Thomas JeffersonOUTDOOR LIFE OF THE PRESIDENTS.
Thomas Jefferson
By JOHN P. FOLEY.
THOMASJEFFERSON, the third President, was, like Washington, a member of the rich, slave-owning aristocracy of Virginia. His father was a large landed proprietor, and bequeathed to him a handsome estate in the county of Albemarle. It was called Shadwell, after a parish in London. To another son, younger, he left a property on the James River, named Snowden, which commemorated the reputed birthplace of the family in Wales. The Jefferson homestead was on the Shadwell lands. At a distance of about two miles from where it stood there arose a beautiful forest-clothed mountain, which commanded a wide view of the surrounding country. It was a favorite resort of young Jefferson. When a boy, he and a youthful companion used to climb its rocky sides, and in later years they repaired to it for the purposes of study and recreation. Under the shadow of a splendid oak they read their legal text-books, and, in the ardor of their friendship, resolved that whoever died first should be buried at its feet, and that, when the time came, the survivor should rest beside him. This young friend, Dabney Carr, who subsequently married a sister of Jefferson, died in early manhood, and the romantic compact of boyhood was faithfully carried out. Half a century later the remains of Jefferson were laid by his side.
The story is told that during one of their frequent rambles on the mountain, Jefferson unfolded to Carr his intention to build his future home amid the scenes where they had spent so many happy hours.
This tale is probably true, for soon after Jefferson became of age, the majority of his slaves were set to work clearing away the top of the mountain, now called, for the first time, Monticello, and preparing the site for the mansion which was destined to an eternity of fame, because of the splendid achievements of its illustrious owner.
Jefferson was only fourteen years old when his father died. He had been nine years at school at the time; knew the rudiments of Latin and Greek, and had some knowledge of French. In a letter written in his old age to a grandson, whose education he was superintending, Mr. Jefferson refers to this sad event in his life, and describes the perils that surrounded his youth as follows:“When I recollect that at fourteen years of age the whole care and education of myself was thrown on myself, entirely without a relative or friend qualified to advise or guide me, and recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished that I did not turn off with some of them and become as worthless to society as they were.... From the circumstances of my position I was often thrown into the society of horse-racers, card-players, fox-hunters, scientific and professional men, and of dignified men; and many a time have I asked myself in the enthusiastic moment of the death of a fox, the victory of a favorite horse, the issue of a question eloquently argued at the bar, or in the great council of the nation, ‘Well, which of these kinds of reputation should I prefer? That of a horse-jockey, a fox-hunter, an orator, or the honest advocate of my country’s rights?’” The temptations to which he refers beset him, in all probability, when he was at William and Mary College and immediately after, while he was reading law in Williamsburg, the then capital of Virginia. That town was the centre of the most refined society of the province; the seat of the legislature; the headquarters of the army; and it was only natural that the objectionable characters whom Jefferson condemns should have been attracted to it. A young man just graduated with the highest honors from the university, with a reputation for the possession of great intellectual gifts, the heir to a fine estate, of agreeable and cultivated manners, Jefferson was at once admitted into the very best society of Williamsburg. He lived in a style befitting his position. He had his horses and slaves, in fact all the luxuries which a rich young gentleman of the time could command. At this period he fortunately fell under the influence of three men who helped to mold his career and turn him toward those pursuits which were ultimately crowned with the highest honors an American can obtain. They were the first men in the social and political life of Williamsburg; the first men, in fact, in the whole province. One was George Wyeth, his legal preceptor, a gentleman of the highest order of ability; in after years a signer of the Declaration of Independence and Chancellor of Virginia. The second was Dr. Small, one of the professors in the college, “who made him his daily companion,” and the third Governor Fauquier, “the ablest man,” says Jefferson, “who ever filled that office.” At the table of the governor, Jefferson, not yet twenty years old, was a guest as often as twice a week. He was also a member of a little musical society which the representative of royalty in Virginia had organized. Fauquier was one of the most accomplished men of his time. He was of a distinguished English family, courtly in manner, a brilliant conversationalist, with a wide knowledge of the world. He loved high play, and, it is said, lost his fortune in one night to the celebrated Anson, who first circumnavigated the globe.
Jefferson’s father, as we have said, died when his son was only fourteen years of age; but, says Mr. Randall in his biography of the third President, he had already taught young Thomas “to ride his horse, fire his gun, boldly stem the Rivanna when the swollen river was ‘rolling red from brae to brae,’ and press his way with unflagging foot through the rocky summits of the contiguous hills in pursuit of deer and wild turkeys.” From youth to old age riding was the one amusement of which Jefferson never tired. At college he kept his horses, the very best that could be had. His stable was the one extravagance of which, while there, he appears to have been guilty. His expenditures in this respect were so heavy that he requested his guardian to charge them to his portion of the estate, so that his brother and sisters should not suffer; but the guardian declined, on the ground that if he had thus sown his wild oats the property would be able to stand it without very great loss. His taste for fine horses lasted all through life. He rode and drove magnificent animals, says Mr. Randall, and in his younger days was exceedingly “finical” in their treatment. When his saddle-horse was led out he examined him carefully. If there was a spot on his coat he rubbed it with a white pocket-handkerchief, and if it was soiled, the groom was reprimanded. He preferred the Virginian racehorse. He did not ride, and was scarcely willing to drive, any other. He usually kept half a dozen brood mares of high quality. Although not a turfman—he ran only one race in his life—he had all the fondness of the Virginian for the sport, and rarely missed seeing what promised to be a good contest. While he held the office of Secretary of State, and, later on, when chief magistrate, he was frequently seen on the race-courses near Philadelphia and the federal city. Jefferson was not satisfied with slow and spiritless animals. On the contrary, he always aimed to have fleet, powerful, mettlesome creatures, and when these qualities could be obtained he was willing to overlook a bad temper. Colonel Randolph, writing on this point, remarks:“A bold and fearless rider; you saw at once from his easy and confident seat that he was master of his horse.... The only impatience of temper he ever exhibited was with his horse, which he subdued to his will by a fearless application of the whip on the slightest manifestation of restiveness. He retained to the last his fondness for riding on horseback. He rode within three weeks of his death, when, from disease, debility and age, he mounted with difficulty.” A servant was rarely allowed to accompany him, for he loved solitude, and used to say that the presence of an attendant annoyed him. In his young days he never drew rein at broken ground, and when in haste he used to dash into the Rivanna, even when it was swollen into a large and rapid river by mountain torrents. His superb horsemanship served him well on a memorable occasion during the Revolutionary War, when a detachment of English troops visited Monticello in the hope of capturing him. He had timely notice of their approach, and, having sent his family away in carriages to one of his numerous farms, he ordered his horse to a certain point, and returned to the house to secrete his papers. While thus occupied a second alarm came, and he had barely time to mount and dash into the woods, where he was safe from pursuit. Jefferson was then governor of Virginia, and in after years his political opponents charged that he ignominiously ran away from the enemy.
Mr. Jefferson’s classical tastes were indicated in the names of his horses: “Caractacus” was one, “Arcturus” another, “Tarquin” a third, “Celer” a fourth. Then he had “Diomed” and “Cucullin,” “Jacobin” and “The General,” “Wildair” and “Eagle.” “Eagle” seems to have been his favorite steed. He was fleet and fiery, and, withal, of a gentle temper. This animal was ridden by Jefferson when he was so feeble that he had to be assisted to mount. “Eagle,” it would appear, loved his venerable master. The story is told that when a young kinsman of Jefferson’s mounted the old horse to ride with a cavalcade to meet Lafayette on his way to Monticello, in 1825, “Eagle” became so excited by the sound of the drums and bugles that the young gentleman was obliged to turn back and ride home. On one occasion, when Jefferson was old and suffering severely from an injured wrist, a messenger brought the intelligence to Monticello that a grandson of the ex-President was severely ill at Charlottesville. Night was coming on, and the sky was dark and threatening. Jefferson ordered that “Eagle” be led to the door. His family, alarmed for his safety, vainly entreated him not to attempt the journey. In the saddle, he gave “Eagle” a cut which set him off at full speed. Mr. Jefferson’s family anxiously listened, hoping that he would draw bridle at the “notch,” where the mountain began to descend abruptly. The echoes of “Eagle’s” hoofs over the rocks told them that the fearful speed was maintained. The returning messenger was soon passed, and Charlottesville was reached “in a time over such ground that would have reflected credit on the boldest rider in Virginia.” “Arcturus” had the honor of being one of the Presidential horses at Washington. His disposition was bad, and he was exceedingly unmanageable. The crags of Monticello did not suit him, and when he first arrived there he selected as a shying point a rock which jutted out into the narrow road on the edge of a ravine. The brute seemed to reason that his rider would not dare to punish him at such a point. Jefferson indulged him two or three times, and then determined to break him of the habit. The next time “Arcturus” shied he punished him so severely that the animal was glad to put his fore-feet on the rock and stand still. Mr. Jefferson kept a good stable while he was President, although his political enemies were unwilling to concede even that point in his favor. In one of the opposition prints of the day we are told that he carried his affectation of democratic simplicity so far that “he rode around the avenues of Washington an ugly, shambling hack of a horse which was hardly fit to draw a tumbril.” But this was a slander. There are conflicting stories in regard to Mr. Jefferson’s inauguration. On the one hand, we are assured that he rode to the Capitol alone, and, tying his horse to the palings surrounding the grounds, went to the Senate chamber and took the oath. Mr. Rayner, in his life of Jefferson, quotes the account of the event by an eye-witness as follows:“The sun shone bright on that morning. The Senate was convened. The members of the Republican party that remained at the seat of government, the judges of the Supreme Court, some citizens and gentry from the neighboring country, and about a dozen ladies, made up the assembly in the Senate chamber.... Mr. Jefferson had not yet arrived. He was seen walking from his lodgings, which were not far distant, attended by five or six gentlemen, who were his fellow-lodgers. Soon afterwards he entered, accompanied by a committee of the Senate.... He took the oath, which was administered by the Chief-Justice.... The new President walked home with two or three gentlemen who lodged in the same house.” It is a well-known matter of history that Jefferson abolished all the official and social pomp that was so marked a feature of the administrations of his predecessors. The levees were discontinued. He had only two days for the reception of company—the 1st of January and the 4th of July, when he dispensed a very liberal hospitality. The ladies of Washington bitterly opposed this severe simplicity, and determined to make Mr. Jefferson return to the old order of things. With that end in view, a number of them visited the White House on the usual reception day. Jefferson was out riding at the time, and on his return was informed of their presence. A storm of wrath gathered on his brow, but was soon dispelled. Booted, spurred, and covered with dust, he entered the room, and, riding-whip in hand, chatted in the most delightful manner. The ladies saw they were beaten, and never made a second attempt to get the levees back. Mr. Jefferson on one of his solitary rides, while he was President, met a feeble beggar sitting on the banks of a stream. The mendicant, not knowing whom he addressed, asked to be helped across. Mr. Jefferson directed him to mount behind, and carried him over. The pack was forgotten, and Jefferson recrossed the stream for it.
From his youth Jefferson had an intense fondness for agriculture. The care and management of his large estate devolved on him as soon as he became of age. He was studying law at Williamsburg, but his summers were spent at Shadwell. He kept a clock in his bedroom, and rose in the early dawn. During the day he usually took a gallop, and in the twilight walked to the top of Monticello. Nine o’clock in summer and ten in winter were his hours for retiring. At a very early period he introduced a minute and exact system into all his affairs. He kept a large number of note-books. In one, “the garden book,” he recorded facts and data about the vegetable world, more particularly information bearing on the subject of horticulture. He also kept “a farm book,” and books for “personal” and “general” expenses. Then there was a meteorological register. In his account-books we find such entries as these: “Paid 11d. to the barber; 4d. for whetting penknife; put 1s. in the church box.” On the memorable Fourth of July, 1776, when the Declaration of Independence was signed, he sets forth that he had “paid Sparhank for a thermometer £3 5s.,” and “27s. for 7 pairs of women’s gloves.” He gave “1s. 6d. in charity.” The weather record tells us that on the same day at sixA.M. the mercury stood 68° above; at noon, 76°, and at nineP.M., 731⁄2°. Entries were made in this book regularly three times a day. Special expenditures were set down by themselves. All his outlay while President, for instance, is preserved in one manuscript volume, which was among the literary treasures of the late Samuel J. Tilden. A striking illustration of how Mr. Jefferson could charge his mind with the smallest as well as the largest matters of human concern is shown by the curious record which he kept of the condition of the vegetable market in Washington during the eight years of the Presidency. This table specifies thirty-seven different articles, and gives the date of the appearance of each of them on the table, or on the stands for sale. In his “garden book” he entered the time of the planting, sprouting, and ripening of his multitude of esculents. These entries were illustrated by diagrams, as neat as engravings, of the different plots or beds. The rows are numbered, and the seeds planted in them accurately given. Even small matters concerning the household received his attention, and we are told how much of this or that article will suffice for one person, or for a family; how much oil will be required for a given number of hours; the relative cost of oil and candles. His agricultural observations were ranged under seventeen general heads, comprising more than fifty subdivisions.
By birth and fortune Jefferson was an aristocrat, but his nature revolted against the idle and voluptuous habits of the planter class of that day. His ideas when he was about thirty years of age are well expressed by himself, as follows:“Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people, whose breasts he has made his peculiar deposit for substantial and genuine virtue. It is the focus in which he keeps alive that sacred fire which otherwise might escape from the face of the earth. Corruption of morals in the aggregate mass of cultivators is a phenomenon of which no age nor nation has furnished an example. It is the mark set on those who, not looking up to heaven, to their own soil and industry, as does the husbandman, for their subsistence, depend for it on the casualties and caprice of customers. Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition. This, the natural progress and consequence of the arts, has sometimes, perhaps, been retarded by accidental circumstances; but, generally speaking, the proportion which the aggregate of the other classes of citizens bears in any State to that of its husbandmen, is the proportion of its unsound to its healthy parts, and is a good enough barometer whereby to measure its degree of corruption.”
Mr. Jefferson was married January 1, 1772, to Mrs. Martha Skelton, a rich young widow. The 1,900 acres inherited from his father he had increased to 5,000 acres, all paid for, and his slaves numbered nearly fifty. The farm yielded him about $2,000 a year, and his law practice $3,000, which was a large income at that time. Mrs. Jefferson inherited a fortune fully equal to that of her husband, so that when the Revolution came he was a rich man. Shadwell house had been burned down some years before, and the bride was taken to a wing of the new one at Monticello, which was ready for occupation. The wedding trip was inauspicious. The little phaeton in which the journey was made became imbedded in the snow and had to be abandoned. The young couple went the remainder of the distance on horseback, arrived at Monticello at midnight, and found all the servants asleep. A small bottle of wine, found behind some books in the library, constituted the bridal supper. Jefferson, as we have said, began the erection of Monticello when he reached his majority. The first work was to level the summit of the mountain, which rose nearly eight hundred feet above the surrounding country. This summit—an ellipsis of about ten acres—was made perfectly smooth. The view from it is of surpassing grandeur and beauty. At a distance of 100 miles, in some parts, the magnificent ranges of the Alleghanies shut out the horizon on the west, and trend away to the north and south. The Blue Ridge Mountains are visible for 150 miles, while in the foreground of the picture lies a lovely landscape of hill and valley, forest, stream and plain. The scene on the east, to quote the words of Mr. Wirt in his eulogy on Jefferson, “presents an extent of prospect bounded only by the spherical form of the earth, in which nature seems to sleep in eternal repose, as if to form one of the finest contrasts with the rude and rolling grandeur of the West.” “From this summit,” says Mr. Wirt, “the philosopher was wont to enjoy that spectacle, among the sublimest of nature’s operations—the looming of the distant mountains—and to watch the motions of the planets, and the greater revolutions of the celestial spheres. From this summit, too, the patriot could look down with uninterrupted vision upon the wide expanse of the world for which he considered himself born, and upward to the open-vaulted heavens which he seemed to approach, as if to keep him constantly in mind of his great responsibility. It is, indeed, a prospect in which you see and feel at once that nothing mean or little could live. It is a scene fit to nourish those great and high-souled principles which formed the elements of his character, and was a most noble and appropriate post for such a sentinel over the rights and liberties of man.”
The mansion was probably the finest country residence on the continent at the time. The main structure is one hundred feet in length and about sixty feet in depth. The basement story rises six feet above the ground. On it rests the principal story, twenty feet in height. Above this is an attic eight feet high, the whole crowned by a lofty dome twenty-eight feet in diameter. On the north and south fronts were piazzas, opening on a floored terrace which ran one hundred feet in a straight line, and then another hundred feet at right angles, terminated by pavilions two stories high. The offices and quarters of the servants were ranged under these terraces. The style of architecture is Doric with balustrades on top. The main entrance opens on a magnificent hall which is surrounded by a gallery connecting the upper rooms of the house. An American eagle in bas-relief, encircled by eighteen stars—the number of States when Jefferson was President—looks down from the ceiling, and holds in its claws a ponderous chandelier. This hall contained an immense number of statues and busts, so arranged as to exhibit the historical progress of sculpture from the rude attempts of the red Indian to Caracci’s finished statue of Jefferson himself. There was a vast collection of Indian paintings, ornaments, weapons, statues andidols, together with a profusion of natural curiosities and fossils of every description. The hall on one side opened on a spacioussalon, through double doors of glass. The design was Egyptian. Imbedded in the walls were Louis XIV. mirrors, bought in France, while Mr. Jefferson was minister. It contained many fine paintings, historical and scriptural. There were portraits of Locke, Bacon, Newton, Jefferson’s “Trinity of great men;” of Columbus, Vespuceius, Cortez, Magellan and Raleigh; of Washington, Adams, Franklin, and other distinguished men of the Revolution. Adjoining it was another splendid apartment, called the “tea room,” fitted up in rich and becoming style. The southern wing was devoted to the library, cabinet, and chamber of Mr. Jefferson. The library was divided into three apartments, opening one into the other. In it, at one time, was the finest private collection of books on the continent, sold afterwards to Congress when the Capitol was burned in the second war with England. The cabinet led to a greenhouse filled with rare plants. In a room adjoining the study was a collection of mathematical, scientific, and optical instruments, said to be the best possessed by any private gentleman in the world. The erection and decoration of this elegant home, and the improvement of the grounds surrounding it, cost Mr. Jefferson more than $400,000. He was practically his own architect and superintendent. The rough work was performed by American mechanics, slave and free; but the decoration was wrought by foreign artisans, who were brought for the purpose from Italy, Switzerland, and other parts of Europe. Beneath the building are, or were, long subterranean passages, cased with stone, through which a person could walk upright. They were connected with the slave quarters and the stables, hundreds of feet distant. The master of Monticello used to pass through one of them from his bedchamber and mount his horse in the early morning before the household arose.
All the appointments at Monticello were on a scale corresponding with the style of the mansion. On the declivities of the mountain were houses and buildings sufficient to make a small village. They were the dwellings of his overseers and workmen; the quarters and workshops of his mechanics. It was a little community complete in itself. Mr. Jefferson’s millers ground in his own mill the corn and wheat raised on his farms; his horses were shod by his own blacksmiths; the timber of his woods was made into every article of use by his own carpenters, the wool clipped from his own sheep was spun and woven by his own people. He even made his own nails, and his mechanics were sufficiently skilful to build his carriages.
The lawn and grounds, which were laid out under his direction, were as beautiful as nature and art could make them. At the age of twenty-three, according to an entry in his garden book, he planted a great variety of fruit-trees, and about the same period he selected the now historic burying-place where the young friend of his youth, his own family, and himself are buried. The book is filled with memoranda like these: “What to do with the grounds: Thin out the trees; cut out stumps and undergrowth; remove old trees and other rubbish, except where they may look well; cover the whole with grass. Intersperse jessamine, honeysuckle, sweetbrier and hardy flowers which do not require attention. Keep in the park deer, rabbits, and every other wild animal except those of prey. Procure a buck elk, to be, as it were, monarch of the wood. Put inscriptions in various places on the bark of the trees, and make benches or seats of rock or turf.” There are directions for the shrubbery. “To be planted: Alder, bastard-indigo, flowering amorphia, barbery, cassioberry, carsine, chinquipin, Jersey tea, dwarf-cherry, lilac, wild-cherry, dogwood, redwood, horse-chestnut, magnolia, mulberry, locust, holly, juniper, laurel, yew.” “Hardy perennial flowers: snapdragon, larkspur, anemone, lily-of-the-valley, primrose, larkspur, sunflower, flower-de-luce, daisy, gilliflower, violet, flag, etc.” That Mr. Jefferson carried out his plans in regard to the deer is evident from the account which has been left us by the Marquis de Chastellux, who visited Monticello in 1782. The Marquis says: “Mr. Jefferson amuses himself by raising a score of these animals [deer] in his park. They have become very familiar, which happens to all the animals of America, for they are, in general, much easier to tame than those of Europe. He amuses himself by feeding them with Indian corn, of which they are very fond, and which they eat out of his hand. I followed him one evening into a deep valley where they are accustomed to assemble towards the close of the day, and saw them walk, run and bound.”
The lawn was filled with lofty willows, poplars, acacias, catalpas, and other nativeand foreign trees set out so as not to obstruct the view in any direction from the centre where the house stood. Many of them he had planted with his own hand, and all of them were placed where they grew under his immediate superintendence. No wonder he declined to leave this beautiful and ideal home and accept the commission to France when it was first offered to him. The death of Mrs. Jefferson, in 1782, was so severe an affliction, however, that he gladly went abroad as a means of escape from scenes which so forcibly reminded him of his loss. His important and often vexatious diplomatic duties did not prevent him from noting and sending home to his numerous correspondents every hint and suggestion likely to benefit the agricultural interests of the country. Almost every one of his many letters contains some reference to his favorite pursuit. He was a member of the Agricultural Society of Paris and of the Board of Agriculture of London. In 1785, he writes from Paris that he recently “went to see a plough which was worked by a windlass, without horses or oxen. It was a poor affair. With a very troublesome apparatus, applicable only to a dead level, four men could do the work of two horses.” To another correspondent he writes about a new invention—“the working of grist-mills by steam,” and adds, “I hear you are applying the same agent in America to navigate boats.” Then comes the prediction, “I have little doubt but that it will be applied generally to machines so as to supersede the use of water-ponds, and, of course, to lay open all the streams for navigation.” This improvement of the plough was one of Mr. Jefferson’s great problems, and it is said that he was the first to lay down a mathematical rule for shaping the mould-board. The first mention of it in his writings is found in the journal of his trip through Southern France, which was made partly for pleasure and partly to obtain information on agricultural and other subjects that would be of value to his countrymen at home. He received for the new mould-board a gold medal from the Société d’Agriculture de la Seine. With the same object in view, he also made a tour of Northern Italy. In a letter to the Marquis de La Fayette he writes: “In the great cities I go to see what travelers think alone worthy of being seen; but I make a job of it, and generally gulp it all down in a day. On the other hand, I am never satiated with rambling through the fields and farms, examining the culture and cultivators with a degree of curiosity which makes some take me to be a fool and others to be much wiser than I am. From the first olive fields of Pierrelatte to the orangeries of Hieres has been one continued rapture to me.” Mr. Jefferson was captivated by the olive. He wrote home that he considered it the most precious gift of heaven to man, and thought it was superior even to bread. He strongly urged its cultivation, and also that of the fig and the mulberry. The Southern States are indebted to him for upland rice. In 1790, he procured a cask of that variety from Denbigh, in Africa; shipped it to Charleston, where, by his direction, a part of it was sent to Georgia. He also shipped a large number of olive plants, which throve admirably in their new soil. “The greatest service,” says he, “which can be rendered any country is to add a useful plant to its culture, especially a bread grain. Next in value to bread is oil.” While in Italy, he procured the seeds of three different species of rice from Piedmont, Lombardy and the Levant, and sent them to South Carolina, together with the seeds of the San Foin and other grasses. He was not in favor of the cultivation of the vine in the United States—not, however, on account of his temperance principles, but because he thought men might be more profitably employed in other departments of industry. While there he bought Merino sheep for his farm at Monticello.
While he was sending these gifts to the country, greater and more valuable, perhaps, than all the parchment treaties that have come across the Atlantic since our diplomacy began, he was at the same time extremely zealous in making known every new discovery and invention within the whole circle of the arts and sciences. For the great staple productions of the country he eagerly sought new outlets and markets. He labored long and earnestly with the Count de Vergennes, the French Prime Minister, to break up the tobacco monopoly, so that the American product could be sold in France. He endeavored to convince the Italian merchants that they needed our whale-oil and lard, and thus laid the foundation of what afterwards became a profitable trade. In the literary and scientific circles of Paris he was a prominent figure, honored for his great attainments, the nobility of his character, and his services in the cause of human freedom. His fame had preceded him, and he was welcomed by the savants of France as aworthy successor to the immortal Franklin. He discussed natural history with M. de Buffon. “I have made a particular acquaintance here,” he writes to a friend, “with Monsieur de Buffon, and have a great desire to give him the best idea I can of our elk.” He requests his correspondent to send him the horns, skeleton and skin of one, if it is possible to procure them. In order to gratify Mr. Jefferson, a grand hunting party was organized in New Hampshire by his friends, and, after a day’s hard chase, a fine animal was captured. It was stuffed and shipped to Paris at an expense of over fifty pounds sterling. Daniel Webster used to tell the story that its arrival was celebrated by a grand supper, at which Buffon was, of course, a guest, and that, at the proper time, it was introduced as the scientific course of the feast. Mr. Jefferson also added to the King’s Cabinet of Natural History, in charge of Buffon, our American grouse and pheasant, which he asked Francis Hopkinson to buy for him in the markets of Philadelphia. But he began to weary of France. Writing to Baron Geismer in the fall of 1785, he says: “I am now of an age which does not easily accommodate itself to new manners and new modes of living, and I am savage enough to prefer the woods, the wilds and the independence of Monticello to all the brilliant pleasures of this gay capital.” He was not, however, released from his post until three years later. On his way home from Norfolk, where he landed upon his return, he received an invitation from Washington, then President-elect, to become Secretary of State. He reluctantly accepted, and entered on his new duties March, 1790, in New York, which was then the seat of government. Mr. Jefferson was duly beloved by his slaves, and his reception by them on his arrival at Monticello showed the reverence in which they held him. His daughter, Mrs. Randolph, writes: “The negroes discovered the approach of the carriage as soon as it reached Shadwell, and such a scene I never witnessed in my life. They collected in crowds around it, and almost drew it up the mountain by hand. The shouting, etc., had been sufficiently obstreperous before, but the moment it reached the top of the mountain, it reached the climax. When the door was opened, they lifted him in their arms and bore him to the house, crowding around and kissing his hands and feet—some blubbering and crying—others laughing. It seemed impossible to satisfy their anxiety to touch and kiss the very earth which bore him. They believed him to be one of the greatest, and they knew him to be one of the very best of men and kindest of masters.”
Mr. Jefferson did not lose his interest in agricultural pursuits while he was a member of the Washington administration. He made frequent trips to Monticello, and directed the operations of his farmers, laborers, and other workmen. In June, 1790, he writes from New York to one of his daughters: “We did not have peas or asparagus here until the 8th day of this month. On the same day I heard the first whip-poor-will whistle. Swallows and martins appeared here on the 21st of April. When did they appear with you, and when had you peas and strawberries and whip-poor-wills in Virginia? Take notice, hereafter, whether the whip-poor-wills always come with the strawberries and peas.” When Mr. Jefferson retired from the Washington Cabinet he immediately began to repair the damages his long absence had caused on his estate. He then owned 10,000 acres of land, of which 2,000 were under cultivation, but they had been sadly mismanaged by his overseers. All the cleared land was divided into nearly four equal parts, each containing about 280 acres. These were subdivided into fields of about forty acres in extent, separated from one another by rows of peach-trees, 1,151 of which were planted by him in one year alone. He had 154 slaves, 249 cattle, 390 hogs, 5 mules, and 34 horses, 9 of which were required for the use of his household. To quote his own words at this time, he gave himself up “to his family, his farms and his books.” His farming operations were conducted on the most approved scientific principles, and the first threshing-machine seen in Virginia was on his estate. But in a short time his election to the Vice-Presidency recalled him to the political arena, and “the rocks and wilds” of Monticello were once more abandoned. Four years, and he became President. The young capital, Washington, was then slowly assuming the form and appearance of a town, if not of a city. Jefferson, who, as Secretary of State at Philadelphia, had supervised the plan of its streets and the architecture of its public buildings, took a keen delight in the work of building and beautifying it. One of his biographers, writing shortly after his death in 1826, says:“Almost everything that is beautiful in the artificial scenery of Washington is due to the taste and industry of Mr. Jefferson. He planted its walks with trees and strewed its gardens with flowers. He was rarely seen returning from his daily excursions on horseback without bringing some branches of tree or shrub, or bunch of flowers, for the embellishment of the infant capital. He was familiar with every tree and plant, from the oak of the forest to the meanest flower of the valley. The willow-oak was among his favorite trees, and he was often seen standing on his horse gathering the acorns from this tree. He had it in view to raise a nursery of them, which, when large enough to give shade, should be made to adorn the walks of all the avenues in the city. In the meantime he planted them with the Lombardy poplar, being of the most sudden growth, contented that, though he could not enjoy their shade, his successors would. Those who have stood on the western portico of the Capitol and looked down the long avenue of a mile in length to the President’s house, have been struck with the beautiful colonnade of trees which adorns the whole distance on either side. They were all planted under the direction of Mr. Jefferson, who joined in the task with his own hands. He always lamented the spirit of extermination which had swept off the noblest forest trees that overspread Capitol Hill, extending down to the banks of the Tiber and the banks of the Potomac. He meant to have converted the grounds into extensive parks and gardens. ‘The loss is irreparable,’ said he to a European traveler, ‘nor can the evil be prevented. When I have seen such depredations I have wished for a moment to be a despot, that, in the possession of absolute power, I might enforce the preservation of these valuable groves. Washington might have boasted one of the noblest parks and most beautiful walks attached to any city in the world.’” The Washington of even 1830 has long since passed away. Where the long line of shade-trees from the Capitol to the President’s house stood, the parallel rails of the street-cars have long been laid, while the stream of classic name has been inclosed in brick and stone, and made to serve the ignoble purpose of a great drainage conduit. Jefferson’s dream of a beautiful capital has been realized, however; and could he return to it he would not find much to condemn in its avenues and parks except some of the statues that disfigure them.
Mr. Jefferson’s long political service came to an end in March, 1809, and with it his final retirement to Monticello. He was then sixty-six years of age. The journey to his home was one long triumphal procession, the inhabitants of every town and village through which he passed welcoming him with complimentary addresses and resolutions. He had been forty years in the service of the public. His intellectual powers were undecayed and his bodily health good. Seventeen years of life were yet before him. The restoration of his property was his first care. His lands were not in a compact body, and a great deal of riding to and fro was necessary. One of the principal farms was in Bedford County, more than a day’s journey from Monticello, and he usually spent six or seven weeks there every year. In private as well as in public life, Mr. Jefferson had made it a rule to be out of bed with the sun, and to transact a large amount of business before breakfast. To this rule he adhered even in his old age. In a letter to ex-President Adams, in 1820, he says: “I can walk but little, but I ride six or eight miles a day without fatigue; and, within a few days, I shall endeavor to visit my other home, after a twelvemonths’ absence from it. Our University, four miles distant, gives me frequent exercise, and the oftener as I direct its architecture.” The building and equipment of the University of Virginia was the crowning work of Mr. Jefferson’s life. He visited it nearly every day, and when compelled to remain at home, watched the workmen through a spyglass from his veranda. The usual routine of his life at this period is thus described by one of his biographers: “He rose with the sun. From that time to breakfast, and often until noon, he was in his cabinet, chiefly employed in epistolary correspondence. From breakfast, or noon at the latest, to dinner he was engaged in his workshops, his garden, or on horseback among his farms. From dinner to dark he gave to society and recreation with his neighbors and friends; and from candle-light to bed-time he devoted himself to reading and study.” A granddaughter has left us this picture of him in the last years of his life:“He loved farming and gardening, the fields, the orchards, and the asparagus beds. Of flowers he was very fond. I remember the planting of the first hyacinths and tulips. The precious roots were added to the earth under his own eye, with a crowd of happy young faces of his grandchildren clustered around to see the process and inquire anxiously the name of each separate deposit. In the morning, immediately after breakfast, he used to visit his flower-beds and gardens.” His retirement was invaded by a multitude of admirers and curiosity seekers, whose entertainment became so great a drain upon his resources that, coupled with other financial losses, he became deeply involved in pecuniary difficulties. His creditors grew clamorous, and he was compelled to ask the Legislature permission to dispose of his property by lottery. The scheme embraced three great prizes, namely, Monticello, valued at $71,000; the Shadwell Mills, adjoining it, $30,000, and the Albemarle estate at $11,500. Public attention having been thus called to his distress, meetings were held in nearly all the principal cities of the Union, and a large sum of money was subscribed for his benefit. But his life was now drawing to a close, and he experienced very little relief from these voluntary offerings. In the summer of 1826 he became very feeble, and he died on the 4th of July, at ten minutes to one o’clock, “the day on which he prayed that he might be permitted to depart.” Fifty years had passed away since the great Declaration had been given to the world, and the political independence of the Thirteen Colonies proclaimed. Away in distant Quincy, noble old John Adams died almost at the same hour, thanking God that “Thomas Jefferson still lives.”