life were good. He never smoked, he drank wine in moderation, he went to bed early, he was regular in taking exercise, either by walking or, more commonly, by riding on horseback.

The college of William and Mary in Jefferson’s day is described by Mr. Parton as “a medley of college, Indian mission, and grammar school, ill-governed, and distracted by dissensions among its ruling powers.” But Jefferson had a thirst for knowledge and a capacity for acquiring it, which made him almost independent of institutions of learning. Moreover, there was one professor who had a large share in the formation of his mind. “It was my great good for[pg 10]tune,” he wrote in his brief autobiography, “and what probably fixed the destinies of my life, that Dr. William Small, of Scotland, was then professor of mathematics; a man profound in most of the useful branches of science, with a happy talent of communication and an enlarged liberal mind. He, most happily for me, soon became attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed.”

Jefferson, like all well-bred Virginians, was brought up as an Episcopalian; but as a young man, perhaps owing in part to the influence of Dr. Small, he ceased to believe in Christianity as a religion, though he always at home attended the Episcopal church, and though his daughters were brought up in that faith. If any theological term is to be applied to him, he should be called a Deist. Upon the subject of his religious faith, Jefferson was always extremely reticent. To one or two friends only did he disclose [pg 11]his creed, and that was in letters which were published after his death. When asked, even by one of his own family, for his opinion upon any religious matter, he invariably refused to express it, saying that every person was bound to look into the subject for himself, and to decide upon it conscientiously, unbiased by the opinions of others.

Dr. Small introduced Jefferson to other valuable acquaintances; and, boy though he was, he soon became the fourth in a group of friends which embraced the three most notable men in the little metropolis. These were, beside Dr. Small, Francis Fauquier, the acting governor of the province, appointed by the crown, and George Wythe. Fauquier was a courtly, honorable, highly cultivated man of the world, a disciple of Voltaire, and a confirmed gambler, who had in this respect an unfortunate influence upon the Virginia gentry,—not, however, upon Jefferson, who, though a lover of horses, and a frequenter of races, never in his life gambled or even played cards. Wythe was then just beginning a long and honorable [pg 12]career as lawyer, statesman, professor, and judge. He remained always a firm and intimate friend of Jefferson, who spoke of him, after his death, as “my second father.” It is an interesting fact that Thomas Jefferson, John Marshall, and Henry Clay were all, in succession, law students in the office of George Wythe.

Many of the government officials and planters who flocked to Williamsburg in the winter were related to Jefferson on his mother’s side, and they opened their houses to him with Virginia hospitality. We read also of dances in the “Apollo,” the ball-room of the old Raleigh tavern, and of musical parties at Gov. Fauquier’s house, in which Jefferson, who was a skillful and enthusiastic fiddler, always took part. “I suppose,” he remarked in his old age, “that during at least a dozen years of my life, I played no less than three hours a day.”

At this period he was somewhat of a dandy, very particular about his clothes and equipage, and devoted, as indeed he remained through life, to fine horses. Virginia im[pg 13]ported more thoroughbred horses than any other colony, and to this day there is probably a greater admixture of thoroughbred blood there than in any other State. Diomed, winner of the first English Derby, was brought over to Virginia in 1799, and founded a family which, even now, is highly esteemed as a source of speed and endurance. Jefferson had some of his colts; and both for the saddle and for his carriage he always used high-bred horses.

Referring to the Williamsburg period of his life, he wrote once to a grandson: “When I recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished I did not turn off with some of them, and become as worthless to society as they were.... But I had the good fortune to become acquainted very early with some characters of very high standing, and to feel the incessant wish that I could ever become what they were. Under temptations and difficulties, I would ask myself what would Dr. Small, Mr. Wythe, Peyton Randolph do in this situation? What course in it will as[pg 14]sure me their approbation? I am certain that this mode of deciding on my conduct tended more to correctness than any reasoning powers that I possesed.”

This passage throws a light upon Jefferson’s character. It does not seem to occur to him that a young man might require some stronger motive to keep his passions in check than could be furnished either by the wish to imitate a good example or by his “reasoning powers.” To Jefferson’s well-regulated mind the desire for approbation was a sufficient motive. He was particularly sensitive, perhaps morbidly so, to disapprobation. The respect, the good-will, the affection of his countrymen were so dear to him that the desire to retain them exercised a great, it may be at times, an undue influence upon him. “I find,” he once said, “the pain of a little censure, even when it is unfounded, is more acute than the pleasure of much praise.”

During his second year at college, Jefferson laid aside all frivolities. He sent home his horses, contenting himself with a mile [pg 15]run out and back at nightfall for exercise, and studying, if we may believe the biographer, no less than fifteen hours a day. This intense application reduced the time of his college course by one half; and after the second winter at Williamsburg he went home with a degree in his pocket, and a volume of Coke upon Lytleton in his trunk.