Jefferson in His Own Time: A Biographical Chronicle of His Life, Drawn from Recollections, Interviews, and Memoirs by Family, Friends, and Associates

What Jefferson Was Like as a Grandfather, ca. 1856

[151] kkk [What Jefferson Was Like as a Grandfather, ca. 1856] Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge The fourth child of Thomas and Martha Randolph, Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge (1796–1876) was Thomas Jefferson’s favorite granddaughter. An avid reader and a good letter writer, she captured her grandfather’s heart. He contributed to Ellen’s intellectual interests by giving her many books, including her first copy of Shakespeare. She often accompanied him on trips to Poplar Forest, his vacation retreat in Bedford County. Her letter to biographer Henry S. Randall recounting their Poplar Forest experiences constitutes the fullest account available—but by no means the only one. Ellen’s feisty sister Cornelia sometimes went along, and her letters present a much different picture. Whereas Ellen’s reminiscence makes the trip to Poplar Forest a beautiful experience, Cornelia’s letters, written at the time, complain of the tedium of the journey and the seediness of the roadside taverns. Cornelia’s letters reveal how idealized Ellen’s reminiscence is. When Joseph Coolidge, a young Boston merchant, visited Monticello in 1824, Ellen caught his eye. They spent much time together during that visit and corresponded after he left. Joseph Coolidge returned the following year, and, on 27 May 1825, he married Ellen in the parlor of Monticello. Together they left Monticello for Boston. They decided to travel by land so Joseph could show his bride the American countryside, but they sent Ellen’s things by sea. Sadly, everything she sent was lost at sea, including her library. Heartbroken by the loss, she expressed her sadness in a letter to Jefferson. As partial compensation , he sent her a portable desk—the very desk on which he had written the Declaration of Independence: not a bad replacement gift! After Ellen left Monticello, her grandfather often gazed wistfully toward her empty chair. Whenever her sisters saw him doing this, one of them would hurry and take her seat. None of them could take Ellen’s place in her grandfather’s heart. jefferson in his own time [152] Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, ca. 1856 When he returned from Washington, in 1809, I was a child, and of that period I have childish recollections. He seemed to return to private life with great satisfaction. At last he was his own master and could, he hoped, dispose of his time as he pleased, and indulge his love of country life. You know how greatly he preferred it to town life. You recollect as far back as his Notes on Virginia, he says: “Those who labor in the earth are the chosen people of God.” With regard to the tastes and wishes which he carried with him into the country, his love of reading alone would have made leisure and retirement delightful to him. Books were at all times his chosen companions, and his acquaintance with many languages gave him great power of selection. He read Homer, Virgil, Dante, Corneille, Cervantes, as he read Shakspeare and Milton. In his youth he had loved poetry, but by the time I was old enough to observe, he had lost his taste for it, except for Homer and the great Athenian tragics, which he continued to the last to enjoy. He went over the works of Eschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, not very long before I left him. Of history he was very fond, and this he studied in all languages, though always, I think, preferring the ancients. In fact, he derived more pleasure from his acquaintance with Greek and Latin than from any other resource of literature, and I have often heard him express his gratitude to his father for causing him to receive a classical education. I saw him more frequently with a volume of the classics in his hand than with any other book. Still he read new publications as they came out, never missed the new number of a review, especially of the Edinburgh, and kept himself acquainted with what was being done, said, or thought in the world from which he had retired. He loved farming and gardening, the fields, the orchards, and his asparagus beds. Every day he rode through his plantation and walked in his garden. In the cultivation of the last he took great pleasure. Of flowers, too, he was very fond. One of my early recollections is of the attention which he paid to his flower-beds. He kept up a correspondence with persons in the large cities, particularly, I think, in...