No. 3. I have found it impossible to resume my pen until now when I have an hour or so of leisure before turning my attention to the daily cares & duties which admit of no postponement. The decay of my grandfather’s fortune was owing, as you know, to various causes, but to none more than the...

Few things could give me more pleasure than to contribute in the smallest degree to the successful termination of the work which at present occupies your time and thoughts. I feel the deepest interest in it.— I will not take up your questions in order, but write what I can, when I can, and as the...

I am very sorry, my dear Mr. Randall, that I can give you no information on the subject of the chasms in Mr. Jefferson’s Correspondence.—I have no copy of Tucker’s Biography at hand to see what mention he makes of them. He wrote whilst my mother was yet living. She, of all persons would have...

The House at Monticello, and the Garden. Mr Jefferson made great changes in the house at Monticello after his return from Europe in 1789. He got new ideas of architecture during his residence abroad, and the buildings at Monticello were completely re-modelled under their influence. The house...

I meant to make a little sketch of my mother’s life, but never got beyond these two pages— Martha Jefferson was the eldest child of Thomas Jefferson and of Martha Wayles, widow of Bathurst Skelton. She was born in January 1772, & lost her mother when she was but ten years old. She was one of...

a beginning destined never to go farther— Thomas Jefferson It is now one hundred and fifteen years since a respectable family, possessed of competent fortune, resided on a plantation of Virginia situated on the banks of a mountain stream, the Rivanna, a tributary of the noble James, one of the...

… The house at Poplar Forest was very pretty and pleasant. It was of brick, one story in front, and, owing to the falling of the ground, two in the rear. It was an exact octagon, with a centre-hall twenty feet square, lighted from above. This was a beautiful room, and served as a dining-room....

No. 4.Life at Poplar Forest. Randall’s Life of Jefferson. vol. 3d P. 342. “Mr Jefferson had once owned I believe something like ten thousand acres of fertile land, (to which the name of Poplar Forest was given,) in the county of Bedford near Lynchburg in Campbell Co. I do not know when he began...

We have reached our journey's end in safety my dearest Mother, having met with no accident on the road, no misadventure of any kind, except being driven in to Hunter’s yesterday morning by a shower of rain, which forced us to take a neat comfortable breakfast at half after seven o clock, instead...

I have written so lately & so often my dear Mother, that if I were like other people, I should have nothing more to say, but my pen like my tongue, runs faster than is quite compatible with the comfort of my friends. from your complaining of not hearing from me, I conclude that my letters...