During Thomas Jefferson’s final years, his adult daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, used this space as a sitting room and an office.

Audio Overview:

Listen as Brandon Dillard, Manager of Historic Interpretation, provides an introduction to the Family Sitting Room and the families of Monticello.

• Before his daughter took over this room, Jefferson called this the “Book Room” and used it as an extension of his library.
• The daily tasks of Martha Jefferson Randolph, Jefferson’s eldest daughter, who served as the mistress of the plantation, included seeing to Monticello’s many guests and directing the daily tasks of 10-15 enslaved people who worked in the house.

Thomas Jefferson described his marriage to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson as “ten years of unchequered happiness.” He and his wife had six children, but only two daughters lived to be adults: Martha and Maria Jefferson. In 1782, Martha Wayles Jefferson passed away at only 33 years old, but her daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph would come to live at Monticello later with her husband, Thomas Mann Randolph, and 11 children.

Family relations were complicated at Monticello. In the years following his wife’s death, Thomas Jefferson fathered at least six children with an enslaved woman named Sally Hemings. Four children survived to adulthood, three sons and one daughter: Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston Hemings. Sally Hemings and her children were legally Jefferson’s property. Explore the Life of Sally Hemings Exhibit in the South Wing underneath the house to learn more about their lives at Monticello.