Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. I.djvu/143

THOMAS JEFFERSON THOMAS JEFFERSON,, third president of the United States, born in Shadwell, Albemarle County, Virginia, April 2, 1743; died at Monti- cello, in the same county, July 4, 1826. His father was Peter Jefferson, who, with the aid of thirty slaves, tilled a tobacco and wheat farm of 1,900 acres; a man physically strong, a good mathemati cian, skilled in surveying, fond of standard litera ture, and in politics a British Whig. Like his fathers before him, Peter Jefferson was a justice of the peace, a vestryman of his parish, and a mem ber of the colonial legislature. The first of the Virginia Jeffersons, who were of Welsh extraction, was a member of the Virginia legislature of 1619, noted as the first legislative body ever convened on the western continent. Peter married in 1738 Jane, daughter of Isham Randolph, a wealthy and conspicuous member of the family of that name. Of their ten children, Thomas was the third, born in a plain, spacious farm-house, traces of which still exist. He inherited a full measure of his father s bodily strength and stature, both hav ing been esteemed in their prime the strongest men 111