A Day in the Life of Thomas Jefferson

A Day in the Life of Thomas Jefferson

“I Rise With the Sun"

A typical day for Jefferson started early, because, in his own words, "Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun." He told of a fifty-year period in which the sun had never caught him in bed; he rose as soon as he could read the hands of the clock kept directly opposite his bed.

Record-Keeping

After rising, Jefferson measured and recorded the temperature. Around four o'clock in the afternoon, Jefferson repeated the measurement, as he found "the hottest point of the 24 hours is about four o'clock . . . and the dawn of the day the coldest." He also recorded the direction and speed of the wind and the amount of precipitation. From indoors, Jefferson could see a weathervane (weathervane.qt, 840K) positioned over the Northeast Portico of the house; he could also read the wind direction off a compass rose (connected to the weathervane directly above it) on the Northeast Portico's ceiling. Jefferson made note of the weather and other indexes of climate, such as the migration of birds and the appearance of flowers, throughout his life, wherever he was, including France, Washington, and Philadelphia. He shared his records with others in the hope of creating a national database of meteorological information.

Morning Preparations

After his record-keeping, Jefferson started his own fire and soaked his feet in cold water. He maintained the foot bath for sixty years and attributed his good health in part to this habit.

Jefferson's clothes, according to his granddaughter, were "simple and adapted to his ideas of neatness and comfort . . . and sometimes blending the fashions of several periods." In his pockets, Jefferson carried such a variety of portable instruments for making observations and measurements that he's been dubbed a "traveling calculator." Among his collection of pocket-sized devices were scales, drawing instruments, a thermometer, a surveying compass, a level, and even a globe. To record all these measurements, Jefferson carried a small ivory notebook (pictured) on which he could write in pencil. Back in his Cabinet, or office, he later copied the information into any of seven books in which he kept records about his garden, farms, finances, and other concerns; he then erased the writing in the ivory notebook.

"Mechanical Inventions"

Jefferson kept clothes in a closet at the foot of his bed, on what his grandson-in-law called a "turning-machine" (shown in conjectural drawing). Another guest reported: "In a recess at the foot of the bed was a horse with forty-eight projecting hands on which hung his coats and waistcoats and which he could turn round with a long stick; a knick-knack that Jefferson was fond of showing with many other little mechanical inventions."

Monticello was filled with Jefferson's innovations, many of which he designed or adapted "with a greater eye to convenience." As in the rest of the house, the bedroom's furnishings illustrate many of Jefferson's ideas about the efficient use of time, space, and light, including prominently placed clocks, space-saving alcove beds, and light-maximizing mirrors.

"Drudging at the Writing Table"

After his morning routine, Thomas Jefferson settled into a lengthy period of letter-writing: "From sun-rise to one or two o'clock," he noted, "I am drudging at the writing table." Jefferson wrote almost 20,000 letters in his lifetime, among them, scholarly musings to colleagues, affectionate notes to his family, and civil responses to admirers. He wrote John Adams that he suffered "under the persecution of letters," calculating that he received 1,267 letters in the year 1820, "many of them requiring answers of elaborate research, and all to be answered with due attention and consideration."

A Modern Office

Jefferson researched and wrote these letters in what has been called the earliest modern office. Jefferson's Cabinet was, in contemporary language, "user-friendly," with a revolving bookstand, table, and chair. Here Jefferson used a copying machine to make duplicate sets of his letters, which he kept in filing presses, tying them into bundles organized alphabetically and chronologically. This arrangement allowed Jefferson to pinpoint the location of any given letter, and even send for a particular one when he was away from Monticello. A virtual reality panorama of the Cabinet is available in the "House" section.

A "Full and Genuine Journal"

In 1823 Jefferson wrote that "The letters of a person, especially one whose business has been chiefly transacted by letters, form the only full and genuine journal of his life." His surviving letters give insight into Jefferson's vast interests and reveal much about his personality.

Interested in every branch of applied science and math, Jefferson corresponded with scientists around the world. He also wrote to the leading horticulturists, exchanging information about various climates, and requesting new seeds and plantings for Monticello and other American gardens. He corresponded frequently with his friend and presidential successor, James Madison, advising him on such diverse topics as the War of 1812 and appropriate wines to be served at the President's House. Although his close relationship with second President John Adams suffered a rift, in their later years the two resumed a correspondence and rekindled their warm friendship. And while he was pleased to have left behind the "splendid misery" of the presidency, he continued to write Virginia's political leaders, working to establish public education, both on the primary and secondary levels, with the most notable result being the creation of the University of Virginia.

Stepping away from the Table

As he aged, Jefferson's wrist, which he broke while in France, troubled him significantly; he wrote John Adams that "crippled wrists and fingers make writing slow and laborious," even with the use of dumbbells and a wrist cushion, designed to support and strengthen his wrists.

The Greenhouse adjacent to Jefferson's Cabinet provided him with a welcome diversion from writing. There he kept plants such as oranges and Mimosa Farnesiana, and the Greenhouse may also have housed the pet mockingbirds that Jefferson brought home to Monticello from the President's House. The Greenhouse also held a set of tools and a workbench, on which, one visitor noted, "Mr. Jefferson was fond of exercising himself in mechanical employments. . . . [He found] an agreeable relaxation for his mind, to repair any of his various instruments in physical science, and to execute any little scheme of the moment in the way of furniture or experiment." Jefferson's slave Isaac recalled in his memoirs, "My master was neat a hand as ever you see to make keys and locks and small chains, iron and brass."

But letters were always waiting, and Jefferson returned to what he called "pen and ink work" more than he would have preferred.

"Our Breakfast Table"

Like many Americans in the early nineteenth century, Thomas Jefferson and his family ate only two meals a day at Monticello: breakfast, typically at eight, and dinner, in the late afternoon. Both meals were served in the Dining Room, and, if extra space were needed, in the adjoining Tea Room. Before every meal, two bells rang to alert family and guests, one to call them to the table, and one when the meal was served.

"Fresh from the Oven"

Several guests recorded accounts of breakfast at Monticello. One visitor in particular, Mrs. Margaret Bayard Smith, spent time with Jefferson both in Washington, D.C., during his presidency, and also in Charlottesville, in the summer of 1789. Her excellent accounts of these visits are included in the book, The First Forty Years of Washington Society, and reveal much about daily life at Monticello.

Mrs. Smith wrote: "Our breakfast table was as large as our dinner table; . . . we had tea, coffee, excellent muffins, hot wheat and corn bread, cold ham and butter." Fifteen years later, Daniel Webster enjoyed an almost identical breakfast at Monticello, partaking of "tea or coffee, bread always fresh from the oven . . ., with a slight accompaniment of cold meat."

Seated Around the Table

Even without guests, who were ever-present at Monticello, the Jefferson breakfast table served many. Although Jefferson's wife Martha Wayles Skelton died in 1782 after "ten years of unchequered happiness," he did not live alone. At different times his widowed sister Martha Jefferson Carr and her six children lived at Monticello; his sister Anna Jefferson Marks also frequented the mountaintop.

In addition, his daughters Martha Jefferson Randolph and Maria Jefferson Eppes, the only two of his six children who survived to adulthood, were frequently at Monticello. Mrs. Randolph served as her father's hostess both during his second term as president and afterwards in his retirement. Though Mr. and Mrs. Randolph owned a nearby farm, they and their children lived with Jefferson on the mountaintop throughout his retirement. Following the death of Jefferson's daughter Maria in 1804, his grandson Francis Wayles Eppes (pictured below) frequently joined the crowd. All this prompted Jefferson to write to John Adams, "I live in the midst of my grandchildren."

Jefferson the Grandfather

For Jefferson, living with his grandchildren was a pleasure. Mrs. Smith reported that "he seemed delighted in delighting them," and noted that "while I sat looking at him playing with these infants, one standing on the sopha with its arms round his neck, the other two youngest on his knees, playing with him, I could scarcely realize that he was one of the most celebrated men now living, both as a Politician and Philosopher." Jefferson was an involved grandfather, teaching Ellen how to play chess, buying Virginia a guitar, and sharing the delights of the flower garden with Anne. Granddaughter Ellen Wayles Randolph remembered: "He took pains to correct our errors and false ideas, checked the bold, encouraged the timid, and tried to teach us to reason soundly and feel rightly. . . . He was watchful over our manners, and called our attention to every violation of propriety. He did not interfere with our education . . . except by advising us what studies to pursue, what books to read, and by questioning us on the books which we did read."

Mrs. Smith concluded her account of the family's breakfast by noting that the children "eat at the family table, but are in such excellent order, that you would not know, if you did not see them, that a child was present. After breakfast . . . it was the habit of the family each separately to pursue their occupations . . . . Mrs. Randolph withdrew to her nursery and excepting the hours housekeeping requires she devotes the rest to her children, whom she instructs."

"To Labour for Another"

Thomas Jefferson made a habit of inspecting his plantation in the afternoon to monitor the work of the 150 slaves who worked at Monticello and his outlying farms. Always interested in measurements and record-keeping, Jefferson made extensive notations about his slaves and their duties in his Farm Book and Memorandum Books. For instance, he noted the rations his overseer distributed, the number of yards he purchased for clothing, the daily task required by particular slaves, and the cost of items purchased for use in the kitchen.

Mulberry Row

Some of Jefferson's slaves lived and worked along Mulberry Row, a 1,000-foot-long road located on the mountaintop, just south of the main house. Named for the mulberry trees planted along it (and replanted in 1995), the road was the center of plantation activity at Monticello from the 1770s until Jefferson's death in 1826. The known buildings located along the street were stone and log dwellings, storage buildings, a stable, a combination smokehouse and dairy, a blacksmith shop that for some years also housed a nailery, a joinery, a carpenter's shop, and a sawmill.

Humming with Activity

During Jefferson's time, Mulberry Row would have been humming with activity, with over thirty people at work in its shops and yards. While linens boiled in the wash house and milkpans clattered in the dairy, the hammers of fourteen nailmakers rang on anvils near the roaring forge of the blacksmith. Wood chips and shavings were scattered by the axes and planes of the carpenters and joiners, and two sawyers worked a pit saw slowly through a cherry log. Mule-drawn carts rattled up and down this plantation "street" bringing barrels of water, firewood for the kitchens, and charcoal for the forges. As daylight faded, the shops grew silent and the dwellings on Mulberry Row were animated by the return of Monticello's workers, both black and white.

Jefferson and Slavery

Jefferson's words and deeds are contradictory on the issue of slavery. Although he drafted the words "all men are created equal," and worked to limit the stranglehold of slavery on the new country, he personally found no political or economic remedies for the problem, and trusted that future generations would find a solution. "But as it is," Jefferson wrote, "we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him, nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.

“Attending to My Farm"

After inspecting the shops on Mulberry Row, Jefferson might have toured his gardens and farms.

The vegetable and fruit gardens lay just south of Mulberry Row and were surrounded by a ten-foot high wooden (or "paling") fence. Designed to keep deer and other foragers out, the boards were placed "so near as not to let even a young hare in." On at least one occasion, however, the fence failed -- rivals of Jefferson's grandson broke in and, in the words of the plantation overseer, "did a great deal of damage" while pelting each other with unripe apples and peaches. Today, a small segment of the fence has been recreated.