“General Jackson, during the whole time of her residence in Washington, never omitted making her a visit once a year, accompanied usually by the Secretary of State. As a tribute to her father’s memory, these marks of respect were peculiarly gratifying. Her disposition was naturally cheerful and social, though she was not dependent on society for happiness. Her habits of regular occupation, possessing as she did various tastes, the cultivation of which afforded her variety, and increased her interest in life; and surrounded as she was by a large, cheerful family circle, she lived contentedly in the country, even during the winters at Monticello, which were seldom enlivened by visitors. That season was devoted principally to the education of her children; the constant crowds of visitors during the rest of the year leaving her very little time not engrossed by household cares, arising from the duties of hospitality.
“During the years which she passed in Washington, she resumed many of her old occupations; her taste for flowers revived, and good music afforded her enjoyment, although she no longer played much herself after my grandfather’s death. Her habits of reading she never lost, and she always began the day with some chapter of the New Testament. She was an early riser in summer and in winter. She liked an east window in her bedroom, because it enabled her to read in bed before the household were stirring. Every year she visited alternately my elder brother at his residence near Monticello, in the southwest mountains of Virginia, or my sister, Mrs. Joseph Coolidge, in Boston.
“In the spring of 1831 she was called on to make a painful sacrifice, such as mothers only can appreciate—she gave her consent to George’s entering the navy. After passing a winter with her in Washington, he had entered a school near the University of Virginia, when a midshipman’s warrant was procured for him. At his boarding-school in Massachusetts, his conduct had gained for him the respect, confidence, and good-will of all, teachers and associates; but he was yet a mere child, and his mother’s heart sickened at the thought of his going forth alone to encounter the naval perils, as well as brave the hardships of a sea-faring life. She had, however, the fortitude to approve of what was judged best for his future, and her sorrow was borne with the patient and cheerful resignation which belonged to her character.
“The recollection of that parting as a trial for her stirs up, even at this distance of time, the long dormant feelings which I thought my last tear had been shed for. You, dear madam, will excuse this revival of incidents not required for your sketch, and will use such things only as may have an interest for the public. His first cruise lasted eighteen months, in the U. S. ship John Adams, which went up the Mediterranean as far as Constantinople; and one of its incidents was the breaking out of the cholera on board. He got back to us safely, however, and my mother was rewarded for her sufferings by the encomiums elicited by his conduct and character from the officers under whom he had served, and their predictions as to the useful and honorable career which lay before him. She continued to hear him highly spoken of, and to learn that he was respected by all who knew him, and that his leisure hours on board the ship were devoted to reading and study. In the interval between his cruises, he was to stay with her in Washington.
“In the second year of her residence there, she had the happiness of having my brother Lewis, another of her younger children, added to her family. He obtained a clerkship, which afforded him a post while he was qualifying himself for the practice of the law, and he remained with us until his marriage, which took place a few years later. He was highly gifted, remarkably handsome, and shone in the social circle, but never formed one of the idle throng always to be found in cities. Very domestic in his tastes and habits, his leisure hours were divided between his professional studies and associates belonging to the circle in which his family moved. He married Miss Martin, a niece of Mrs. Donelson, with whom he became acquainted at the ‘White House,’ where she was staying. He then moved to the young State of Arkansas, where a promising career at the bar was cut short by an early death from congestive fever, less than a year after his mother’s death.
“In the summer of 1832, my mother parted with the orphan granddaughter, Ellen Bankhead, whom she had adopted, and who, being then married to Mr. John Carter, of Albemarle, returned to live on his estate in his native mountains, and among the scenes of her childhood. Willie, her little orphan brother, was about that time claimed by his paternal grandfather, and placed at a day-school near him. In the following spring, Mr. Trist purchased a house into which we all moved. I think my mother felt more at home in this pleasant, new abode than she had ever done since leaving Monticello. The house had been built by Mr. Richard Rush, our Minister to England for many years, and when we first moved to Washington, was occupied by this gentleman and his lovely wife and family. It was a spacious dwelling, admirably planned and built, with a large garden and out-buildings, the whole enclosed by a high brick wall. There the last three years of my mother’s life were spent, although her death took place suddenly at Edgehill, my brother’s residence in Virginia.
“The winter preceding had been marked by the death of my brother, James Madison Randolph, who had just completed his 27th year. He was buried at Monticello on a cold day in January. I remember the negroes assembled there, and made a fire to keep them warm while they waited for the procession which followed him to his early grave, who, they said, was the ‘black man’s friend,’ and would have shared his last cent with one of them. At the time of our removal to that pleasant new home, my brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, having gone to China, was engaged in business in Canton; his family remaining in Boston. In the summer of 1834, and during the absence of her husband, my sister paid us a visit, passing the summer in Virginia at my brother’s, and the following winter with us in Washington. On that occasion, my mother had all her daughters with her for the last time; and Lewis, yet unmarried, was still living with her. The season was remarkable for its severity, the thermometer falling so low as 16° below zero, on a gallery with a southern exposure of our house, and so late even as the 1st day of March, stood at zero—the snow a foot deep in the garden. Soon after the purchase of that house, Mr. Trist, whose health had been very delicate, was appointed by General Jackson to be United States Consul at Havana, which post had become vacant by the death of Mr. Shaler, long distinguished as our Consul at Algiers. He proceeded there alone, and in the summer returned to Washington. After remaining with us a few months, he again went to Havana alone to pass one more winter there, and then return to take charge of the office of First Comptroller of the Treasury, which General Jackson had tendered to him. He was still in Havana in the spring of 1835, when my brother Lewis left us to be married in Tennessee, and Mr. Coolidge arrived from China and came immediately to Washington, where his wife and family were still staying with us. He found my mother slowly recovering from a very severe illness, considered by our friend and physician, Dr. Hall, as a ‘breaking up of her constitution,’ and which was regarded by my brothers, Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin (who repaired from their homes in Virginia to their mother’s bedside), as seriously alarming. She, however, recovered to a certain point, but never perfectly. Mr. Coolidge and my sister with their children returned to Boston, whilst my mother was to follow them as soon as she was able to travel. Accordingly, when her strength became sufficiently restored, she made the journey, going from Washington to Baltimore by steamer down the Potomac and up the Chesapeake Bay, she not having strength for the stagecoach ride of forty miles, then the only direct public conveyance between the two cities. My sister Mary accompanied her, and she reached Boston safely. Mr. Trist returned from Havana in August after my mother’s departure. He had then decided, most reluctantly yielding to the advice of his physician, to prolong his residence in Havana: his continuance in that climate for several years being judged essential to his recovery from an affection of the throat, of which there were at that period a number of fatal cases. That winter, instead of accompanying my husband on his return to Havana, as I should have wished, I had to take up my abode in Philadelphia to be near our little mute son, Thomas Jefferson, whom I entered—the youngest pupil there—as a boarder at the institution for deaf-mutes. This last winter of her life my mother passed in Boston with but two of her children near her: Mrs. Coolidge and Mary—the others scattered far away from her, fortunately for their peace of mind unconscious how soon the last parting was to come. My own departure for Havana the following autumn was decided on, but dreaded by all—still nearer was that other parting scene at which we were to meet no more on earth.
“In the month of May, 1836, my mother left Boston for Virginia, accompanied by my sister Mary. A final adieu it proved to her daughter, Mrs. Coolidge—her favorite child, it was generally thought, but we never felt jealous of her. Our family was, I think, a very united one. On her journey south, she passed some weeks in Philadelphia on a visit to her sister-in-law, Mrs. Hackley, the mother of Mrs. Cutts. I was still in Philadelphia with my little deaf-mute boy, and it was on that occasion that this precious portrait was secured by my prevailing on her to sit to Mr. Sully, then considered the best female portrait painter in our country. Twenty years previously, Mr. Sully had passed some time as a guest at Monticello, having been employed to make a portrait of my grandfather for the Military Academy at West Point. Since that time my mother had changed very much. Mr. Sully had then found her living with her dear father in that happy home, surrounded by a large, cheerful family circle unbroken by death. But in the long interval, many of its members had been taken away, and grief had left its traces not less plainly stamped upon her face than age. She was thinner and more feeble than I had ever seen her—it was just six months before her death. I accompanied her to Mr. Sully’s studio for her first sitting, and as she took her seat before him she said playfully: ‘Mr. Sully, I shall never forgive you if you paint me with wrinkles.’ I quickly interposed,—‘Paint her just as she is, if you please, Mr. Sully: the picture is for me.’ He said, ‘I shall paint you, Mrs. Randolph, as I remember you twenty years ago.’ He approved of her dress, particularly a large cape worn by old ladies, and requested her not to make any change in it. The picture does represent her twenty years younger than when she sat to him, but it failed to restore the embonpoint, and especially the expression of health, and cheerful, even joyous, vivacity, which her countenance then habitually wore. While she was sitting for her portrait, her youngest daughter, Septimia, arrived by sea from Pensacola, where she had been taken by Mr. Trist to pass the winter with some friends, soon after which my mother pursued her journey to Virginia, accompanied by Mary and Septimia.
“Mr. Trist returned in August, and I set out with him in September for Virginia to take leave of my friends. On our arrival at Washington, finding General Jackson there alone in the White House—soon to set out for Tennessee, where his family had preceded him—the General expressed a wish for my husband’s company during the days he might still be detained there. This being acceded to, I pursued my journey alone, little dreaming that this detention of a few days was to deprive my husband of ever again seeing my mother, between whom and himself the warmest attachment existed. On reaching Edgehill, I found them all assembled under my brother’s roof, soon to travel together northward again before the separation so dreaded by us all. My mother and Mary were to pass the winter with Mrs. Coolidge, in Boston, whilst Cornelia and Septimia were to accompany me to Havana. I found my mother still looking very delicate and troubled with sore throat, for which a gargle had been prescribed by my brother, Dr. Benjamin F. Randolph. She complained of a vertigo when she threw back her head in using it. The day appointed for our departure being close at hand, she had exerted herself more than usual in packing a trunk; the following day she had a sick-headache and kept her bed. She had all her life been subject to these headaches, but within the last few years had ceased to have them. One of my sisters expressed the hope that their recurrence might be a favorable symptom, a proof of returning vigor, as she had not had anything of the sort since her illness eighteen months before in Washington. We watched by her bedside, though feeling no alarm at an affection which we had always been accustomed to see her suffer with for several days at a time. One of my sisters slept in the room with her, and before parting with her for the night, I gave my mother some arrow-root. Early next morning I was called and told she was worse. I hurried to her bedside, but was too late to be recognized, a blue shade passed over the beloved face; it was gone and she lay as in sleep, but life had gone too. It was apoplexy. She died on the 10th of October, 1836, having just completed her sixty-fourth year on the 27th of September, ten years and three months after her father, and was laid by his side in the graveyard at Monticello.”
