150 THOMAS JEFFERSON 



nism and distrust requiring him to keep his faculties 

 perpetually alert, and to remember all the legal maxims 

 by which the liberties of Englishmen had been defended 

 since the days of Bracton and Fortescue. 



It was into this community that Thomas Jefferson 

 was born on the i3th of April, 1743. His first Ameri- 

 can ancestor on the father's side had come to Virginia 

 among the very earliest settlers, and was a member 

 of the assembly of 1619, the first legislative body of 

 Englishmen that ever met on this side of the ocean. 

 The Jeffersons belonged to the class of yeomanry. 

 Thomas's father was a man of colossal stature and 

 strength, which the son inherited. Like Washington, 

 he was a land surveyor and familiar with the ways of 

 Indians. His farm, on which wheat was cultivated as 

 well as tobacco, by about thirty slaves, was situated on 

 what was then the western frontier, near the junction 

 of the Rivanna River with the James. He was a 

 justice of the peace, colonel of the county militia, 

 and for some time member of the House of Burgesses. 

 He died suddenly in 1757, perhaps from exposure in 

 the arduous frontier campaigning of that year. 



Thomas's mother was Jane Randolph, daughter of 

 one of the most patrician families in Virginia. From 

 her he is said to have inherited his extreme tenderness 

 of nature and aversion to strife, as well as his love of 

 music. From his father he derived a strong taste for 

 mathematics and the constructive arts, a punctilious 

 accuracy in all matters of business, a hatred of cere- 

 mony, and a dislike to have other people wait upon 

 him. Thomas, when full grown, was six feet and two 

 inches in height, lithe and sinewy, erect and alert, with 

 reddish hair and bright hazel eyes. His features w r ere 



