But just before he started for college, he stayed over the holidays at a merry house in Hanover County, where he met, for the first time, a jovial blade named Patrick Henry, noted then only for fiddling, dancing, mimicry, and practical jokes.
Jefferson and Henry became great friends. Jefferson had not a suspicion of the wonderful talent that lay undeveloped in the prime mover of all the fun of that merry company. While as little, doubtless, did Patrick Henry see in this slender sandy-haired lad, a political leader and associate.
Yet only a few years later, in May 1765, Patrick Henry was elected a member of the House of Burgesses, and Jefferson was become a brilliant law student.
In 1775, Jefferson was elected a delegate to the Continental Congress, that declared the Independence of the United States of America.
James Parton (Arranged)
THE AUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION
The English settlers of Virginia, brought with them English rights and liberties. The settlers and their descendants were “forever to enjoy all liberties, franchises, and immunities enjoyed by Englishmen in England.” They received from England the right to make their own laws, if not contrary to the laws of England.
It was a Governor of Virginia who summoned the first representative Assembly that ever met in America, the first American Colonial Legislature. This happened about a year before the Pilgrim Fathers reached the New World, and drew up the Mayflower Compact.
It was not strange, therefore, that Thomas Jefferson, born and reared in the atmosphere of Virginia Freedom, should have been a Patriot who fearlessly defended American Liberty.
He was also a man of unusual intellectual power and a writer of elegant prose. So when Congress appointed a Committee to draft the Declaration of Independence, he was made a member of that Committee.