Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB
[merged small][ocr errors][merged small][merged small]

COPYRIGHT, 1901, BY HENRY C. MERWIN

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

THOMAS JEFFERSON

I

YOUTH AND TRAINING

THOMAS JEFFERSON was born upon a frontier estate in Albemarle County, Vir

ginia, April 13, 1743.

His father, Peter

Jefferson, was of Welsh descent, not of aristocratic birth, but of that yeoman class which constitutes the backbone of all societies. The elder Jefferson had uncommon powers both of mind and body. His strength was such that he could simultaneously "head up" that is, raise from their sides to an upright position two hogsheads of tobacco, weighing nearly one thousand pounds apiece. Like Washington, he was a surveyor; and there is a tradition that once, while running his lines through a vast wilderness, his assistants gave out from famine and fatigue,

and Peter Jefferson pushed on alone, sleeping at night in hollow trees, amidst howling beasts of prey, and subsisting on the flesh of a pack mule which he had been obliged to kill.

Thomas Jefferson inherited from his father a love of mathematics and of literature. Peter Jefferson had not received a classical education, but he was a diligent reader of a few good books, chiefly Shakespeare, The Spectator, Pope, and Swift; and in mastering these he was forming his mind on great literature after the manner of many another Virginian, for the houses of that colony held English books as they held English furniture. The edition of Shakespeare (and it is a handsome one) which Peter Jefferson used is still preserved among the heirlooms of his descendants.

It was probably in his capacity of surveyor that Mr. Jefferson made the acquaintance of the Randolph family, and he soon became the bosom friend of William Randolph, the young proprietor of Tuckahoe. The Randolphs had been for ages a family of con

« AnteriorContinuar »