Where did thomas jefferson live

The native Virginian was the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and later held several national offices. During his two-term presidency, Jefferson doubled the size of the United States by successfully brokering the Louisiana Purchase and defeated pirates from North Africa during the Barbary War. In retirement, Jefferson founded the University of Virginia and continued work on his beloved Monticello estate.

He died on the 50 th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence at age Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, , at the Shadwell plantation located just outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. His mother, Jane Randolph Jefferson, was a member of the proud Randolph clan, a family claiming descent from English and Scottish royalty.

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His father, Peter Jefferson, was a successful farmer as well as a skilled surveyor and cartographer who produced the first accurate map of the Province of Virginia. Thomas was the third born of 10 siblings. As a boy, his favorite pastimes were playing in the woods, practicing the violin, and reading. Jefferson began his formal education at age 9, studying Latin and Greek at a local private school run by Reverend William Douglas.

Jefferson was dismayed to discover that his classmates expended their energies betting on horse races, playing cards, and courting women rather than studying. Nevertheless, the serious and precocious Jefferson fell in with a circle of older scholars that included Professor William Small, Lieutenant Governor Francis Fauquier, and lawyer George Wythe, and it was from them that he received his true education.

After three years at William and Mary, Jefferson decided to read law under Wythe, one of the preeminent lawyers of the American colonies. Wythe guided Jefferson through an extraordinarily rigorous five-year course of study—more than double the typical duration. By the time Jefferson won admission to the Virginia bar in , he was already one of the most learned lawyers in America.

In , Jefferson began construction of what was perhaps his greatest labor of love: Monticello , his house atop a small rise outside of Charlottesville, Virginia. More than just a residence, Monticello was also a working plantation, where Jefferson kept roughly Black people in slavery.