Tom moved to Williamsburg in the spring of 1760. This city near the coast was Virginia’s capital and home to the College of William and Mary. Tom loved college from the start. He was hungry for knowledge and enjoyed studying late into the night.
One professor, William Small, befriended him. In turn, Dr. Small introduced him to his friends George Wythe and Francis Fauquier. Wythe was a noted lawyer. Fauquier was the colonial governor of Virginia for Great Britain. Fauquier often invited Small, Wythe, and Jefferson to dine at the Governor’s Palace. Sometimes the red haired college student played his violin at concerts hosted by the governor.
Tom graduated in 1762 after just two years. Now he had to think about a career. Law appealed to him. In those days, young men (there were no women lawyers yet) studied with established attorneys. After a while, the young men took a law test. Those who passed, became lawyers.
Tom began studying under George Wythe. He couldn’t have had a better teacher. In colonial days, lawyers generally had poor reputations. A few colonies even had laws preventing lawyers from entering their borders! Wythe, however, was famous for his honesty. If he thought a person was in the wrong or lying, he wouldn’t take the case.
Wythe did not go easy on Tom, even though they were friends. Tom studied with George Wythe for five years. In comparison, Tom’s friend Patrick Henry studied for just several months before becoming a lawyer. Even today, law schools generally require just three years of study. One reason for Tom’s lengthy preparation was that Wythe was a treasury of legal knowledge. Another was that Tom liked his law teacher. He called Wythe, who was seventeen years older than himself, “my second father.”
In 1767, Jefferson was admitted to the bar. He began to practice law near Shadwell as well as in the capital city of Williamsburg. George Wythe had taught Tom well. His first year, the twenty-four-year-old attorney handled sixty-seven cases. This grew to 115 cases his second year, and about 200 his third year. Tom’s problem was that he didn’t press his clients to pay him. In his first six years as an attorney, Tom collected only a third of his fees!
Tom also became interested in politics. In 1769 he ran for and won a seat in the House of Burgesses. This was Virginia’s legislature. It was America’s oldest lawmaking body made up of elected representatives. Jefferson served in the House of Burgesses until the American Revolution ended colonial government.
HOUSE OF BURGESSES
THE VIRGINIA HOUSE OF BURGESSES MET TO DECIDE LOCAL LAWS. ITS HISTORIC FIRST MEETING TOOK PLACE AT JAMESTOWN IN 1619.
THE HOUSE OF BURGESSES PLAYED A KEY ROLE IN THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION. IN THE 1760S AND 1770S, ITS MEMBERS BEGAN TO CHALLENGE DECISIONS MADE BY THE ROYAL GOVERNOR OF VIRGINIA. THE BURGESSES, AS THEY WERE CALLED, HELPED SPUR A UNIFIED FIGHT FOR FREEDOM THROUGHOUT THE THIRTEEN COLONIES.
Law and politics weren’t the only things on his mind. His family’s home, Shadwell, burned down in 1770. Jefferson was in Charlottesville, Virginia, when a slave brought the news. After learning that his relatives were safe, Jefferson asked if all the property was lost.
“Not all,” the slave answered. “We saved your fiddle.”
The year of the fire, Jefferson began building a new home that he had designed. With his slaves doing the work, the thirty-five-room mansion was built on a hilltop four miles from Shadwell and also near the town of Charlottesville. He called his new estate Monticello. The name means little mountain in Italian.
Young ladies were also in his thoughts. At nineteen, he had fallen in love with sixteen-year-old Rebecca Burwell. Tom carried a silhouette of Rebecca in his watch. He had a pet name for her:—Belinda. But he was too shy to express his feelings.
In colonial days, young women often married at age sixteen or seventeen and men at twenty or twenty-one. One reason the colonists married early was that their average life span was less than forty years. It was common for people to die young from diseases and conditions that doctors can cure today. Tom saw his chance to propose marriage at a ball in Williamsburg. But when he danced with Rebecca, he could only say “a few broken sentences,” he told a friend. He met her again a few weeks later but only blurted out that he might want to marry her someday. That wasn’t much of a proposal! A few months later, Rebecca married another man.
MONTICELLO
“LITTLE MOUNTAIN”
IN ABOUT 1767, JEFFERSON BEGAN DESIGNING MONTICELLO. THE DESIGN RESEMBLED BUILDINGS CREATED BY 16TH-CENTURY ITALIAN ARCHITECT ANDREA PALLADIO. CONSTRUCTION BEGAN IN 1770 AND CONTINUED UNTIL 1809. JEFFERSON MOVED INTO MONTICELLO’S SOUTH PAVILION AFTER HIS BIRTHPLACE, SHADWELL, BURNED TO THE GROUND IN 1770.
It took several years for Tom’s broken heart to heal. Then in 1770, he met Martha Wayles Skelton. She was a young beauty with hazel eyes and reddish brown hair. Just twenty-two years old, Martha was already a widow with a young son named John.
Martha and Tom fell in love. He visited her father’s plantation, The Forest, to court her. The couple shared a love of music. They sang together. Sometimes Thomas played his violin while Martha played the harpsichord, which resembled a piano. According to a Jefferson family story, one day Thomas and Martha were playing a love song in The Forest’s drawing room. Two other admirers of Martha entered the house. Hearing the duet, they knew Thomas had won her heart, so they departed.
On New Year’s Day of 1772, Thomas and Martha were married at The Forest. The festivities lasted more than two weeks. On January 18, the newlyweds set out by buggy for Monticello. They were hit by a blizzard during the 100-mile journey. It was “the deepest snow we have ever seen, about 3 [feet] deep,” Thomas wrote in a journal. They had to abandon the buggy and finish the journey on horseback. Not until late at night did the couple arrive at their new home to begin their life together.
Thomas and Martha remained deeply in love during their ten-and-a-half years of marriage. They also endured much sadness together. Martha’s four-year-old son, John, had been left behind at The Forest with his grandparents. John became ill and died in June 1772. Over the next few years, Thomas and Martha had five daughters and a son. All but two of them died before the age of three. Only their firstborn, Patsy, and another daughter, Maria, grew to adulthood. |