An idea of the impression made by him as an advocate in the court-room is given in the following anecdote, which we have from his eldest grandson, Mr. Jefferson Randolph. Anxious to learn how his grandfather had stood as a pleader, Mr. Randolph once asked an old man of good sense who in his youth had often heard Jefferson deliver arguments in court, how he ranked as a speaker, "Well," said the old gentleman, in reply, "it is hard to tell, because he always took the right side." Few speakers, we imagine, would desire a greater compliment than that which the old man unconsciously paid in his reply.
The works which Jefferson has left behind him as his share in the revision of the laws of the State, place his erudition as a lawyer beyond question, while to no man does Virginia owe more for the preservation of her ancient records than to him. In this last work he was indefatigable. The manuscripts and materials for the early history of the State had been partially destroyed and scattered by the burning of State buildings and the ravages of war. These Jefferson, as far as it was possible, collected and restored, and it is to him that we owe their preservation at the present day.
While in the different public offices which he held during his life, Jefferson availed himself of every opportunity to get information concerning the language of the Indians of North America, and to this end he made a collection of the vocabularies of all the Indian languages, intending, in the leisure of his retirement from public life, to analyze them, and see if he could trace in them any likeness to other languages. When he left Washington, after vacating the presidential chair, these valuable papers were packed in a trunk and sent, with the rest of his baggage, around by Richmond, whence they were to be sent up the James and Rivanna Rivers to Monticello. Two negro boatmen who had charge of them, and who, in the simplicity of their ignorance, took it for granted that the ex-President was returning from office with untold wealth, being deceived by the weight of the trunk, broke into it, thinking that it contained gold. On discovering their mistake, the papers were scattered to the wind; and thus were lost literary treasures which might have been a rich feast to many a philologist.
Marriage Licene-Bond (Fac-simile)
In the year 1770 the house at Shadwell was destroyed by fire, and Jefferson then moved to Monticello, where his preparations for a residence were sufficiently advanced to enable him to make it his permanent abode. He was from home when the fire took place at Shadwell, and the first inquiry he made of the negro who carried him the news was after his books. "Oh, my young master," he replied, carelessly, "they were all burnt; but, ah! we saved your fiddle."
In 1772 Jefferson married Martha Skelton, the widow of Bathurst Skelton, and the daughter of John Wayles, of whom he speaks thus in his Memoir