by James Harvey

Created on: June 08, 2008   Last Updated: February 08, 2010

Thomas Jefferson was the third President of the United States, principal author of the Declaration of Independence and one of the most influential founding fathers as well as being among other things, a horticulturist, statesman, archaeologist, paleontologist, author, inventor and founder of the University of Virginia.

Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13,1743, in a family that was related to some of the most prominent individuals in Virginia. He was the third of eight children born to Peter Jefferson, a planter and surveyor and Jane Randolph Jefferson. In 1752, when Thomas was nine, he began to attend a school run by William Douglas, a Scottish minister. Young Thomas studied Latin, Greek and French. In 1757, when his father died, 14-year-old Thomas inherited his father's 5,000 acres of land and dozens of slaves. He built a home there, which would be known as the legendary Monticello. From 1758 to 1760, Thomas studied under the learned minister James Maury, where he excelled in history and science.

In 1760, he began to attend The College of William and Mary, where he graduated with highest honors two years later. He majored in mathematics, metaphysics, and philosophy. He later studied law and established a practice with close friend and mentor, George Wythe, and was admitted to the Virginia Bar in 1767.

In 1772 Jefferson married 23-year-old Martha Skelton. They would have six children. But the union lasted for ten years when Martha died in 1782. Jefferson never remarried.  In the last decade of the 20th Century, there has been some debate and controversy over allegations that Jefferson may have sired several other children with a young  female African American slave named Sally Hennings. The debate over whether this occured or not still continues.

Jefferson entered politics in 1774.  Already he was becoming a formidable political force when he published his  "A Summary Views of the Rights of  British America", which promoted the revolutionary view that the 13 Colonies had a right to govern themselves-much to the chagrin of the British. 

In 1775, Jefferson served as a delegate to the Second Continental Congress after the outbreak of the Revolutionary War.  A year later,  in June 1776, when Congress began to propose a resolution-or Declaration-of Independence, Jefferson was one of a five-man committee selected to draft it.  He was chosen to write the first draft, because of his reputation as a prolific writer. 

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