Thomas Jefferson, one of America's most revered Founding Fathers, is best remembered for his role in writing the Declaration of Independence and serving as the third president of the United States. However, less is known about his formative years. From his privileged upbringing on a Virginia plantation to his intellectual awakening under the tutelage of Enlightenment-influenced thinkers, Jefferson's early life helped lay the groundwork for his philosophy and political career. It also helps explain the fundamental contradiction between his publicly stated moral convictions and his lifetime of owning, and being cared for, enslaved people.
1. He grew up on a Virginia plantation.
Born on April 13, 1743, in colonial Virginia, Jefferson grew up in a world of wealth and privilege on his father’s Shadwell plantation near the Blue Ridge Mountains. Spanning thousands of acres, it became the largest estate in Albermarle County, supported by the work of at least 60 enslaved laborers. The estate included gardens, livestock and various crops, including tobacco, the family’s primary cash crop. Their wealth afforded them access to a range of luxuries, from education to imported goods.
Thomas was the third of 10 children—and the first son—born to Peter Jefferson, a prominent property owner, gentleman planter and surveyor who held positions including justice of the peace, militia captain and county sheriff. As historian John B. Boles writes in Jefferson: Architect of American Liberty, Peter was a strong, imposing figure with an active intellect, ”apparently as comfortable with the rigors of the outdoor world as with the pleasures of reading Shakespeare in his study.” His wife, London-born Jane Randolph Jefferson, emigrated with her family to Virginia around 1725. According to Boles, she “taught the children good manners, instructed them in dancing and music, and made sure they know how to behave at table with guests.”
The future president was reared in a household where enslaved laborers were a fundamental fact of life, supporting both the personal needs of the family as well as the agricultural businesses of Shadwell. “[Jefferson’s’] first childhood memory, at age three, was of the 50-mile horseback ride he took with his father's slave into the Virginia wilderness,” writes Peter Onuf, a University of Virginia history professor. As family lore tells it, the enslaved caretaker held the toddler securely in their arms, comfortably perched on a pillow.
2. His education began in a one-room schoolhouse.
Following the death of William Randolph, Peter’s friend and Jane’s cousin, the Jefferson family soon moved to nearby Tuckahoe Plantation to care for Randolph’s orphaned children. At Tuckahoe, Jefferson explored the woods and learned grammar, spelling and writing from a tutor in a one-room schoolhouse. “Here the discipline of his noble mind began," reads a plaque at the now-historic site.
Sometime in his early boyhood, he also began to study violin. He claimed to have practiced, in his youth, three hours a day. Later in life, he would declare music the “favorite passion of my soul.”
3. He studied at small boarding schools with classical scholars.
After six years, the family returned to Shadwell, where Jefferson’s formal education began when he was 9. Guided by Reverend William Douglas, he received a classical Latin education, boarding with the teacher for most of the year while studying Greek, Latin and French—until his father died at age 49 in 1757.
As the oldest son, 14-year-old Thomas inherited more than 7,200 acres, including the Shadwell plantation, the future Monticello property and approximately 30 enslaved people. (He would go on to own more than 600 in his lifetime.) Among them, writes Boles, Peter bequeathed to Thomas his trusted valet Sawney, who he “probably intended…to serve a quasi-fatherly role in helping Thomas daily navigate the next decade or so of his life.”
In 1758, Jefferson attended a small boarding school run by Reverend James Maury, a graduate of William & Mary College and usher of the college’s grammar school. There, he received what he called “a correct classical” education for two years. Fellow Virginian and future president James Madison also counted Maury as a teacher.
4. He started college at age 17—and joined a secret fraternity.
In March 1760, the 17-year-old Jefferson moved to Williamsburg, Virginia, to attend college at William & Mary, where he studied courses including physics, mathematics, rhetoric and philosophy for the next two years. Located in Virginia’s then-capital, William & Mary served as a cultural mecca of intellectual and cultural activity.
Jefferson developed a close social circle there, including his membership in the F.H.C. Society, a secret society dedicated to “charity, friendship and science.” Known as the “Flat Hat Club,” it is considered the nation’s first college fraternity.
5. Two mentors fanned his interest in the Enlightenment and the law.
At William & Mary, Jefferson met his two most influential mentors. Scottish-born mathematics and natural philosophy professor William Small introduced him to the Enlightenment movement, exposing him to the works of great thinkers such as John Locke, Francis Bacon, Adam Smith and Isaac Newton. Based on their ideas of individual rights, representative democracy and religious freedom, Jefferson began to form his own political philosophies.
In his autobiography, Jefferson wrote that Small, “most happily for me, became soon attached to me & made me his daily companion when not engaged in the school; and from his conversation I got my first views of the expansion of science & of the system of things in which we are placed."
Small introduced Jefferson to George Wythe, who became Jefferson’s law instructor and other mentor. Also an Enlightenment thinker, prominent attorney and legal scholar, Wythe served in the Virginia House of Burgesses, America’s first group of elected representatives. He also mentored Supreme Court Justice John Marshall, statesman Henry Clay and future president James Monroe, and was a signer of the Declaration of Independence. And while Wythe taught Jefferson standard legal matters, he also helped his apprentice appreciate government theory, history and ethics.
“Jefferson, in fact, would later develop his own bibliography that an aspiring lawyer should read that covered an astonishing array of topics,” writes Davison M. Douglas, a historian and former William & Mary law dean. “Jefferson and Wythe forged a close intellectual and personal friendship, and Jefferson embraced his mentor's zeal for republicanism as the American colonies marched steadily towards independence.”
Small and Wythe soon connected Jefferson with Virginia’s acting governor, Francis Fauquier, and the four formed what Jefferson described as a “parti quarré,” from which he gained “much instruction.” The four men formed a kind of elite gentlemen’s club, sharing many dinners at the Williamsburg Governor’s Palace discussing politics, literature, science and ethics and playing music.
From 1762 to 1767, Jefferson studied the law under Wythe and was admitted to the Virginia bar in 1967. “No man ever left behind him a character more venerated than G. Wythe,” Jefferson wrote.
6. His first step into politics came at age 26.
In 1769, at the age of 26, Jefferson, now a young country lawyer largely working in land cases, was elected to the Virginia House of Burgesses. As tensions mounted with Britain, he quickly established himself as a supporter of the patriot cause.
Serving in the legislative body until 1774, Jefferson worked on revising state laws and on his “Summary View of the Rights of British America.” In it, he declared, “the British parliament has no right to exercise authority over us,” helping to lay the groundwork for The Declaration of Independence.
