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Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s London Travel Diary, 1 May 1839

Off the Banks of Newfoundland. Three weeks at sea. Dismal weeks of incessant sickness & suffering. Let no one talk of sea-sickness who has not felt it in it’s horrors—it’s weakness, it’s helplessness, it’s utter prostration of all power bodily and mental. O long days & weeks of giddiness ...

Virginia J. Randolph Trist to Nicholas P. Trist, 26 May 1839

Faithful to my promise, dearest —, I shall spend an hour every Sunday in writing all my childish recollections of my dear grandfather, which are sufficiently distinct to relate to you. My memory seems crowded with them, and they have the vividness of realities; but all are trifles in themselves,...

Nicholas P. Trist to Andrew Jackson, 15 June 1840

I hope soon to have a breathing spell, in which to write to you—My victory will be such as never was seen before: no, not even at New Orleans.—Great as the confidence of my friends in my character may be, they even cannot form the remotest conception of the strength of my position. How it defies...

Nicholas P. Trist to Andrew Jackson, 1 Dec. 1842

How long it is since I have written to you! You will not, however, I am sure have distrusted on that account the fidelity of my attachment; or ever supposed for a moment that I did not often think of you, and always with warm affection. Wherever I might be, and under whatever circumstances, you...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Jane H. Nicholas Randolph, 17 May 1843

I write to you, dearest Jane, a little before the time; as the Steamer leaves England not before the first of next month and I usually allow not more than a week for my letter to reach Liverpool, but if I do not write now I may have to wait five or six weeks, as I am going to a place pretty much...

Extract from Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, ca. 1847 [Quote]

He kept three fiddles: played in the arternoons & sometimes arter supper. This was in his early time: When he begin to git so old he didn’t play … Mr. Jefferson always singing when ridin or walkin: hardly see him anywhar out doors but what he was a-singin: Had a fine clear voice: sung minnits...

Extract from Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, ca. 1847 [Quote]

Mr. Jefferson was a tall strait-bodied man as ever you see, right square-shouldered: Nary a man in this town walked so straight as my old master: neat a built man as ever was seen in Vaginny, I reckon or any place—a straight-up man: long face, high nose.

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Virginia J. Randolph Trist, 29 May [1848?]

We arrived here safe & sound, dearest Virginia, on saturday, but as I was obliged to write for the Steamer, it is only now, Monday, that I have time to write to you. Tell Cousin Beverley that his recommendations procured me all sorts of attentions from his friends. Mr Bomford was very civil,...