Thomas Jefferson

The Riverside Biographical Series
NUMBER 5
THOMAS JEFFERSON
HENRY CHILDS MERWIN
BY HENRY CHILDS MERWIN
COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HENRY C. MERWIN
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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.
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.
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.”
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.