Jefferson Thomas - Meet Thomas Jefferson

His room was small and stuffy. Horseflies buzzed around his head. They bit. The days were long and hot.

It took 18 days to write the paper.

It was only one page.

But Thomas Jefferson had written the Declaration of Independence!

Text copyright 1967 by Random House, Inc.
Text copyright renewed 1995 by Random House, Inc.
Illustrations copyright 1989 by Pat Fogarty.

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Random House Childrens Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in slightly different form by Random House, Inc., in 1967.

RANDOM HOUSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

www.randomhouse.com/kids

Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Barrett, Marvin.
Meet Thomas Jefferson / written by Marvin Barrett ; illustrated by Pat Fogarty.
p. cm. (Landmark books)
SUMMARY : An easy-to-read biography of the third president with emphasis on the creation of the Declaration of Independence.
eISBN: 978-0-307-78696-8
1. Jefferson, Thomas, 17431826Juvenile literature.
2. PresidentsUnited StatesBiographyJuvenile literature.
[1. Jefferson, Thomas, 17431826. 2. Presidents.] I. Fogarty, Pat, ill. II. Title.
III. Series. E332.79.B3 1989 973.460924dc19 [B] [92] 88-19069

v3.1

To Elizabeth, Irving, Mary Ellin, and Katherine

Thomas Jefferson was the third president of the United States. And he was one of the most important Americans who ever lived.

Jefferson fought for his country. But he did not fight with a gun or a sword. He fought with words.

Thomas Jefferson wrote one of the most famous papers in the world. Many people think it is the greatest paper in the history of the United States. It is the Declaration of Independence.

Thomas Jefferson was born in Virginia on April 13, 1743. There was no United States of America then. Virginia was called a colony. It belonged to England. There were 13 colonies in America, ruled by the English king.

Virginia was the biggest colony. It went from the sea west to the mountains. The land near the sea was called the Tidewater. It was good farm land. Rich people lived there on great farms. These farms were called plantations.

West of the Tidewater, the land grew wilder. In the mountains lived many Indians. But the only white people there were a few hunters.

Thomas Jefferson was born in a house called Shadwell. It was on a farm between the Tidewater and the mountains.

Toms father was named Peter. He was a farmer. Toms mother, Jane, came from an old Virginia family named Randolph.

Sometimes Peter Jefferson went west into the mountains. There he visited his friends the Indians. He hunted and explored. He made the first complete map of Virginia.

Sometimes Peter rode east to the Tidewater. There he visited Janes cousin, William Randolph. Mr. Randolph lived near the sea in a fine house called Tuckahoe.

One summer morning when Tom was only two, the Jefferson family left Shadwell. Tom, his mother and father, and his three sisters were moving to Tuckahoe. Mr. Randolph had died. Toms father had promised to care for the Randolph children.

Tom was too little to ride all by himself. He had to sit on a pillow in front of a grownup.

The family rode for three days. At last they came to Tuckahoe.

Tuckahoe was much grander than Shadwell. Ships from England tied up at docks nearby. In the ships were beautiful English chairs and fine English china for the house. The ships left filled with tobacco from the Tidewater plantations.

At the big house there were many slaves. Slaves were black men and women. They were brought from Africa to work on the plantations.

The slaves were bought and sold like animals. They had to do just what their owners told them. Some owners were cruel. Slavery was one thing Tom Jefferson never liked.

One thing Tom always liked was learning. At Tuckahoe the children had their own little schoolhouse. There they learned to read, write, and do arithmetic.

One of the Randolph children was a boy about Toms age. His name was Tom too. The two Toms became good friends.

Near the schoolhouse was a pond. In the winter the boys skated on it. In the summer they swam in it.

The Jefferson family stayed at Tuckahoe for seven years. By then the Randolph children had grown old enough to care for themselves.

The Jeffersons packed their things. They said good-bye and headed home to Shadwell.

At Shadwell, Tom grew into a big, strong boy. He had freckles and red hair. His hands and feet were large. He was awkward, but he was a good rider. He and his friends often raced their horses. They went swimming in the river. They went hunting in the woods.

Toms best friend was a boy named Dabney Carr. Dabneys horse was fast. Toms was slow. But Tom bet that Dabney could not beat him in a horse race on February 30.

Dabney knew his horse could run faster than Toms. He said he would be glad to race.

Days went by. February 28 came. Dabney thought he would be racing Tom just two days later.

But the next day was March 1.

All at once Dabney saw that Tom had played a trick. He could not beat Tom on February 30. There was no such day.

Tom had won his bet.

One night an Indian chief came to dinner at Shadwell. His name was Outasset. Tom listened to his father and Outasset talk. Tom liked the Indians. They were a proud and handsome people.

When Tom was only 14, his father died. Tom was now the head of the family. For a 14-year-old boy he was very rich. He owned a lot of land. He owned 30 slaves. He owned cows and pigs and horses.

Tom was going to a school near Shadwell. He could leave school now if he wanted to. He had no father to tell him what to do.

But Tom stayed in school. There he learned two more languages, Greek and Latin. And on his own, he learned to play the violin.

When Tom was 16, he decided to go to college. He packed his bags. He rode off to Williamsburg, which was then the capital of Virginia.

Williamsburg was the biggest town Tom had ever seen. There were 300 houses. The main street was 100 feet wide. It was covered with sand and oyster shells. At one end of it stood the Capitol Building.