Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson, of Monticello, was born and bred, lived, died, and was finally buried on the paternal acres. This can rarely be said of an American. He gained world-wide renown in his day, not only as a leader of creative skill in revolutionary and republican politics, but also as the friend of science, philosophy, and the arts.

Yet his dearest environments were remote from the great cities, and he travelled abroad only to love home the better. Few men of his times ever soared for improvement in so many different directions, or dipped with so congenial a disposition into the future. Books and men were his constant sources of information; the savants of Europe were his frequent guests and correspondents; and planning for his fellow-countrymen a seminary of learning far in advance of his age, he essayed before he died to lift his simple market-town to the level of a university seat.

Monticello, or " Little Mountain" (a name of Jefferson's own coinage for a height belonging to his patrimony), lies about three miles easterly from Charlottesville, on the old county road. Charlottesville, when wide awake, boasts a population of about four thousand souls, white and black. Hiring a liverycarriage, — for the hotel is without one, — and leaving behind the Blue Ridge and this shambling but highly respectable county town with its medley of brick buildings, new and dilapidated, its unpaved streets, bad drainage, and street cars drawn by mules on the main highway to and from the University, we are soon in an open country of surprising loveliness.

Description: Portrait of Thomas Jefferson by Rembrandt Peale in 1800. Date: 1800. Source: White House Historical Association. Author: Rembrandt Peale (1778–1860)

September 26, 1789 – Thomas Jefferson is appointed the first United States Secretary of State, John Jay is appointed the first Chief Justice of the United States,

This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired. This applies to the United States, where Works published prior to 1978 were copyright protected for a maximum of 75 years. See Circular 1 "COPYRIGHT BASICS" PDF. Works published before 1923, in this case circa 1800, are now in the public domain.

This image is also in the public domain in countries that figure copyright from the date of death of the artist (post mortem auctoris), in this case Rembrandt Peale (1778–1860) , and that most commonly runs for a period of 50 to 70 years from the last day of that year. +sookie tex