Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (58 page)

THE
R
EVEREND
J
AMES
M
AU
RY
Parton,
Life,
17–18.

“
A
CORRECT
CLA
SSICAL
SCHOLAR
”
Jefferson,
Writings,
4.

M
A
URY
DID
SPLENDIDLY
JHT,
I, 40–43.

“
WOULD
BEGUILE
OUR
LINGER
ING
HOURS
”
PTJRS,
IV, 671. The letter was written on April 25, 1812.

B
ORN
IN
1743
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/dabney-carr-1743–1773 (accessed 2011). See also
TDLTJ,
45–46.

FROM
L
OUISA
C
OUNTY
Ibid.

THEY
TOOK
THE
BOOKS
Parton,
Life,
44. My portrait of the friends' time together is drawn from this page of Parton and from
TDLTJ,
45–46.

N
O
MAN
, J
EFFERSO
N
RECALLED
LATER
TJ to Dabney Carr, Jr., January 19, 1816, Thomas Jefferson Papers, LOC.

W
H
OEVER
SURVIVED
THE
OTHER
TDLTJ,
45. See also Parton,
Life,
44.

D
ISSERTATION
ON
E
DUCAT
ION
Helen D. Bullock, ed., “A Dissertation on Education in the Form of a Letter from James Maury to Robert Jackson, July 17, 1762
,
”
Papers of the Albemarle County Historical Societ
y 2 (1941–42): 36–60. See also Hayes,
Road to Monticello,
30–42.

“A
N
ACQUAINTANC
E
WITH
”
Hayes,
Road to Monticello,
36.

G
REEK
AND
L
ATIN
Ibid.

REMARKING
THAT
,
GIVEN
THE
CHOICE
TDLTJ,
25.

“A
T
14
YEARS
OF
AGE
”
Ibid., 26. Yet his mother was alive, and there were no fewer than four executors of his father's will. (
JHT,
I, 437–38.) Still, Jefferson apparently could not imagine any one of those men taking the place of his father as patriarch and counselor.

ARRIVED
FOR
THE
1759–60
HOLIDAYS
PTJ,
I, 3. The letter describing the visit and his uncle's counsel is the oldest extant written document of Jefferson's. (Ibid.)

HOLIDAYS
AT
C
HATSWORTH
Ibid. For details about the estate itself, see Marc R. Matrana,
Lost Plantations of the South
(Jackson, Miss., 2009), 26–27.

“B
Y
GOING
TO
THE
C
OLLEGE
”
Ibid.

THE
TEST
FOR
POTENT
IAL
STUDENTS
Hayes,
Road to Monticello,
47.

TWO
·
WHAT FIXED THE DESTINIES OF MY LIFE

“
E
NLIGHTENMENT
IS
MAN
'
S
EMERGENCE
”
Michael Allen Gillespie,
The Theological Origins of Modernity
(Chicago, 2008), 258.

“
T
HE
BEST
NEWS
I
CAN
TELL
YOU
”
John J. Reardon,
Peyton Randolph, 1721–1775: One Who Presided
(Durham, N.C., 1982), 39.

GAMBLED
ON
HO
RSES
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 23. Jefferson discussed his extracurricular activities in a letter to his grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph dated November 24, 1808. (Ibid., 22–23.)

W
ASHINGTON
R
ECEIVED
HIS
SURVEYIN
G
CERTIFICATE
William and Mary Alumni Association, http://www.wmalumni.com/general (accessed 2011). A writer for the
London Magazine
delivered a mixed verdict on the College of William and Mary before Jefferson arrived, writing that while “the masters were men of great knowledge and discretion,” the college could not “yet vie with those excellent universities … of the
Massachusetts,
” arguing that students were “pampered much more in softness and ease” in Virginia than they were in New England. (Susan H. Godson,
The College of William and Mary: A History,
I,
1693–1888
[Williamsburg, Va., 1993], 84.)

THE
W
REN
B
UILDING
Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, http://www.history.org/almanack/places/hb/hbwren.cfm (accessed 2012).

T
HRE
E
BLOCKS
EAST
I drew on several sources for this portrait of Williamsburg. In 1724, a professor at William and Mary described the basic scene Jefferson saw in the spring of 1760: “From the church runs a street northward called Palace Street; at the other end of which stands the Palace or Governor's House, a magnificent structure built at the public expense, finished and beautified with gates, fine gardens, offices, walks, a fine canal, orchards, etc
… 
. This likewise has the ornamental addition of a good cupola or lanthorn, illuminated with most of the town, upon birth-nights, and other nights of occasional rejoicings.” Hugh Jones,
The Present State of Virginia
(London, 1724), 31.

NOT
QUITE
HALF
A
SQUARE
MILE
I am grateful to Del Moore of the John D. Rockefeller, Jr., Library in Williamsburg for guidance on these details. See John W. Reps,
Tidewater Towns: City Planning in Colonial Virginia and Maryland
(Williamsburg, Va., 1972); and the eWilliamsburg Map, Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, http://research.history.org/ewilliamsburg2/ (accessed 2012).

A
F
RE
NCH
TRAVELER
SAW
“
THR
EE
N
EGROES
”
“Journal of a French Traveller in the Colonies, 1765, I,”
American Historical Review
26 (July 1921): 745.

“
THE
FI
NEST
SCHOOL
OF
MANNE
RS
AND
MORALS
”
“Memoir of Thomas Jefferson Randolph,” Edgehill-Randolph Papers, Collection 1397, Box 11, University of Virginia.

D
R
. W
IL
LIAM
S
MALL
,
A
S
COTTISH
LAYMAN
JHT,
I, 51–55.

“I
T
WAS
MY
G
REAT
GOOD
FORTUNE
”
Jefferson,
Writings,
4. Jefferson added: “He, most happily for me, became soon attached to me, and made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science, and of the system of things in which we are placed.” (Ibid.)

B
ORN
IN
S
COTLAND
IN
1734
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/Jefferson/William-small (accessed 2011).

A
“
POLITE
,
WELL
-
BRED
MAN
”
Virginia Magazine of History and Biography
16 (1908): 209. This letter, from Stephen Hawtrey to his brother Edward Hawtrey, was written from London on March 26, 1765, and reported a conversation with Small, who had since left America, about William and Mary.

LIVED
IN
TWO
ROOMS
Ibid., 210.

ETHICS
,
RHETORIC
,
AND
BELLES
LETTRES
Hayes,
Road to Monticello,
50–51.

NATURAL
PHILOSOPHY
TJF, http://www.monticello.org/site/Jefferson/William-small (accessed 2011).

LECTURI
NG
IN
THE
MORNINGS
Ibid.

SEMINAR
-
LIKE
SESSION
S
IN
THE
AFTERNOONS
Ibid.

B
ACON
, L
OCKE
, N
EWTON
Ibid. See also Hayes,
Road to Monticello,
50–56.

KEY
INSIGHT
OF
THE
N
EW
INTELLECTUAL
AGE
Henry F. May,
The Enlightenment in America
(New York, 1976), is useful.

“E
NLIGHTENMENT
IS
MA
N
'
S
EMERGENCE
”
Gillespie,
Theological Origins of Modernity,
258.

“
TO
ME
 … 
A
FATHER
”
PTJRS,
VIII, 200.

STUDIED
FIFTEEN
HOURS
A
DAY
My portrait of his student days at Williamsburg is drawn from
TDLTJ,
31–32; Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 24–32; and
JHT,
I, 55–57.

“O
F
ALL
THE
CANKERS
”
PTJ,
XI, 250–51.

“K
NOWLEDGE
,” J
EFFERSON
SAID
Ibid., X, 308.

A
VIGOROUS
BO
DY
HELPED
CREATE
A
V
IGOROUS
MIND
Ibid. “It is of little consequence to store the mind with science if the body be permitted to become debilitated,” Jefferson said. (Ibid.) See also
PTJ,
VIII, 405–8.

“N
OT
LESS
THAN
TWO
HOURS
”
Ibid.

THEIR
MORNINGS
TO
THE
LAW
Ibid., VIII, 408.

WITH
“
THE
M
ECHANIC
”
TDLTJ,
37–38.

A
“
WALKING
ENCYCLOPEDIA
”
Ibid., 37.

“
A
LIT
TLE
TOO
SHOWY
” R
ANDALL
,
Jefferson,
I, 22.

AN
AVUNCULAR
TONE
Ibid., 22–23.

T
HE
MOTTO
AT
W
ILLIA
MSBURG
'
S
POPULAR
R
ALE
IGH
T
AVERN
Willard Sterne Randall,
Thomas Jefferson: A Life
(New York, 1993), 43. The motto in the tavern was in Latin.

HELD
FR
EQUENT
GATHERINGS
TDLTJ,
27–28.

HE
CALLED
F
AUQUIER
'
S
“
FAMILIAR
TABLE
”
Ibid., 28.

INVITED
TO
JOIN
Randall,
Jefferson,
I, 30–31. In British America, the architects of revolution were delighted to learn the civilizing arts from their colonial masters. George Washington had a similar experience in northern Virginia, where his connection to the Fairfax family seat of Belvoir introduced him to more sophisticated and cultivated ways of life than he might have otherwise known. (Douglas Southall Freeman, John Alexander Carroll, and Mary Wells Ashworth,
George Washington: A Biography,
I [New York, 1948], 199–203.)