"The residence of the real estate of Thomas Jefferson, dec'd., in the county of Albemarle, comprising the mansion house of Monticello and one thousand acres of first rate land, is offered for sale on accommodating terms, and little more is expected than a fair price for the land, not estimating the value of the improvements.
"T. J. R.,"Extor. of T. J., dec'd."
The glory and bloom of Monticello, however, was never lessened during his lifetime and he died unconscious of the amount of his involvement. Death was loath to lay its hand on Thomas Jefferson. "Mine is the next turn, and I shall meet it with good will," he had written long before it came to him, at the age of eight-three, and as he desired, on the 4th of July, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
"Why wish to linger here in mere vegetation as a solitary trunk in a desolate field, from which all its companions have disappeared?" he had asked. His grandchildren were marrying fast, greatgrand-children were filling the house. Virginia, still a member of the household, had become the wife of Nicholas P. Trist. Ellen had taken her place as wife and mother in the home of Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, whose posterity today mingle in their veins rich blood of the North and of the South, and claim descent, as does the twenty-ninth President of the United States, from the original John, of Massachusetts. So ended the life of the
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