Jefferson Dies: Declaration Author Gone on Its Anniversary

Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, the document he had written at age 33 in a rented room in Philadelphia. Born on April 13, 1743, at Shadwell plantation in Albemarle County, Virginia, he was the son of a successful planter and surveyor. He studied law at the College of William and Mary and entered Virginia politics, where his literary talent quickly distinguished him. The Continental Congress assigned him to draft the Declaration in June 1776 because he was known as the best writer in the room. Adams and Franklin edited it. Congress cut roughly a quarter of the text, including a passage condemning the slave trade that slaveholders in South Carolina and Georgia refused to accept. He served as governor of Virginia, minister to France, secretary of state under Washington, vice president under Adams, and president for two terms from 1801 to 1809. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803, which doubled the size of the United States for approximately three cents per acre, was his most consequential presidential act. He dispatched Lewis and Clark to explore the territory. His last words, or close to them, were reportedly: "Is it the fourth?" He had fought to stay alive long enough to see the anniversary. He died at Monticello, the house he designed and redesigned for 40 years, surrounded by grandchildren and the enslaved people whose labor had made his life possible. His debts were so enormous that Monticello and most of its contents were auctioned after his death. His enslaved workers were sold. His grandchildren were left with almost nothing. He had written "all men are created equal" while owning over 600 human beings during his lifetime. He fathered at least six children with Sally Hemings, an enslaved woman who was also his late wife's half-sister.