Getting Word

At Monticello I myself never played – that was a privilege Mr. Jefferson allowed to my father only; but I went there very often, and saw and talked with him nearly every day. He always had a kind word to say whenever I met him; indeed, he was a universal favorite. He was rather a thin man, and his legs looked very small arrayed in stockings and knee-breeches, but he stood perfectly solid and straight on them till his last illness. He was never a complainer, and only alluded to his great age in a laughing way. I recollect he and I once stood up together to compare our heights, and we found he measured half an inch more than I did, and I am six feet two inches. When the university was being built he rode on horse-back to it, sometimes every day, and then again only two or three times a week. He would start from home at nine and stay at the university till two, when he would return home to dinner, and after dinner go back and stay till dark, looking after the workmen and directing the operations. When he remained at home all day he would frequently look through a telescope at the building, which was his pet scheme towards the end of his life. I was present at its opening in 1825. He was very anxious about its future when he died, and directed by his will that his monument should bear the words, Father of the University of Virginia. (“Virginian Reminiscences of Jefferson,” Harper’s Weekly, 19 Nov. 1904)

“I know that it was a general statement among the older servants at Monticello, that Mr. Jefferson promised his wife, on her death bed, that he would not again marry.  I also know that his servant, Sally Hemmings, (mother to my old friend and former companion at Monticello, Madison Hemmings,) was employed as his chamber-maid, and that Mr. Jefferson was on the most intimate terms with her; that, in fact, she was his concubine.  This I know from my intimacy with both parties, and when Madison Hemmings declares that he is a natural son of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and that his brothers Beverly and Eston and sister Harriet are of the same parentage, I can as conscientiously confirm his statement as any other fact which I believe from circumstances but do not positively know.

I think that Mr. Jefferson was 84 years of age when he died.  He was hardly ever sick, and till within two weeks of his death he walked erect without a staff or cane.  He moved with the seeming alertness and sprightliness of youth.” (Israel Jefferson, Pike County Republican, 25 Dec. 1873)

“On a beautiful day in the latter part of February (the opening of the Virginia spring), 1851- the author rode up Monticello, having for his cicerone an old manumitted slave, who had for forty-five years belonged to Mr. Jefferson.  Wormley had been first a door-yard servant, and subsequently a gardener.  He had dug the grave of his master and others of his household, and now was the oldest living chronicler of Monticello.  Like most of his color, he had a strong attachment for horses.  After a few minutes’ inquiries, his taciturnity gave way to animation on this favorite theme.  He could distinctly remember, and described the points, height, color, pace, temper, etc., of every horse as far back as Arcturus, which Mr. Jefferson brought home from Washington.  A crag of serpentine jutting into the narrow road, built high on the sides of a steep ravine, was selected by the fiery stranger horse as a shying butt-as if conscious that his rider would feel it dangerous to administer correction in such a spot.  Mr. Jefferson tolerated this once or twice, but on its being repeated, punished the rearing and plunging animal with whip and spur until he was ‘glad to put his fore feet on the rock and stand still.’  Higher up, Wormley pointed out the path, or rather the rough untrodden course on the side of Carter’s Mountain, where Mr. Jefferson rode away when a detachment of Tarleton’s dragoons were sent to capture him, ‘but not till the white coats were climbing the mountain.’  An inspection of the deserted and dilapidated stables, called forth other incidents; and finally we returned so as to pass Moore’s Creek at the ford, where Mr. Jefferson was thrown over his horse’s head into the stream, as there will be subsequent occasion to relate.” (Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1865, 1: 69-70)