III.MARTHA JEFFERSON.

Mrs. Jefferson had been dead nineteen years when, in 1801, President Jefferson took possession of the White House, and there was, strictly speaking, no lady of the mansion during his term. His daughters were with him in Washington only twice during his eight years’ stay, and he held no formal receptions as are customary now; and being of the French school of democratic politics, professed a dislike of all ceremonious visitors.

On the 1st day of January, 1772, Mr. Jefferson was married to Mrs. Martha Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, and daughter of John Wayles, of “the Forest,” in Charles City County.

Mr. Lossing, in his very interesting book of the Revolution, gives a fac-simile of Mr. Jefferson’s marriage license bond, drawn up in his own handwriting, which the former found in a bundle of old papers in Charles City Court House while searching for records of Revolution events. “Mrs. Skelton was remarkable for her beauty, her accomplishments, and her solid merit. In person she was a little above medium height, slightly but exquisitely formed. Her complexion was brilliant—her large expressive eyes of the richest tinge of auburn. She walked, rode, and danced with admirable grace and spirits—sang and played the spinet and harpsichord [the musical instruments of the Virginia ladies of that day] with uncommon skill. The more solid parts of her education had not been neglected.” She was also well read and intelligent, conversed agreeably, possessed excellent sense and a lively play of fancy, and had a frank, warm-hearted and somewhat impulsive disposition. She was twenty-three years of age at the time of her second marriage, and had been a widow four years. Her only child she lost in infancy.

Eng_d. by J. Serz. Phil_a.MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH.

MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH.

Tradition, says Randall, has preserved one anecdote of the wooers who sought her hand. It has two renderings, and the reader may choose between them. The first is that two of Mr. Jefferson’s rivals happened to meet on Mrs. Skelton’s door-stone. They were shown into a room from which they heard her harpsichord and voice, accompanied by Mr. Jefferson’s violin and voice, in the passages of a touching song. They listened for a stanza or two. Whether something in the words, or in the tones of the singers appeared suggestive to them, tradition does not say, but it does aver that they took their hats and retired to return no more on the same errand! The other, and, we think, less probable version of the story is, that the three met on the door-stone, and agreed that they would “take turns” and that the interviews should be made decisive; and that by lot or otherwise Mr. Jefferson led off, and that then during his trial they heard the music that they concluded settled the point. After the bridal festivities atthe Forest, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson set out for Monticello, and they were destined to meet some not exactly amusing adventures by the way. A manuscript of their eldest daughter (Mrs. Randolph) furnished Mr. Randall by one of her granddaughters and published in his “Life of Jefferson”—says: “They left the Forest after a fall of snow, light then, but increasing in depth as they advanced up the country. They were finally obliged to quit the carriage and proceed on horseback. Having stopped for a short time at Blenheim (the residence of Colonel Carter) where an overseer only resided, they left it at sunset to pursue their way through a mountain track rather than a road, in which the snow lay from eighteen inches to two feet deep, having eight miles to go before reaching Monticello.

“They arrived late at night, the fires all out and the servants retired to their own houses for the night. The horrible dreariness of such a house, at the end of such a journey, I have often heard them both relate.” Part of a bottle of wine, found on a shelf behind some books, had to serve the new-married couple both for fire and supper. Tempers too sunny to be ruffled by many ten times as serious annoyances in after life, now found but sources of diversion in these ludicrouscontretemps, and the horrible dreariness was lit up with songs, and merriment and laughter.

Nine years afterward, Mrs. Jefferson, the mother of five children, was slowly declining, and her husband, refusing a mission to Europe on that account, determinedto give up all other duties to soothe and sustain her. She had borne her fifth child in November, and when it was two months old, she had fled with it in her arms as Arnold approached Richmond. “The British General Tarleton sent troops to capture Governor Jefferson, who was occupied in securing his most important papers. While thus engaged, his wife and children were taken in a carriage, under the care of a young gentleman who was studying with him, to Colonel Coles, fourteen miles distant. Monticello was captured (if a residence occupied by unresisting servants may be said to be captured), and the house searched, though not sacked by the enemy. Many of the negroes were taken, and but five ever returned, while the greater part of those left behind sank under the epidemics raging at the time. The house was robbed of nothing save a few articles in the cellar, the farm was stripped of valuable horses, and many thousand dollars’ worth of grain and tobacco. An anecdote is told of two of Mr. Jefferson’s slaves—Martin and Cæsar, who were left in charge of the house and were engaged in secreting plate and other valuables under the floor of the front portico, when a party of British soldiers arrived. The floor was then of planks. One of these was raised, and Martin stood above handing down articles to Cæsar, in the cellar improvised by the faithful slaves in the emergency. While he was finishing his packing, Martin heard the tramp of horses’ feet, and looking in the direction indicated saw the red coats coming. ForCæsar to get out was to inform the British where the valuables they were trying to save were secreted, and without a word of warning the plank was put down. Cæsar understood the sudden action to mean danger, and very soon he knew by the noise overhead that the enemy had come. For eighteen hours he remained in the dark hole, and was not released until Martin was sure of the departure of the last one of the raiders.”

In April, the loss of her infant, together with constant anxiety for the safety of her husband, shattered the remaining strength of Mrs. Jefferson. Toward the close of 1781, she rallied. Her last child was born the 8th of May, 1782. Greater apprehensions than usual had preceded the event and they were fatally verified. The delicate constitution was irrevocably sapped. “A momentary hope for her might sometimes flutter in the bosom of her lonely husband, but it was in reality a hope against hope, and he knew it to be so. That association which had been the first joy of his life, which blent itself with all his future visions of happiness, which was to be the crowning glory of that delightful retreat he was forming, and which was to shed mellow radiance over the retirement to which he was fondly looking forward, was now to end; and it was only a question of weeks, or, possibly, months, how soon it would end. Mrs. Jefferson had returned her husband’s affection, with not only the fervor of a woman whose dream of love and pride (for what woman is not proud of the world’s estimation of her husband?) has been more thangratified, but with the idolatrous gratitude of a wife who knew how often that husband had cast away the most tempting honors without a sigh, when her own feeble health had solicited his presence and attentions. And now, as the dreadful hour of parting approached, her affection became painfully, almost wildly absorbing. The faithful daughter of the church had no dread of the hereafter, but she yearned to remain with her husband with that yearning which seems to have power to retard even the approaches of death. Her eyes ever rested on him, ever followed him. When he spoke, no other sound could reach her ear or attract her attention. When she waked from slumber, she looked momentarily alarmed and distressed, and ever appeared to be frightened, if the customary form was not bending over her, the customary look upon her. For weeks Mr. Jefferson sat at that bedside, only catching brief intervals of rest.”

She died on the 6th of September. Her eldest daughter, Mrs. Randolph, many years afterward, said of the sad scene: “He nursed my poor mother in turn with Aunt Carr and her own sister, sitting up with her and administering her medicines and drink to the last. For four months that she lingered, he was never out of calling; when not at her bedside he was writing in a small room which opened immediately into hers.”

To her were denied the honors that later in life crowned the brow of her gifted husband. Had she survived, no more pleasant life could have been traced than this gentle, cultivated woman’s. Hers was nopassive nature, swayed by every passing breeze, but a loving, strong heart, a rare and gifted intellect, cultivated by solid educational advantages, experience, and the society of the greatest statesman and scholar of his day. In the midst of all happiness, vouchsafed to humanity, she died; and her husband, faithful to her memory, devoted himself to their children, and lived and died her lonely-hearted mourner.

Martha Jefferson, after the death of her mother, was placed at school in Philadelphia, at the age of eleven years, where she remained until her father took her, in 1784, to Europe. His other two daughters, being too young for such a journey, were left with their maternal aunt, Mrs. Eppes, wife of Francis Eppes, Esquire, of Eppington, Chesterfield County, Virginia. Mary, the second of his surviving children, was six years old, and Lucy Elizabeth, the third, was two years old. The latter died before the close of 1784. The child of sorrow and misfortune, her organization was too frail and too intensely susceptible to last long. Her sensibilities were so precociously acute, that she listened with exquisite pleasure to music, and wept on hearing a false note.

After a short period of sight-seeing, Martha Jefferson was placed at a convent, and continued to reside there during her father’s stay in Europe. In July, 1787, “the long-expected Mary (called Marie in France, and thenceforth through life, Marie) reached London.” She had crossed the Atlantic with simply a servant girl, though doubtless they were both intrusted to the chargeof some passenger friend, or some known and trusted ship commander, whom we do not find named. They were received by Mrs. Adams, and awaited an expected opportunity of crossing the Channel with a party of French friends of Mr. Jefferson. These continued to defer their return, and Mr. Jefferson became too impatient to await their movements. Accordingly, his steward, the favorite and trusty Petit, was sent to London after Marie, and she reached her father’s hotel in Paris, on the 29th of July, just three days before her ninth birthday.

Mrs. Adams thus describes her little guest, immediately after her departure, in a letter to her sister, Mrs. Cranch, of Massachusetts:

“I have had with me for a fortnight a little daughter of Mr. Jefferson’s, who arrived here with a young negro girl, her servant, from Virginia. Mr. Jefferson wrote me some months ago that he expected them, and desired me to receive them. I did so, and was amply rewarded for my trouble. A finer child of her age I never saw. So mature an understanding, so womanly a behavior, and so much sensibility, united, are rarely to be met with. I grew so fond of her, and she was so attached to me, that when Mr. Jefferson sent for her, they were obliged to force the little creature away. She is but eight years old. She would sit, sometimes, and describe to me the parting with her aunt, who brought her up,[6]the obligations she was under to her, and the love she had for herlittle cousins, till the tears would stream down her cheeks; and how I had been her friend, and she loved me. Her papa would break her heart by making her go again. She clung round me so that I could not help shedding a tear at parting with her. She was the favorite of every one in the house. I regret that such fine spirits must be spent in the walls of a convent. She is a beautiful girl, too.”

6. Mrs. Francis Eppes, of Eppington, Va.

Marie (for so we shall henceforth call her, unless when adopting her father’s sobriquet of Polly) was soon placed with Martha in the school of the Abbaye de Panthemont. Martha had now grown into a tall, graceful girl, with that calm, sweet face, stamped with thought and earnestness, which, with the traces of many more years on it, and the noble dignity of the matron superadded, beams down from the speaking canvas of Sully. The most dutiful of daughters, the most attentive of learners, possessing a solid understanding, a judgment ripe beyond her years, a most gentle and genial temper, and an unassuming modesty of demeanor, which neither the distinction of her position, nor the flatteries that afterward surrounded her, ever wore off in the least degree, she was the idol of her father and family, and the delight of all who knew her.

The little Marie has been sufficiently described by Mrs. Adams. “Slighter in person than her sister, she already gave indications of a superior beauty. It was that exquisite beauty possessed by her mother—that beauty which the experienced learn to look upon with dread,because it betrays a physical organization too delicately fine to withstand the rough shocks of the world.”

In April, an incident of an interesting character occurred in Mr. Jefferson’s family. His oldest daughter, as has been seen, had been educated in the views and feelings of the Church of England. Her mother had zealously moulded her young mind in that direction. Her father had done nothing certainly, by word or act, to divert it from that channel; and it had flowed on, for aught Martha knew or suspected to the contrary, with his full approbation. If she had then been called upon to state what were her father’s religious beliefs, she would have declared that her impressions were that he leaned to the tenets of the church to which his family belonged. The daring and flippant infidelity now rife in French society, disgusted the earnest, serious, naturally reverential girl. The calm seclusion of Panthemont, its examples of serene and holy life, its intellectual associations, wooed her away from the turmoil and glare and wickedness and eruptions without. After meditating on the subject for a time, she wrote to her father for his permission to remain in a convent, and to dedicate herself to the duties of a religious life.

For a day or two she received no answer. Then his carriage rolled up to the door of the Abbaye, and poor Martha met her father in a fever of doubts and fears. Never was his smile more benignant and gentle. He had a private interview with the Abbess. He then told his daughters he had come for them. They stepped intohis carriage, it rolled away, and Martha’s school life was ended. Henceforth she was introduced into society, and presided, so far as was appropriate to her age, as the mistress of her father’s household. Neither he nor Martha ever, after her first letter on the subject, made the remotest allusion to each other to her request to enter a convent. She spoke of it freely in after years, to her children, and always expressed her full approbation of her father’s course on the occasion. She always spoke of her early wish as rather the dictate of a transient sentiment than a fixed conviction of religious duty; and she warmly applauded the quick and gentle way which her father took to lead her back to her family, her friends, and her country. Mr. Jefferson left the shores of Europe with his two daughters the 28th of October, 1789, and the following February Martha was married to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., who had been a ward of her father’s. “The young people were cousins, and had been attached to each other from childhood. He was tall, lean, with dark, expressive features and a flashing eye, commanding in carriage, elastic as steel, and had that sudden sinewy strength which it would not be difficult to fancy he inherited from the forest monarchs of Virginia.”

On his return home, Mr. Jefferson was immediately tendered, and accepted a position in President Washington’s cabinet, and made his home in New York and afterward in Philadelphia until his withdrawal from public life.

Mr. Jefferson was elected Vice-President on the ticketwith President John Adams, and at the end of this administration he was elected to fill the first position in the gift of the nation. On the fourth of March, 1801, he was inaugurated President of the United States. His daughter Martha was living at her husband’s country home near Monticello, the mother of several children, and Marie, who had previously married Mr. Eppes, of Eppington, was happily situated at Monticello, awaiting her father’s promised visit in early summer.

Sir Augustus Foster, who was Secretary of Legation at Washington to the British Minister, Mr. Merry, has given some rather entertaining accounts of the state of society there in the time of Jefferson. “In going to assemblies, one had to drive three or four miles within the city bounds, and very often at the risk of an overturn, or of being what is termed stalled, or stuck in the mud, when one can neither go backward nor forward, and either loses one’s shoes or one’s patience. Cards were a great resource of an evening, and gaming was all the fashion, for the men who frequented society were chiefly from Virginia or the Western States, and were very fond of brag, the most gambling of all games. Loo was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they were looed, pronounced the word in a very mincing manner.

“The New Englanders, generally speaking, were very religious, but though there were many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the Marylanders, and still less for the Virginians. But in spite of its inconveniencesand desolate aspect, it was, I think, the most agreeable town to reside in for any length of time. The opportunity of collecting information from Senators and Representatives from all parts of the country—the hospitality of the heads of the Government and the Corps Diplomatique—of itself supplied resources such as could nowhere else be looked for.”

In Mr. Jefferson’s time, the population numbered about five thousand persons, and their residences were scattered over an immense space. Society presented a novel aspect; unconnected by similarity of habits, by established fashions, by the ties of acquaintance or consanguinity, the motley throng became united into one close and intimate circle by a feeling common to all; they were strangers in a strange land, and felt the necessity of mutual aid and accommodation, and might be compared to a beautiful piece of mosaic, in which an infinity of separate pieces of diversified colors are blended into one harmonious whole. Mr. Jefferson, many years after his retirement from public life, recurring to that time, remarked to a friend that the peculiar felicity of his administration was the unanimity that prevailed in his Cabinet; “we were,” said he, “like one family.” The same spirit of union and kindness pervaded the whole circle of society—a circle at that time very limited in its extent and very simple in its habits. The most friendly and social intercourse prevailed through all its parts, unshackled by that etiquette and ceremony which have since been introduced, to the nosmall detriment of social enjoyment. The President’s house was the seat of hospitality, where Mrs. Madison always presided (in the absence of Mr. Jefferson’s daughters) when there were female guests. Mrs. Madison and her husband spent three weeks at the White House after their arrival in the city, until they could make arrangements to obtain a suitable house. President Jefferson abolished the custom of holding levees which Mrs. Washington had introduced, and the fashionable people of the city did not like the innovation. The ladies in particular were opposed to it, and they made up their minds to muster in force at the Presidential Mansion at the usual time. They accordingly did so, and the President received them as they found him, hat in hand, spurs on his feet, and clothing covered with dust just after a long ride on horseback. He welcomed his guests heartily, did what he could to make their call agreeable, but it was not repeated. His opposition to levees was said to be due to the fact that he was democratic in his ideas and thought them unsuited to American institutions. But the fact that there was no lady to preside over them was doubtless one of his reasons.

In March, 1802, Mr. Jefferson wrote to his youngest daughter that he would be at home between the 15th and 20th of April, and that he wished her to be prepared to go back to Washington with him and her sister; but Congress did not adjourn as he expected, and he did not get off until the first of May. The measlesbroke out in the family of Mrs. Randolph, and she did not go to Washington. The same cause prevented Mrs. Eppes from seeing her father, but during the summer months he was at Monticello as usual.

From the letters of Mr. Jefferson of November and December to his youngest daughter, we find him advising her to have good spirits and profit by her sister’s cheerfulness. “We are all well here,” he says, “and hope the post of this evening will bring us information of the health of all at Edgehill, and particularly that Martha and the new bantling are both well; and that her example gives you good spirits.” “Take care of yourself, my dearest Marie, and know that courage is as essential to triumph in your case as in that of a soldier. * * * Not knowing the time destined for your expected indisposition, I am anxious on your account. You are prepared to meet it with courage, I hope.” And again he writes:—

“Washington,March 3, 1804.

“The account of your illness, my dearest Marie, was known to me only this morning. Nothing but the impossibility of Congress proceeding a single step in my absence, presents an insuperable bar. Mr. Eppes goes off, and, I hope, will find you in a convalescent state. Next to the desire that it may be so, is that of being speedily informed and of being relieved from the terrible anxiety in which I shall be till I hear from you. God bless you, my ever dear daughter, and preserve you safe to the blessing of us all.”

But she was not preserved: frail and sensitive, her nervous system gave way, and she died on the 17th of April, little more than a month after her father’s letter was written, leaving to her sister’s care her children, the youngest of whom was a young infant. Her niece in writing of her some years later said:—“She had been delicate and something of an invalid, if I remember right, for some years. She was carried to Monticello from her home in a litter borne by men. The distance was perhaps four miles, and she bore the removal well. After this, however, she continued as before steadily to decline. She was taken out when the weather permitted, and carried around the lawn in a carriage, I think drawn by men, and I remember following the carriage over the smooth green turf. How long she lived I do not recollect, but it could have been but a short time. One morning I heard that my aunt was dying; I crept softly from my nursery to her chamber door, and being alarmed by her short, hard breathing, ran away again. I have a distinct recollection of confusion and dismay in the household. I did not see my mother. By-and-by one of the female servants came running in where I was with other persons, to say that Mrs. Eppes was dead. The day passed I do not know how. Late in the afternoon I was taken to the death-chamber. The body was covered with a white cloth, over which had been strewn a profusion of flowers. A day or two after, I followed the coffin to the burying-ground on the mountain side, and saw it consigned to the earth, where it has lain undisturbed for more than fifty years.

“My mother has told me that on the day of her sister’s death, she left her father alone for some hours. He then sent for her, and she found him with the Bible in his hands. He who has been so often and so harshly accused of unbelief, he, in his hour of intense affliction, sought and found consolation in the sacred volume. The Comforter was there for his true heart and devout spirit, even though his faith might not be what the world called orthodox.

“There was something very touching in the sight of this once beautiful and still lovely young woman, fading away just as the spring was coming on with its buds and blossoms—nature reviving as she was sinking and closing her eyes on all that she loved best in life. She perished not in autumn with the flowers, but as they were opening to the sun and air in all the freshness of spring. I think the weather was fine, for over my own recollection of these times there is a soft, dreamy sort of haze, such as wraps the earth in warm, dewy, spring-time.

“You know enough of my aunt’s early history to be aware that she did not accompany her father, as my mother did, when he first went to France. She joined him, I think, only about two years before his return, and was placed in the same convent where my mother received her education. Here she went by the name of Mademoiselle Polie. As a child she was called Polly by her friends. It was on her way to Paris that she stayed a while in London with Mrs. Adams, and there is a pleasing mention of her in that lady’s published letters.

“I think the visit (not a very long one) made by my mother and aunt to their father in Washington, must have been in the winter of 1802–3. My aunt, I believe, was never there again; but after her death, about the winter of 1805–6, my mother, with all her children, passed some time at the President’s House. I remember that both my father and uncle Eppes were then in Congress, but cannot say whether this was the case in 1802–3.”

Ever delighting in the society of his two children and deeply attached to his home, Mr. Jefferson felt this blow with terrible anguish. Worthy of so good a man’s affection, they were never so happy as in being with their father, contributing to his comfort in numberless ways. They both married cousins when quite young, but were never far from their childhood’s home, and were always under his roof when he paid his semi-annual visits there. Mrs. Randolph was a brilliant woman; and had her tastes been less inclined to domestic life, she would have been a renowned belle. Educated abroad and strengthened mentally by travel and the society of the literary talent ever to be found about her father, she became conversant with knowledge’s richest store, and surpassed most of the women of her day in accomplishments. Though widely different in other respects, there was much resemblance between the President and Vice-President in the intensity of their love for their daughters. Theodosia Burr and Martha Jefferson will be familiar names so long as the history of this country, shall be among the things of earth. Both intellectualcompanions of their only parents, both ardently attached to fathers they deemed the wisest and greatest of earth—they have become forever linked with the life and times of each, and covers for the one a multitude of faults, and has made the other dear to his people. Both were great men, adored by daughters gifted and good. Theodosia Burr has thrown around her father’s name a romantic interest which veils many infirmities, and adds lustre to the traits which in the eyes of the world redeemed him.

Mrs. Adams, who had known Maria Jefferson and loved her when a child, overcame the pride she had allowed to control her silent pen, and wrote to Mr. Jefferson, awakening in his heart tender feelings of friendship too long allowed to lie dormant. He replied that her former kindnesses to his lost child made a deep impression on her mind, and that to the last, on our meetings after long separations, “whether I had heard lately of you,” and “how you did,” were among the earliest of her inquiries. Mrs. Adams’ letter was as follows:

“Quincy,20th May, 1804.

“Had you been no other than the private inhabitants of Monticello, I should, ere this time, have addressed you with that sympathy which a recent event has awakened in my bosom; but reasons of various kinds withheld my pen, until the powerful feelings of my heart burst through the restraint, and called upon me to shed the tear of sorrow over the departed remains of your beloved and deserving daughter—an event which I sincerely mourn.

“The attachment which I formed for her when you committed her to my care, upon her arrival in a foreign land, under circumstances peculiarly interesting, has remained with me to this hour: and the account of her death, which I read in a late paper, recalled to my recollection the tender scene of her separation from me, when, with the strongest sensibility, she clung round my neck, and wet my bosom with her tears, saying, ‘Oh! now I have learned to love you, why will they take me from you?’

“It has been some time since I conceived that any event in this life could call forth feelings of mutual sympathy. But I know how closely entwined around a parent’s heart are those cords which bind the paternal to the filial bosom; and, when snapped asunder, how agonizing the pangs. I have tasted of the bitter cup, and bow with reverence and submission before the great Dispenser of it, without whose permission and overruling providence not a sparrow falls to the ground. That you may derive comfort and consolation in this day of your sorrow and affliction from that only source calculated to heal the wounded heart—a firm belief in the being, perfection and attributes of God—is the sincere and ardent wish of her who once took pleasure in subscribing herself your friend,

“Abigail Adams.”

Mr. Jefferson was inaugurated President a second time on the 4th of March, 1805, then in the sixty-second year of his age. The following winter his only daughter, with all her children, passed most of the season in Washington.She never made but two visits there; one with her sister, the second year of his first term, and this last one in the winter of 1805–6, after her sister’s death. Means of travel were not so rapid or pleasant as now, and the laborious and extremely tedious undertaking of travelling so far in a carriage was sufficient to dampen the desire of living for a few alternate months with her father. The unhealthy condition of Washington at that time, its low and marshy condition, engendering disease, rendered it absolutely necessary for those unacclimated to be out of its limits during the hot months of summer. The increasing cares of children and the duties of Virginia matrons also deterred Mrs. Randolph from becoming, as we must only regret she did not, permanently located in the President’s House.

PIERSON. ENGMONTICELLO—THE HOME OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.

MONTICELLO—THE HOME OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.

Her memory is so fragrant with the perfume of purity and saintly sweetness, that it is a privilege to dwell and muse upon a theme so elevating. The world has not yet developed a more harmonious, refined or superior type of womanhood than the daughters of Virginia in the last century. Reared in ease and plenty, taught the virtues that ennoble, and valuing their good name no less than prizing their family lineage, they were the most delightful specimens of womanhood ever extant. Most particularly was Martha Jefferson of this class, whose image is fast losing originality in the modern system of utilitarian education. Her father’s and her husband’s great enemy, pronounced her “the sweetest woman in Virginia;” and the assurance comes laden with the testimony of many tongues, that her existence was one of genial sunshine and peace. Are not such natures doubly blessed, first, in the happiness they secure to themselves, and, secondly, in the blessing they are to those who walk in the light of their example? With the retirement of Mr. Jefferson from public life, came a new trouble in the shape of innumerable visitors, and the seventeen years he lived at Monticello was one continued scene of new faces and old friends. Even after the loss of property and accumulated debts, he was compelled to entertain thoughtless crowds who made pilgrimages to his shrine. Time and again he would go to an adjoining estate to secure that rest and quiet so essential to his health; but these visits were never of long duration, for he could not consent to be separated from his daughter, even though accompanied by his grandchildren. As the shadows began to darken round his earth-life, and bankruptcy to hover over him, he turned with redoubled affection to this idol, and she was strong and faithful to the last. Mother and sister she had buried, and she was yet strong enough to see her husband and father taken.

“There were few eminent men of our country who did not visit Mr. Jefferson in his retirement, to say nothing of distinguished foreigners.” But all visitors were not as agreeable as “eminent men.” “There are a number of persons now living who have seen groups of utter strangers, of both sexes, planted in the passage between his study and dining-room, consulting their watches, andwaiting for him to pass from one to the other to his dinner, so that they could momentarily stare at him. A female once punched through a window-pane of the house with her parasol to get a better view of him. When sitting in the shade of his porticoes to enjoy the coolness of the approaching evening, parties of men and women would sometimes approach within a dozen yards, and gaze at him point-blank until they had looked their fill, as they would have gazed on a lion in a menagerie.”

Mrs. Randolph was “the apple of her father’s eye.” All his letters bear witness to his affection, and all his life records this prominent sentiment of his heart. A gentleman writing to him for his views on a proper course of education for woman, he takes the opportunity of complimenting her unconsciously. “A plan of female education,” he says, “has never been a subject of systematic contemplation with me. It has occupied my attention so far only as the education of my own daughters occasionally required. Considering that they would be placed in a country situation where little aid could be obtained from abroad, I thought it essential to give them a solid education, which might enable them—when become mothers—to educate their own daughters, and even to direct the course for sons, should their fathers be lost, or incapable, or inattentive.

“My surviving daughter accordingly, the mother of many daughters as well as sons, has made their education the object of her life, and being a better judge ofthe practical part than myself, it is with her aid and that of one of herélèves, that I shall subjoin a catalogue of the books for such a course of reading as we have practised.”

Again, in a letter to his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, he says:

“You kindly encourage me to keep up my spirits; but oppressed with disease, debility, age and embarrassed affairs, this is difficult. For myself, I should not regard a prostration of fortune; but I am overwhelmed at the prospect of the situation in which I may leave my family. My dear and beloved daughter, the cherished companion of my early life, and nurse of my age, and her children, rendered as dear to me as if my own, from having lived with me from their cradle, left in a comfortless situation, hold up to me nothing but future gloom; and I should not care were life to end with the line I am writing, were it not that in the unhappy state of mind which your father’s misfortunes have brought upon him, I may yet be of some avail to the family.”

Ex-President Jefferson died the 4th of July, 1826, and at nearly the same hour passed away the spirit of John Adams. He lingered a little behind Jefferson, and his last words, uttered in the failing articulation of the dying, were: “Jefferson still survives.” Mrs. Randolph left no written account of the scene. On the 2d of July, Mr. Jefferson handed her a little casket. On opening it, after his death, she found a paper on which he had written the lines of Moore, commencing—

“It is not the tear at this moment shedWhen the cold turf has just been lain o’er him”—

“It is not the tear at this moment shed

When the cold turf has just been lain o’er him”—

There is also a touching tribute to his daughter, declaring that while he “goes to his fathers,” “the last pang of life” is in parting from her; that “two seraphs” “long shrouded in death” (meaning doubtless his wife and younger daughter) “await him;” that he will “bear them her love.”

After this all is sadness. To satisfy creditors, all the property was sold, and the proceeds did not fully meet the debts.

“When it became known that Monticello had gone, or must go out of the hands of Mr. Jefferson’s family, and that his only child was left without an independent provision, another exhibition of public feeling took place. The Legislatures of South Carolina and Louisiana promptly voted her $10,000 each, and the stocks they created for the purpose sold for $21,800. Other plans were started in other States, which, had they been carried out, would have embraced a liberal provision for Mr. Jefferson’s descendants. But, as is usual on such occasions, the people in each locality obtained exaggerated impressions of what was doing in others, and slackened their own exertions until the feeling that prompted them died away.”

Two years passed, and Mrs. Randolph was called upon to see her husband die, and she of all her name remained to link the memory of her ancestors with those of her descendants.

To her daughter, Mrs. Virginia Jefferson Trist, I am indebted for this narrative of the closing eight years of Mrs. Randolph’s life:

“My Dear Mrs. Holloway:

“I wish it were in my power to answer your inquiries more satisfactorily than I am able to do. My recollections of my mother, at so early a period of my life as the one referred to, are altogether childish and imperfect. It is true, my very earliest recollections are connected with a winter passed in the White House during my grandfather’s Presidency, but they are so few and so scanty and childish, as they rise before me in the mists of long past years, that really nothing worth offering you suggests itself to my mind.

“My mother was born in September, 1772, and had therefore entered her 29th year when her father was elected President. She was then the mother of five children, having married at the early age of seventeen. Thus surrounded by a family of young children, she could not pass much of her time in Washington; she did, however, spend two winters there, the first in 1802–3, the second in 1805–6. Her health was very bad on the first of these two occasions of her visiting her father. Having an abscess on her lungs, she was advised by her physician to go to pass the winter in Bermuda, and for this purpose left her home in Albemarle, Virginia, to go as far as Washington in her travelling carriage—the only mode at that day of making the journey of fourdays’ duration. During this journey the abscess broke, and she felt so much relieved that her going to Bermuda was no longer considered necessary, and she passed that winter with her father. I believe my father was in Congress at that time. My mother’s only sister, Marie Jefferson, then Mrs. John W. Eppes, was also a member of her father’s family that winter, her husband being in Congress. There was a difference of six years in the ages of the sisters; my mother, who was the oldest, had accompanied her father to France, where she was educated under his eyes. My aunt had afterward followed them to Paris under the wing of Mrs. John Adams, in whose correspondence mention is made of her. The three became thus reunited only two years before their return home, after which she (my aunt) was placed at school in Philadelphia. She grew up possessed of rare beauty and loveliness of person as well as disposition; but her health was delicate, and her natural modesty and timidity was so great as to make her averse to society. Undervaluing her own personal advantages, she regarded with the warmest admiration, as well as sisterly affection, her sister’s more positive character and brilliant intellectual endowments. My mother was not a beauty; her features were less regular than her sister’s, her face owing its charms more to its expressiveness, beaming as it ever was with kindness, good humor, gayety and wit. She was tall and very graceful, notwithstanding a certain degree of embonpoint. Her complexion naturally fair, her hair of a dark chestnut color, very longand very abundant. I have always heard that her manners were uncommonly attractive from their vivacity, amiability, and high breeding, and her conversation was charming. These two sisters were the ladies of the White House in 1802–3. My mother was very sociable and enjoyed society. I remember hearing her mention a circumstance which seemed to illustrate the natural difference of their characters. She said one day, laughingly, ‘Marie, if I had your beauty, I should not feel so indifferent as you do about it.’ My aunt looked vexed and pained, and observed, ‘Compliments to a pretty face were indications that no intellectual attractions existed in its possessor.’

“From their contemporary, Mrs. Madison, I have heard, that that winter when the sisters were going together into society, although on entering a room all eyes were turned on the younger, who became a centre of attraction, particularly to the gentlemen, that by degrees my mother’s vivacity and the charms of her conversation and manners drew around her a circle of admirers who delighted in listening to her even more than in looking at her beautiful sister. These two sisters lived in perfect harmony, linked together by the warmest mutual affection, as well as their common devotion to their father, whom both idolized.

“My mother’s second visit to her father was in the winter of 1805–6. She had then lost her sister. My aunt left two children, Francis and Maria Jefferson; the little girl was only a few months old and did not longsurvive her mother. Francis passed that winter under my mother’s care, his father being still in Congress. One of my brothers was born that same winter; the first birth which took place in the White House. He was called James Madison. Mrs. Madison was an intimate and much valued friend of my mother’s, and her amiable, playful manners with children attracted my sisters and myself and made her a great favorite with us. Among my childish recollections is her ‘running away with us,’ as she playfully expressed it, when she took us away with her in her carriage, to give us a drive and then take us home with her to play with two of her nieces near our ages, and lunch on cranberry tarts. My oldest sister, Anne, completed her fifteenth year that winter, and was not yet going into society; but my mother permitted her to go to a ball under the care of a lady friend, who requested that my sister might go to her house to dress and accompany her own daughter near her age to the ball. My sister excited great admiration on that occasion. She had a ‘remarkably classic head,’ as I remember hearing an Italian artist remark at Monticello upon seeing her there after she was the mother of several children. Her hair was a beautiful auburn, and her complexion had a delicate bloom very becoming to her, and with the freshness of fifteen I can readily imagine how strikingly handsome she was. My mother, accompanied by Mrs. Cutts—the mother of Gen. Richard D. Cutts—went to the ball at a later hour. She was very short-sighted, and seeing my sisteron entering the ball-room she asked Mrs. Cutts, ‘Who is that beautiful girl?’ Mrs. Cutts, much amused, answered, ‘Why, woman, are you so unnatural a mother as not to recognize your own daughter?’

“My sister died many years ago; if she were now living, she could no doubt tell much of what happened that winter in the White House. She formed some pleasant acquaintances in Washington, and made some friends with whom she corresponded for years. I have some recollections of the house as it was before being burned by the British, and as it was rebuilt on the same plan, I have since recognized parts of it most familiar to my eyes. A lasting impression was made upon my memory by the reception in one of the drawing-rooms, of the Tunisian Ambassador and suite; the brilliantly lighted room, the odd appearance to my puzzled senses of the rich Turkish dresses, and my alarm at receiving a kiss from the Secretary of the Ambassador, whilst one of my sisters, just two years old, whose Saxon complexion and golden hair made her a beautiful picture, was honored by a kiss from the Ambassador, of which she has no recollection. I heard of the elegant presents brought by them for my mother and aunt, and which were publicly exhibited and sold. My mother wished to purchase one of the shawls intended for her, but when Mrs. Madison went to make the purchase she found that she had been anticipated by another person. The talk about these presents could not, of course, fail to greatly excite my childish curiosity, but my desire tosee them was not gratified. My grandfather did not allow them to be brought to the President’s House, as it was then called—a name which, it seems, was too plain English to suit modern notions of dignified refinement, for it has been superseded by the more stately appellation of ‘Executive Mansion.’

“From its being the cause of my disappointment in seeing those beautiful specimens of Oriental luxury and taste, my grandfather’s strictness on that occasion served to impress upon my mind, earlier than it otherwise would have been impressed, a trait of his character which afterward became as familiar to me, and as natural a part of himself, as the sound of his voice—I mean his scrupulousness in conforming to the laws in all things, great or small.

“To return to my mother, it is to that period that belongs a remark which long afterward I was told had been made of her by the Marquis de Yrugo, the Spanish Ambassador, that she was fitted to grace any court in Europe. I was then too young to know and appreciate her as I afterward came to do. I have never known any one who accomplished as much as she did, making use of all she had been taught, in an education which fitted her for the performance of the various duties which fell to her lot. After my grandfather retired from public life, she became the mistress of his house. My father visited his farm in the neighborhood of Monticello daily, and during the busy season of harvest my mother always stayed with him while it lasted.My mother educated her six daughters unassisted by any one. During the summer months, the crowds of visitors to my grandfather who filled the house and engrossed much of her time, interrupted our studies and made us lose much precious time; but she had the art of awakening an interest in what she taught us, and exciting a desire for improvement, which made us make the most of the quiet winter months which she could devote to us. She was a good musician, and was fond of gardening; she superintended personally all household matters, and in the winter evenings when my grandfather was seated in his arm-chair in the chimney corner, a small candle-stand was placed between them, and they spent the evenings reading. She had all the tastes which made country life agreeable, without losing her relish for the attractions of town life. Such was my mother as I knew her, and I remember her most perfectly. She was the mother of twelve children, eleven of whom lived to grow up.

“My youngest sister’s name was Septimia. She was my mother’s seventh daughter, and her name was the occasion of a poetic compliment to my mother from an old Portuguese gentleman, the Abbé Correa de Serra, who visited my grandfather every year during his long residence in Philadelphia. He was for several years Portuguese Ambassador to the United States. His learning, his interesting and instructive conversation, the amiable, child-like simplicity of his character and manners, made this old philosopher alike attractive tothe older and younger members of the family. His visits were enjoyed by us all, from my grandfather and mother down to the youngest child of the house, only two years old. In allusion to her name of Septimia, he said to my mother, ‘Your daughters, Mrs. Randolph, are like the Pleiades; they are called seven, but six only are seen.’ The second daughter died an infant.

“My mother survived her father upward of ten years, and her husband about eight years; during that period losing a grown son, James Madison Randolph, born in the President’s House.

“In the autumn after my grandfather’s death, she went to Boston, and passed the winter in the house of her son-in-law, Mr. Joseph Coolidge, of that city, having with her the two youngest children, Septimia and George Wythe, who went to day-schools during that winter. Septimia was the only one of her daughters who ever went to school at all; my other sisters and myself having our education conducted by our mother; she being our only teacher, assisted somewhat by her father. The following summer she accompanied my sister, Mrs. Coolidge, to Cambridge, where the two children again attended day-schools. My eldest brother, Mr. Jefferson Randolph, was his grandfather’s executor; he had been in all business affairs the staff of his declining years, and afterward became a father to his younger brothers. The sale of furniture, pictures, and other movables at Monticello, took place the winter following my grandfather’s death, after my mother’sdeparture for Boston. The rest of the family passed that winter in my brother’s house, then the ensuing summer at Monticello, a purchaser for which could not be found until two years or more after. My mother remained in Cambridge the second winter, as a boarder, with her two children, in the family of Mr. Stearns, law-professor of Harvard College, to whose excellent family she became much attached.

“My sister Cornelia went to join her in Cambridge, and the two were alternately in Boston and Cambridge, the one with Mrs. Coolidge, and the other with the children.

“In the spring of 1828, my mother returned to Monticello, accompanied by Cornelia and Septimia, leaving my brother at a boarding-school in the country near Cambridge. This being their first separation, it was felt most acutely on both sides, for he, just ten years old, was an unusually sensitive and warm-hearted boy, and as the ‘youngling of her flock,’ was the darling of her heart. He was to remain behind among strangers, whilst his mother, the object of his passionate fondness and devoted attachment, was to return without him to that dear old home he so well remembered and loved. My mother, on her return to Monticello after an absence of eighteen months, found my father very ill. He had been a part of the previous winter in Georgia, engaged as commissioner on the part of the United States in establishing a boundary line between that State and Florida. His letters spoke of his enjoying the climate,and he enjoyed also the opportunities which he there found of gratifying his fondness for botanical studies; but he returned home in very bad health, and after a few months of severe suffering, died on the 20th of June, 1828, in his sixtieth year. Monticello was sold the following winter. My mother took leave of her beloved home in December—that home which had been the scene of her happiest years, where she had enjoyed her dear father’s society, and been the solace of his age; where her children had been, most of them, born and grown up around her, and where her own happy childhood had been passed before the death of her mother.

“She removed with her family to the house of her son Jefferson. My mother lived a year with my brother’s family, during which time she formed a plan of keeping a school for young ladies, assisted by her unmarried daughters, who were to be teachers under her superintendence. This plan was, however, rendered unnecessary by the donations so generously made her by the States of South Carolina and Louisiana, of $10,000 each. About this time, also, Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State, prompted by the wish to do something in aid of Mr. Jefferson’s daughter, offered to my husband, who had just then commenced the practice of the law, one of the higher clerkships in the State Department, with a salary of $1,400. This offer was accepted by him, with the understanding that my mother and sisters would go with us to live in Washington as one family. In the autumn of 1829, we bade adieu to our native mountains,and removed to Washington. We occupied a small house with a pretty garden, pleasantly situated, where we lived together, forming one family, consisting of seven grown persons and four children, the two youngest being my own, and the other two orphans of my eldest sister, who had been taken by their grandmother to her home at Monticello, while her father was still living.

“Upon her arrival in Washington, my mother was visited by everybody, and received the most marked attentions. The President and the Heads of Departments called upon her; the lady of the White House of that day, Mrs. Donelson, and the wives of the cabinet ministers, laid aside etiquette, and paid her the respect of a first call.

“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 judgedbest 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 afew 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 gardenand 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 Consulat 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 onthat 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, heryoungest 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 andkept 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.”

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