---
title: "Thomas Jefferson"
chunk: 2/19
source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Jefferson"
category: "reference"
tags: "science, encyclopedia"
date_saved: "2026-05-05T04:06:33.894887+00:00"
instance: "kb-cron"
---

Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 (April 2, 1743, Old Style, Julian calendar), at the family's Shadwell Plantation in the Colony of Virginia, then one of the Thirteen Colonies of British America. He was the third of ten children. His father, Peter Jefferson, was a planter and surveyor; his mother was Jane Randolph. Peter Jefferson moved his family to Tuckahoe Plantation in 1745 following the death of William Randolph III, the plantation's owner and Jefferson's friend, who in his will had named Peter guardian of Randolph's children. The Jeffersons returned to Shadwell before October 1753.
Jefferson began his education together with the Randolph children at Tuckahoe under tutors. Thomas' father Peter, who was self-taught and regretted not having a formal education, entered Thomas into an English school at age five. In 1752, at age nine, he attended a local school run by a Presbyterian minister and also began studying the natural world, which he grew to love. He studied Latin, Greek, and French, and began learning to ride horses. Thomas read books from his father's modest library. He was taught from 1758 to 1760 by the Reverend James Maury near Gordonsville, Virginia, where he studied history, science, and the classics while boarding with Maury's family. Jefferson came to know various Native Americans including Cherokee chief Ostenaco, who often stopped at Shadwell to visit on their way to Williamsburg to trade. In Williamsburg, the young Jefferson met and came to admire Patrick Henry.
Thomas's father died in 1757, and his estate was divided between his sons, Thomas and Randolph. John Harvie Sr. became 14-year-old Thomas' guardian. Thomas inherited approximately 5,000 acres (7.8 sq mi; 20.2 km2), which included the land on which he later built Monticello in 1772.
In 1761, at the age of eighteen, Jefferson entered the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, where he studied mathematics and philosophy with William Small. Under Small's tutelage, Jefferson encountered the ideas of British empiricists, including John Locke, Francis Bacon, and Isaac Newton. Small also introduced Jefferson to George Wythe and Francis Fauquier. Small, Wythe, and Fauquier recognized Jefferson as a man of exceptional ability and included him in their inner circle, where he became a regular member of their Friday dinner parties. Jefferson later wrote that, while there, he "heard more common good sense, more rational & philosophical conversations than in all the rest of my life".
During his first year in college, Jefferson spent considerable time attending parties and dancing and was not very frugal with his expenditures; in his second year, regretting that he had squandered away time and money in his first year, he committed to studying fifteen hours a day. While at William & Mary, Jefferson became a member of the Flat Hat Club, the nation's oldest secret society, a small group whose members included St. George Tucker, Edmund Randolph, and James Innes.
Jefferson concluded his formal studies in April 1762. He read the law under Wythe's tutelage while working as a law clerk in his office. Jefferson was well-read in a broad variety of subjects, including law, philosophy, history, natural law, natural religion, ethics, and several areas of science, including astronomy and agriculture.
Jefferson kept two commonplace books: from about age 15 to 30, he compiled a book of sayings and quotations, published in the 20th century as Jefferson's Literary Commonplace Book. During his years of legal study under Wythe, Jefferson began recording his notes on law, history, and philosophy, and continued to do so until the end of his life; his Legal Commonplace Book was also published in the 20th century.
On July 20, 1765, Jefferson's sister Martha married his close friend and college companion Dabney Carr, which greatly pleased Jefferson. In October of that year, however, Jefferson mourned his sister Jane's unexpected death at age 25.
Jefferson treasured his books and amassed three sizable libraries in his lifetime. He began assembling his first library, which grew to 200 volumes, in his youth. Wythe was so impressed with Jefferson that he later bequeathed his entire library to him. In 1770, however, Jefferson's first library was destroyed in a fire at his Shadwell home. His second library, which replenished the first, grew to nearly 6,500 volumes by 1814. Jefferson organized his books into three broad categories of the human mind: memory, reason, and imagination. After British forces set the Library of Congress on fire in the Burning of Washington in 1814, Jefferson sold his second library to the U.S. government for $23,950, hoping to help jumpstart the Library of Congress's rebuilding. Jefferson used a portion of the proceeds to pay off some of his large debt. Jefferson soon resumed collecting his third personal library. In a letter to John Adams, Jefferson wrote, "I cannot live without books." By the time of Jefferson's death a decade later, his third and final library had grown to nearly 2,000 volumes.

== Career ==

=== Lawyer and House of Burgesses ===