His beloved and only wife,
Daughter of William and Elizabeth (Quincy) Smith.
In every relation of life a pattern
of filial, conjugal, maternal, and social virtue.
Born November ¹¹⁄₂₂ 1744,
Deceased 28 October, 1818,
Aged 74.
Married 25 October, 1764.
During an union of more than half a century
They survived, in harmony of sentiment, principle and affection,
The tempests of civil commotion.
Meeting undaunted and surmounting
The terrors and trials of that revolution,
Which secured the freedom of their country;
Improved the condition of their times;
And brightened the prospects of futurity
To the race of man upon earth.
Pilgrim!
From lives thus spent thy earthly duties learn:
From fancy’s dreams to active virtue turn:
Let freedom, friendship, faith, thy soul engage,
And serve, like them, thy country and thy age.
III.
MARTHA JEFFERSON.
Mrs. Jefferson had been dead nineteen years when, in 1801, President
Jefferson took possession of the White House, and there was, strictly
speaking, no lady of the mansion during his term. His daughters were
with him in Washington only twice during his eight years’ stay, and he
held no formal receptions as are customary now; and being of the French
school of democratic politics, professed a dislike of all ceremonious
visitors.
On the 1st day of January, 1772, Mr. Jefferson was married to Mrs.
Martha Skelton, widow of Bathurst Skelton, and daughter of John Wayles,
of “the Forest,” in Charles City County.
Mr. Lossing, in his very interesting book of the Revolution, gives a
fac-simile of Mr. Jefferson’s marriage license bond, drawn up in his own
handwriting, which the former found in a bundle of old papers in Charles
City Court House while searching for records of Revolution events. “Mrs.
Skelton was remarkable for her beauty, her accomplishments, and her
solid merit. In person she was a little above medium height, slightly
but exquisitely formed. Her complexion was brilliant—her large
expressive eyes of the richest tinge of auburn. She walked, rode, and
danced with admirable grace and spirits—sang and played the spinet and
harpsichord [the musical instruments of the Virginia ladies of that day]
with uncommon skill. The more solid parts of her education had not been
neglected.” She was also well read and intelligent, conversed agreeably,
possessed excellent sense and a lively play of fancy, and had a frank,
warm-hearted and somewhat impulsive disposition. She was twenty-three
years of age at the time of her second marriage, and had been a widow
four years. Her only child she lost in infancy.
[Illustration:
MARTHA JEFFERSON RANDOLPH.
]
Tradition, says Randall, has preserved one anecdote of the wooers who
sought her hand. It has two renderings, and the reader may choose
between them. The first is that two of Mr. Jefferson’s rivals happened
to meet on Mrs. Skelton’s door-stone. They were shown into a room from
which they heard her harpsichord and voice, accompanied by Mr.
Jefferson’s violin and voice, in the passages of a touching song. They
listened for a stanza or two. Whether something in the words, or in the
tones of the singers appeared suggestive to them, tradition does not
say, but it does aver that they took their hats and retired to return no
more on the same errand! The other, and, we think, less probable version
of the story is, that the three met on the door-stone, and agreed that
they would “take turns” and that the interviews should be made decisive;
and that by lot or otherwise Mr. Jefferson led off, and that then during
his trial they heard the music that they concluded settled the point.
After the bridal festivities at the Forest, Mr. and Mrs. Jefferson set
out for Monticello, and they were destined to meet some not exactly
amusing adventures by the way. A manuscript of their eldest daughter
(Mrs. Randolph) furnished Mr. Randall by one of her granddaughters and
published in his “Life of Jefferson”—says: “They left the Forest after a
fall of snow, light then, but increasing in depth as they advanced up
the country. They were finally obliged to quit the carriage and proceed
on horseback. Having stopped for a short time at Blenheim (the residence
of Colonel Carter) where an overseer only resided, they left it at
sunset to pursue their way through a mountain track rather than a road,
in which the snow lay from eighteen inches to two feet deep, having
eight miles to go before reaching Monticello.
“They arrived late at night, the fires all out and the servants retired
to their own houses for the night. The horrible dreariness of such a
house, at the end of such a journey, I have often heard them both
relate.” Part of a bottle of wine, found on a shelf behind some books,
had to serve the new-married couple both for fire and supper. Tempers
too sunny to be ruffled by many ten times as serious annoyances in after
life, now found but sources of diversion in these ludicrous
_contretemps_, and the horrible dreariness was lit up with songs, and
merriment and laughter.
Nine years afterward, Mrs. Jefferson, the mother of five children, was
slowly declining, and her husband, refusing a mission to Europe on that
account, determined to give up all other duties to soothe and sustain
her. She had borne her fifth child in November, and when it was two
months old, she had fled with it in her arms as Arnold approached
Richmond. “The British General Tarleton sent troops to capture Governor
Jefferson, who was occupied in securing his most important papers. While
thus engaged, his wife and children were taken in a carriage, under the
care of a young gentleman who was studying with him, to Colonel Coles,
fourteen miles distant. Monticello was captured (if a residence occupied
by unresisting servants may be said to be captured), and the house
searched, though not sacked by the enemy. Many of the negroes were
taken, and but five ever returned, while the greater part of those left
behind sank under the epidemics raging at the time. The house was robbed
of nothing save a few articles in the cellar, the farm was stripped of
valuable horses, and many thousand dollars’ worth of grain and tobacco.
An anecdote is told of two of Mr. Jefferson’s slaves—Martin and Cæsar,
who were left in charge of the house and were engaged in secreting plate
and other valuables under the floor of the front portico, when a party
of British soldiers arrived. The floor was then of planks. One of these
was raised, and Martin stood above handing down articles to Cæsar, in
the cellar improvised by the faithful slaves in the emergency. While he
was finishing his packing, Martin heard the tramp of horses’ feet, and
looking in the direction indicated saw the red coats coming. For Cæsar
to get out was to inform the British where the valuables they were
trying to save were secreted, and without a word of warning the plank
was put down. Cæsar understood the sudden action to mean danger, and
very soon he knew by the noise overhead that the enemy had come. For
eighteen hours he remained in the dark hole, and was not released until
Martin was sure of the departure of the last one of the raiders.”
In April, the loss of her infant, together with constant anxiety for the
safety of her husband, shattered the remaining strength of Mrs.
Jefferson. Toward the close of 1781, she rallied. Her last child was
born the 8th of May, 1782. Greater apprehensions than usual had preceded
the event and they were fatally verified. The delicate constitution was
irrevocably sapped. “A momentary hope for her might sometimes flutter in
the bosom of her lonely husband, but it was in reality a hope against
hope, and he knew it to be so. That association which had been the first
joy of his life, which blent itself with all his future visions of
happiness, which was to be the crowning glory of that delightful retreat
he was forming, and which was to shed mellow radiance over the
retirement to which he was fondly looking forward, was now to end; and
it was only a question of weeks, or, possibly, months, how soon it would
end. Mrs. Jefferson had returned her husband’s affection, with not only
the fervor of a woman whose dream of love and pride (for what woman is
not proud of the world’s estimation of her husband?) has been more than
gratified, but with the idolatrous gratitude of a wife who knew how
often that husband had cast away the most tempting honors without a
sigh, when her own feeble health had solicited his presence and
attentions. And now, as the dreadful hour of parting approached, her
affection became painfully, almost wildly absorbing. The faithful
daughter of the church had no dread of the hereafter, but she yearned to
remain with her husband with that yearning which seems to have power to
retard even the approaches of death. Her eyes ever rested on him, ever
followed him. When he spoke, no other sound could reach her ear or
attract her attention. When she waked from slumber, she looked
momentarily alarmed and distressed, and ever appeared to be frightened,
if the customary form was not bending over her, the customary look upon
her. For weeks Mr. Jefferson sat at that bedside, only catching brief
intervals of rest.”
She died on the 6th of September. Her eldest daughter, Mrs. Randolph,
many years afterward, said of the sad scene: “He nursed my poor mother
in turn with Aunt Carr and her own sister, sitting up with her and
administering her medicines and drink to the last. For four months that
she lingered, he was never out of calling; when not at her bedside he
was writing in a small room which opened immediately into hers.”
To her were denied the honors that later in life crowned the brow of her
gifted husband. Had she survived, no more pleasant life could have been
traced than this gentle, cultivated woman’s. Hers was no passive nature,
swayed by every passing breeze, but a loving, strong heart, a rare and
gifted intellect, cultivated by solid educational advantages,
experience, and the society of the greatest statesman and scholar of his
day. In the midst of all happiness, vouchsafed to humanity, she died;
and her husband, faithful to her memory, devoted himself to their
children, and lived and died her lonely-hearted mourner.
Martha Jefferson, after the death of her mother, was placed at school in
Philadelphia, at the age of eleven years, where she remained until her
father took her, in 1784, to Europe. His other two daughters, being too
young for such a journey, were left with their maternal aunt, Mrs.
Eppes, wife of Francis Eppes, Esquire, of Eppington, Chesterfield
County, Virginia. Mary, the second of his surviving children, was six
years old, and Lucy Elizabeth, the third, was two years old. The latter
died before the close of 1784. The child of sorrow and misfortune, her
organization was too frail and too intensely susceptible to last long.
Her sensibilities were so precociously acute, that she listened with
exquisite pleasure to music, and wept on hearing a false note.
After a short period of sight-seeing, Martha Jefferson was placed at a
convent, and continued to reside there during her father’s stay in
Europe. In July, 1787, “the long-expected Mary (called Marie in France,
and thenceforth through life, Marie) reached London.” She had crossed
the Atlantic with simply a servant girl, though doubtless they were both
intrusted to the charge of some passenger friend, or some known and
trusted ship commander, whom we do not find named. They were received by
Mrs. Adams, and awaited an expected opportunity of crossing the Channel
with a party of French friends of Mr. Jefferson. These continued to
defer their return, and Mr. Jefferson became too impatient to await
their movements. Accordingly, his steward, the favorite and trusty
Petit, was sent to London after Marie, and she reached her father’s
hotel in Paris, on the 29th of July, just three days before her ninth
birthday.
Mrs. Adams thus describes her little guest, immediately after her
departure, in a letter to her sister, Mrs. Cranch, of Massachusetts:
“I have had with me for a fortnight a little daughter of Mr.
Jefferson’s, who arrived here with a young negro girl, her servant, from
Virginia. Mr. Jefferson wrote me some months ago that he expected them,
and desired me to receive them. I did so, and was amply rewarded for my
trouble. A finer child of her age I never saw. So mature an
understanding, so womanly a behavior, and so much sensibility, united,
are rarely to be met with. I grew so fond of her, and she was so
attached to me, that when Mr. Jefferson sent for her, they were obliged
to force the little creature away. She is but eight years old. She would
sit, sometimes, and describe to me the parting with her aunt, who
brought her up,[6] the obligations she was under to her, and the love
she had for her little cousins, till the tears would stream down her
cheeks; and how I had been her friend, and she loved me. Her papa would
break her heart by making her go again. She clung round me so that I
could not help shedding a tear at parting with her. She was the favorite
of every one in the house. I regret that such fine spirits must be spent
in the walls of a convent. She is a beautiful girl, too.”
Footnote 6:
Mrs. Francis Eppes, of Eppington, Va.
Marie (for so we shall henceforth call her, unless when adopting her
father’s sobriquet of Polly) was soon placed with Martha in the school
of the Abbaye de Panthemont. Martha had now grown into a tall, graceful
girl, with that calm, sweet face, stamped with thought and earnestness,
which, with the traces of many more years on it, and the noble dignity
of the matron superadded, beams down from the speaking canvas of Sully.
The most dutiful of daughters, the most attentive of learners,
possessing a solid understanding, a judgment ripe beyond her years, a
most gentle and genial temper, and an unassuming modesty of demeanor,
which neither the distinction of her position, nor the flatteries that
afterward surrounded her, ever wore off in the least degree, she was the
idol of her father and family, and the delight of all who knew her.
The little Marie has been sufficiently described by Mrs. Adams.
“Slighter in person than her sister, she already gave indications of a
superior beauty. It was that exquisite beauty possessed by her
mother—that beauty which the experienced learn to look upon with dread,
because it betrays a physical organization too delicately fine to
withstand the rough shocks of the world.”
In April, an incident of an interesting character occurred in Mr.
Jefferson’s family. His oldest daughter, as has been seen, had been
educated in the views and feelings of the Church of England. Her mother
had zealously moulded her young mind in that direction. Her father had
done nothing certainly, by word or act, to divert it from that channel;
and it had flowed on, for aught Martha knew or suspected to the
contrary, with his full approbation. If she had then been called upon to
state what were her father’s religious beliefs, she would have declared
that her impressions were that he leaned to the tenets of the church to
which his family belonged. The daring and flippant infidelity now rife
in French society, disgusted the earnest, serious, naturally reverential
girl. The calm seclusion of Panthemont, its examples of serene and holy
life, its intellectual associations, wooed her away from the turmoil and
glare and wickedness and eruptions without. After meditating on the
subject for a time, she wrote to her father for his permission to remain
in a convent, and to dedicate herself to the duties of a religious life.
For a day or two she received no answer. Then his carriage rolled up to
the door of the Abbaye, and poor Martha met her father in a fever of
doubts and fears. Never was his smile more benignant and gentle. He had
a private interview with the Abbess. He then told his daughters he had
come for them. They stepped into his carriage, it rolled away, and
Martha’s school life was ended. Henceforth she was introduced into
society, and presided, so far as was appropriate to her age, as the
mistress of her father’s household. Neither he nor Martha ever, after
her first letter on the subject, made the remotest allusion to each
other to her request to enter a convent. She spoke of it freely in after
years, to her children, and always expressed her full approbation of her
father’s course on the occasion. She always spoke of her early wish as
rather the dictate of a transient sentiment than a fixed conviction of
religious duty; and she warmly applauded the quick and gentle way which
her father took to lead her back to her family, her friends, and her
country. Mr. Jefferson left the shores of Europe with his two daughters
the 28th of October, 1789, and the following February Martha was married
to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., who had been a ward of her father’s. “The
young people were cousins, and had been attached to each other from
childhood. He was tall, lean, with dark, expressive features and a
flashing eye, commanding in carriage, elastic as steel, and had that
sudden sinewy strength which it would not be difficult to fancy he
inherited from the forest monarchs of Virginia.”
On his return home, Mr. Jefferson was immediately tendered, and accepted
a position in President Washington’s cabinet, and made his home in New
York and afterward in Philadelphia until his withdrawal from public
life.
Mr. Jefferson was elected Vice-President on the ticket with President
John Adams, and at the end of this administration he was elected to fill
the first position in the gift of the nation. On the fourth of March,
1801, he was inaugurated President of the United States. His daughter
Martha was living at her husband’s country home near Monticello, the
mother of several children, and Marie, who had previously married Mr.
Eppes, of Eppington, was happily situated at Monticello, awaiting her
father’s promised visit in early summer.
Sir Augustus Foster, who was Secretary of Legation at Washington to the
British Minister, Mr. Merry, has given some rather entertaining accounts
of the state of society there in the time of Jefferson. “In going to
assemblies, one had to drive three or four miles within the city bounds,
and very often at the risk of an overturn, or of being what is termed
stalled, or stuck in the mud, when one can neither go backward nor
forward, and either loses one’s shoes or one’s patience. Cards were a
great resource of an evening, and gaming was all the fashion, for the
men who frequented society were chiefly from Virginia or the Western
States, and were very fond of brag, the most gambling of all games. Loo
was the innocent diversion of the ladies, who when they were looed,
pronounced the word in a very mincing manner.
“The New Englanders, generally speaking, were very religious, but though
there were many exceptions, I cannot say so much for the Marylanders,
and still less for the Virginians. But in spite of its inconveniences
and desolate aspect, it was, I think, the most agreeable town to reside
in for any length of time. The opportunity of collecting information
from Senators and Representatives from all parts of the country—the
hospitality of the heads of the Government and the Corps Diplomatique—of
itself supplied resources such as could nowhere else be looked for.”
In Mr. Jefferson’s time, the population numbered about five thousand
persons, and their residences were scattered over an immense space.
Society presented a novel aspect; unconnected by similarity of habits,
by established fashions, by the ties of acquaintance or consanguinity,
the motley throng became united into one close and intimate circle by a
feeling common to all; they were strangers in a strange land, and felt
the necessity of mutual aid and accommodation, and might be compared to
a beautiful piece of mosaic, in which an infinity of separate pieces of
diversified colors are blended into one harmonious whole. Mr. Jefferson,
many years after his retirement from public life, recurring to that
time, remarked to a friend that the peculiar felicity of his
administration was the unanimity that prevailed in his Cabinet; “we
were,” said he, “like one family.” The same spirit of union and kindness
pervaded the whole circle of society—a circle at that time very limited
in its extent and very simple in its habits. The most friendly and
social intercourse prevailed through all its parts, unshackled by that
etiquette and ceremony which have since been introduced, to the no small
detriment of social enjoyment. The President’s house was the seat of
hospitality, where Mrs. Madison always presided (in the absence of Mr.
Jefferson’s daughters) when there were female guests. Mrs. Madison and
her husband spent three weeks at the White House after their arrival in
the city, until they could make arrangements to obtain a suitable house.
President Jefferson abolished the custom of holding levees which Mrs.
Washington had introduced, and the fashionable people of the city did
not like the innovation. The ladies in particular were opposed to it,
and they made up their minds to muster in force at the Presidential
Mansion at the usual time. They accordingly did so, and the President
received them as they found him, hat in hand, spurs on his feet, and
clothing covered with dust just after a long ride on horseback. He
welcomed his guests heartily, did what he could to make their call
agreeable, but it was not repeated. His opposition to levees was said to
be due to the fact that he was democratic in his ideas and thought them
unsuited to American institutions. But the fact that there was no lady
to preside over them was doubtless one of his reasons.
In March, 1802, Mr. Jefferson wrote to his youngest daughter that he
would be at home between the 15th and 20th of April, and that he wished
her to be prepared to go back to Washington with him and her sister; but
Congress did not adjourn as he expected, and he did not get off until
the first of May. The measles broke out in the family of Mrs. Randolph,
and she did not go to Washington. The same cause prevented Mrs. Eppes
from seeing her father, but during the summer months he was at
Monticello as usual.
From the letters of Mr. Jefferson of November and December to his
youngest daughter, we find him advising her to have good spirits and
profit by her sister’s cheerfulness. “We are all well here,” he says,
“and hope the post of this evening will bring us information of the
health of all at Edgehill, and particularly that Martha and the new
bantling are both well; and that her example gives you good spirits.”
“Take care of yourself, my dearest Marie, and know that courage is as
essential to triumph in your case as in that of a soldier. * * * Not
knowing the time destined for your expected indisposition, I am anxious
on your account. You are prepared to meet it with courage, I hope.” And
again he writes:—
“WASHINGTON, _March 3, 1804_.
“The account of your illness, my dearest Marie, was known to me only
this morning. Nothing but the impossibility of Congress proceeding a
single step in my absence, presents an insuperable bar. Mr. Eppes goes
off, and, I hope, will find you in a convalescent state. Next to the
desire that it may be so, is that of being speedily informed and of
being relieved from the terrible anxiety in which I shall be till I hear
from you. God bless you, my ever dear daughter, and preserve you safe to
the blessing of us all.”
But she was not preserved: frail and sensitive, her nervous system gave
way, and she died on the 17th of April, little more than a month after
her father’s letter was written, leaving to her sister’s care her
children, the youngest of whom was a young infant. Her niece in writing
of her some years later said:—“She had been delicate and something of an
invalid, if I remember right, for some years. She was carried to
Monticello from her home in a litter borne by men. The distance was
perhaps four miles, and she bore the removal well. After this, however,
she continued as before steadily to decline. She was taken out when the
weather permitted, and carried around the lawn in a carriage, I think
drawn by men, and I remember following the carriage over the smooth
green turf. How long she lived I do not recollect, but it could have
been but a short time. One morning I heard that my aunt was dying; I
crept softly from my nursery to her chamber door, and being alarmed by
her short, hard breathing, ran away again. I have a distinct
recollection of confusion and dismay in the household. I did not see my
mother. By-and-by one of the female servants came running in where I was
with other persons, to say that Mrs. Eppes was dead. The day passed I do
not know how. Late in the afternoon I was taken to the death-chamber.
The body was covered with a white cloth, over which had been strewn a
profusion of flowers. A day or two after, I followed the coffin to the
burying-ground on the mountain side, and saw it consigned to the earth,
where it has lain undisturbed for more than fifty years.
“My mother has told me that on the day of her sister’s death, she left
her father alone for some hours. He then sent for her, and she found him
with the Bible in his hands. He who has been so often and so harshly
accused of unbelief, he, in his hour of intense affliction, sought and
found consolation in the sacred volume. The Comforter was there for his
true heart and devout spirit, even though his faith might not be what
the world called orthodox.
“There was something very touching in the sight of this once beautiful
and still lovely young woman, fading away just as the spring was coming
on with its buds and blossoms—nature reviving as she was sinking and
closing her eyes on all that she loved best in life. She perished not in
autumn with the flowers, but as they were opening to the sun and air in
all the freshness of spring. I think the weather was fine, for over my
own recollection of these times there is a soft, dreamy sort of haze,
such as wraps the earth in warm, dewy, spring-time.
“You know enough of my aunt’s early history to be aware that she did not
accompany her father, as my mother did, when he first went to France.
She joined him, I think, only about two years before his return, and was
placed in the same convent where my mother received her education. Here
she went by the name of Mademoiselle Polie. As a child she was called
Polly by her friends. It was on her way to Paris that she stayed a while
in London with Mrs. Adams, and there is a pleasing mention of her in
that lady’s published letters.
“I think the visit (not a very long one) made by my mother and aunt to
their father in Washington, must have been in the winter of 1802–3. My
aunt, I believe, was never there again; but after her death, about the
winter of 1805–6, my mother, with all her children, passed some time at
the President’s House. I remember that both my father and uncle Eppes
were then in Congress, but cannot say whether this was the case in
1802–3.”
Ever delighting in the society of his two children and deeply attached
to his home, Mr. Jefferson felt this blow with terrible anguish. Worthy
of so good a man’s affection, they were never so happy as in being with
their father, contributing to his comfort in numberless ways. They both
married cousins when quite young, but were never far from their
childhood’s home, and were always under his roof when he paid his
semi-annual visits there. Mrs. Randolph was a brilliant woman; and had
her tastes been less inclined to domestic life, she would have been a
renowned belle. Educated abroad and strengthened mentally by travel and
the society of the literary talent ever to be found about her father,
she became conversant with knowledge’s richest store, and surpassed most
of the women of her day in accomplishments. Though widely different in
other respects, there was much resemblance between the President and
Vice-President in the intensity of their love for their daughters.
Theodosia Burr and Martha Jefferson will be familiar names so long as
the history of this country, shall be among the things of earth. Both
intellectual companions of their only parents, both ardently attached to
fathers they deemed the wisest and greatest of earth—they have become
forever linked with the life and times of each, and covers for the one a
multitude of faults, and has made the other dear to his people. Both
were great men, adored by daughters gifted and good. Theodosia Burr has
thrown around her father’s name a romantic interest which veils many
infirmities, and adds lustre to the traits which in the eyes of the
world redeemed him.
Mrs. Adams, who had known Maria Jefferson and loved her when a child,
overcame the pride she had allowed to control her silent pen, and wrote
to Mr. Jefferson, awakening in his heart tender feelings of friendship
too long allowed to lie dormant. He replied that her former kindnesses
to his lost child made a deep impression on her mind, and that to the
last, on our meetings after long separations, “whether I had heard
lately of you,” and “how you did,” were among the earliest of her
inquiries. Mrs. Adams’ letter was as follows:
“QUINCY, _20th May, 1804_.
“Had you been no other than the private inhabitants of Monticello, I
should, ere this time, have addressed you with that sympathy which a
recent event has awakened in my bosom; but reasons of various kinds
withheld my pen, until the powerful feelings of my heart burst through
the restraint, and called upon me to shed the tear of sorrow over the
departed remains of your beloved and deserving daughter—an event which I
sincerely mourn.
“The attachment which I formed for her when you committed her to my
care, upon her arrival in a foreign land, under circumstances peculiarly
interesting, has remained with me to this hour: and the account of her
death, which I read in a late paper, recalled to my recollection the
tender scene of her separation from me, when, with the strongest
sensibility, she clung round my neck, and wet my bosom with her tears,
saying, ‘Oh! now I have learned to love you, why will they take me from
you?’
“It has been some time since I conceived that any event in this life
could call forth feelings of mutual sympathy. But I know how closely
entwined around a parent’s heart are those cords which bind the paternal
to the filial bosom; and, when snapped asunder, how agonizing the pangs.
I have tasted of the bitter cup, and bow with reverence and submission
before the great Dispenser of it, without whose permission and
overruling providence not a sparrow falls to the ground. That you may
derive comfort and consolation in this day of your sorrow and affliction
from that only source calculated to heal the wounded heart—a firm belief
in the being, perfection and attributes of God—is the sincere and ardent
wish of her who once took pleasure in subscribing herself your friend,
“ABIGAIL ADAMS.”
Mr. Jefferson was inaugurated President a second time on the 4th of
March, 1805, then in the sixty-second year of his age. The following
winter his only daughter, with all her children, passed most of the
season in Washington. She never made but two visits there; one with her
sister, the second year of his first term, and this last one in the
winter of 1805–6, after her sister’s death. Means of travel were not so
rapid or pleasant as now, and the laborious and extremely tedious
undertaking of travelling so far in a carriage was sufficient to dampen
the desire of living for a few alternate months with her father. The
unhealthy condition of Washington at that time, its low and marshy
condition, engendering disease, rendered it absolutely necessary for
those unacclimated to be out of its limits during the hot months of
summer. The increasing cares of children and the duties of Virginia
matrons also deterred Mrs. Randolph from becoming, as we must only
regret she did not, permanently located in the President’s House.
[Illustration:
MONTICELLO—THE HOME OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.
]
Her memory is so fragrant with the perfume of purity and saintly
sweetness, that it is a privilege to dwell and muse upon a theme so
elevating. The world has not yet developed a more harmonious, refined or
superior type of womanhood than the daughters of Virginia in the last
century. Reared in ease and plenty, taught the virtues that ennoble, and
valuing their good name no less than prizing their family lineage, they
were the most delightful specimens of womanhood ever extant. Most
particularly was Martha Jefferson of this class, whose image is fast
losing originality in the modern system of utilitarian education. Her
father’s and her husband’s great enemy, pronounced her “the sweetest
woman in Virginia;” and the assurance comes laden with the testimony of
many tongues, that her existence was one of genial sunshine and peace.
Are not such natures doubly blessed, first, in the happiness they secure
to themselves, and, secondly, in the blessing they are to those who walk
in the light of their example? With the retirement of Mr. Jefferson from
public life, came a new trouble in the shape of innumerable visitors,
and the seventeen years he lived at Monticello was one continued scene
of new faces and old friends. Even after the loss of property and
accumulated debts, he was compelled to entertain thoughtless crowds who
made pilgrimages to his shrine. Time and again he would go to an
adjoining estate to secure that rest and quiet so essential to his
health; but these visits were never of long duration, for he could not
consent to be separated from his daughter, even though accompanied by
his grandchildren. As the shadows began to darken round his earth-life,
and bankruptcy to hover over him, he turned with redoubled affection to
this idol, and she was strong and faithful to the last. Mother and
sister she had buried, and she was yet strong enough to see her husband
and father taken.
“There were few eminent men of our country who did not visit Mr.
Jefferson in his retirement, to say nothing of distinguished
foreigners.” But all visitors were not as agreeable as “eminent men.”
“There are a number of persons now living who have seen groups of utter
strangers, of both sexes, planted in the passage between his study and
dining-room, consulting their watches, and waiting for him to pass from
one to the other to his dinner, so that they could momentarily stare at
him. A female once punched through a window-pane of the house with her
parasol to get a better view of him. When sitting in the shade of his
porticoes to enjoy the coolness of the approaching evening, parties of
men and women would sometimes approach within a dozen yards, and gaze at
him point-blank until they had looked their fill, as they would have
gazed on a lion in a menagerie.”
Mrs. Randolph was “the apple of her father’s eye.” All his letters bear
witness to his affection, and all his life records this prominent
sentiment of his heart. A gentleman writing to him for his views on a
proper course of education for woman, he takes the opportunity of
complimenting her unconsciously. “A plan of female education,” he says,
“has never been a subject of systematic contemplation with me. It has
occupied my attention so far only as the education of my own daughters
occasionally required. Considering that they would be placed in a
country situation where little aid could be obtained from abroad, I
thought it essential to give them a solid education, which might enable
them—when become mothers—to educate their own daughters, and even to
direct the course for sons, should their fathers be lost, or incapable,
or inattentive.
“My surviving daughter accordingly, the mother of many daughters as well
as sons, has made their education the object of her life, and being a
better judge of the practical part than myself, it is with her aid and
that of one of her _élèves_, that I shall subjoin a catalogue of the
books for such a course of reading as we have practised.”
Again, in a letter to his grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, he says:
“You kindly encourage me to keep up my spirits; but oppressed with
disease, debility, age and embarrassed affairs, this is difficult. For
myself, I should not regard a prostration of fortune; but I am
overwhelmed at the prospect of the situation in which I may leave my
family. My dear and beloved daughter, the cherished companion of my
early life, and nurse of my age, and her children, rendered as dear to
me as if my own, from having lived with me from their cradle, left in a
comfortless situation, hold up to me nothing but future gloom; and I
should not care were life to end with the line I am writing, were it not
that in the unhappy state of mind which your father’s misfortunes have
brought upon him, I may yet be of some avail to the family.”
Ex-President Jefferson died the 4th of July, 1826, and at nearly the
same hour passed away the spirit of John Adams. He lingered a little
behind Jefferson, and his last words, uttered in the failing
articulation of the dying, were: “Jefferson still survives.” Mrs.
Randolph left no written account of the scene. On the 2d of July, Mr.
Jefferson handed her a little casket. On opening it, after his death,
she found a paper on which he had written the lines of Moore,
commencing—
“It is not the tear at this moment shed
When the cold turf has just been lain o’er him”—
There is also a touching tribute to his daughter, declaring that while
he “goes to his fathers,” “the last pang of life” is in parting from
her; that “two seraphs” “long shrouded in death” (meaning doubtless his
wife and younger daughter) “await him;” that he will “bear them her
love.”
After this all is sadness. To satisfy creditors, all the property was
sold, and the proceeds did not fully meet the debts.
“When it became known that Monticello had gone, or must go out of the
hands of Mr. Jefferson’s family, and that his only child was left
without an independent provision, another exhibition of public feeling
took place. The Legislatures of South Carolina and Louisiana promptly
voted her $10,000 each, and the stocks they created for the purpose sold
for $21,800. Other plans were started in other States, which, had they
been carried out, would have embraced a liberal provision for Mr.
Jefferson’s descendants. But, as is usual on such occasions, the people
in each locality obtained exaggerated impressions of what was doing in
others, and slackened their own exertions until the feeling that
prompted them died away.”
Two years passed, and Mrs. Randolph was called upon to see her husband
die, and she of all her name remained to link the memory of her
ancestors with those of her descendants.
To her daughter, Mrs. Virginia Jefferson Trist, I am indebted for this
narrative of the closing eight years of Mrs. Randolph’s life:
“MY DEAR MRS. HOLLOWAY:
“I wish it were in my power to answer your inquiries more satisfactorily
than I am able to do. My recollections of my mother, at so early a
period of my life as the one referred to, are altogether childish and
imperfect. It is true, my very earliest recollections are connected with
a winter passed in the White House during my grandfather’s Presidency,
but they are so few and so scanty and childish, as they rise before me
in the mists of long past years, that really nothing worth offering you
suggests itself to my mind.
“My mother was born in September, 1772, and had therefore entered her
29th year when her father was elected President. She was then the mother
of five children, having married at the early age of seventeen. Thus
surrounded by a family of young children, she could not pass much of her
time in Washington; she did, however, spend two winters there, the first
in 1802–3, the second in 1805–6. Her health was very bad on the first of
these two occasions of her visiting her father. Having an abscess on her
lungs, she was advised by her physician to go to pass the winter in
Bermuda, and for this purpose left her home in Albemarle, Virginia, to
go as far as Washington in her travelling carriage—the only mode at that
day of making the journey of four days’ duration. During this journey
the abscess broke, and she felt so much relieved that her going to
Bermuda was no longer considered necessary, and she passed that winter
with her father. I believe my father was in Congress at that time. My
mother’s only sister, Marie Jefferson, then Mrs. John W. Eppes, was also
a member of her father’s family that winter, her husband being in
Congress. There was a difference of six years in the ages of the
sisters; my mother, who was the oldest, had accompanied her father to
France, where she was educated under his eyes. My aunt had afterward
followed them to Paris under the wing of Mrs. John Adams, in whose
correspondence mention is made of her. The three became thus reunited
only two years before their return home, after which she (my aunt) was
placed at school in Philadelphia. She grew up possessed of rare beauty
and loveliness of person as well as disposition; but her health was
delicate, and her natural modesty and timidity was so great as to make
her averse to society. Undervaluing her own personal advantages, she
regarded with the warmest admiration, as well as sisterly affection, her
sister’s more positive character and brilliant intellectual endowments.
My mother was not a beauty; her features were less regular than her
sister’s, her face owing its charms more to its expressiveness, beaming
as it ever was with kindness, good humor, gayety and wit. She was tall
and very graceful, notwithstanding a certain degree of embonpoint. Her
complexion naturally fair, her hair of a dark chestnut color, very long
and very abundant. I have always heard that her manners were uncommonly
attractive from their vivacity, amiability, and high breeding, and her
conversation was charming. These two sisters were the ladies of the
White House in 1802–3. My mother was very sociable and enjoyed society.
I remember hearing her mention a circumstance which seemed to illustrate
the natural difference of their characters. She said one day,
laughingly, ‘Marie, if I had your beauty, I should not feel so
indifferent as you do about it.’ My aunt looked vexed and pained, and
observed, ‘Compliments to a pretty face were indications that no
intellectual attractions existed in its possessor.’
“From their contemporary, Mrs. Madison, I have heard, that that winter
when the sisters were going together into society, although on entering
a room all eyes were turned on the younger, who became a centre of
attraction, particularly to the gentlemen, that by degrees my mother’s
vivacity and the charms of her conversation and manners drew around her
a circle of admirers who delighted in listening to her even more than in
looking at her beautiful sister. These two sisters lived in perfect
harmony, linked together by the warmest mutual affection, as well as
their common devotion to their father, whom both idolized.
“My mother’s second visit to her father was in the winter of 1805–6. She
had then lost her sister. My aunt left two children, Francis and Maria
Jefferson; the little girl was only a few months old and did not long
survive her mother. Francis passed that winter under my mother’s care,
his father being still in Congress. One of my brothers was born that
same winter; the first birth which took place in the White House. He was
called James Madison. Mrs. Madison was an intimate and much valued
friend of my mother’s, and her amiable, playful manners with children
attracted my sisters and myself and made her a great favorite with us.
Among my childish recollections is her ‘running away with us,’ as she
playfully expressed it, when she took us away with her in her carriage,
to give us a drive and then take us home with her to play with two of
her nieces near our ages, and lunch on cranberry tarts. My oldest
sister, Anne, completed her fifteenth year that winter, and was not yet
going into society; but my mother permitted her to go to a ball under
the care of a lady friend, who requested that my sister might go to her
house to dress and accompany her own daughter near her age to the ball.
My sister excited great admiration on that occasion. She had a
‘remarkably classic head,’ as I remember hearing an Italian artist
remark at Monticello upon seeing her there after she was the mother of
several children. Her hair was a beautiful auburn, and her complexion
had a delicate bloom very becoming to her, and with the freshness of
fifteen I can readily imagine how strikingly handsome she was. My
mother, accompanied by Mrs. Cutts—the mother of Gen. Richard D.
Cutts—went to the ball at a later hour. She was very short-sighted, and
seeing my sister on entering the ball-room she asked Mrs. Cutts, ‘Who is
that beautiful girl?’ Mrs. Cutts, much amused, answered, ‘Why, woman,
are you so unnatural a mother as not to recognize your own daughter?’
“My sister died many years ago; if she were now living, she could no
doubt tell much of what happened that winter in the White House. She
formed some pleasant acquaintances in Washington, and made some friends
with whom she corresponded for years. I have some recollections of the
house as it was before being burned by the British, and as it was
rebuilt on the same plan, I have since recognized parts of it most
familiar to my eyes. A lasting impression was made upon my memory by the
reception in one of the drawing-rooms, of the Tunisian Ambassador and
suite; the brilliantly lighted room, the odd appearance to my puzzled
senses of the rich Turkish dresses, and my alarm at receiving a kiss
from the Secretary of the Ambassador, whilst one of my sisters, just two
years old, whose Saxon complexion and golden hair made her a beautiful
picture, was honored by a kiss from the Ambassador, of which she has no
recollection. I heard of the elegant presents brought by them for my
mother and aunt, and which were publicly exhibited and sold. My mother
wished to purchase one of the shawls intended for her, but when Mrs.
Madison went to make the purchase she found that she had been
anticipated by another person. The talk about these presents could not,
of course, fail to greatly excite my childish curiosity, but my desire
to see them was not gratified. My grandfather did not allow them to be
brought to the President’s House, as it was then called—a name which, it
seems, was too plain English to suit modern notions of dignified
refinement, for it has been superseded by the more stately appellation
of ‘Executive Mansion.’
“From its being the cause of my disappointment in seeing those beautiful
specimens of Oriental luxury and taste, my grandfather’s strictness on
that occasion served to impress upon my mind, earlier than it otherwise
would have been impressed, a trait of his character which afterward
became as familiar to me, and as natural a part of himself, as the sound
of his voice—I mean his scrupulousness in conforming to the laws in all
things, great or small.
“To return to my mother, it is to that period that belongs a remark
which long afterward I was told had been made of her by the Marquis de
Yrugo, the Spanish Ambassador, that she was fitted to grace any court in
Europe. I was then too young to know and appreciate her as I afterward
came to do. I have never known any one who accomplished as much as she
did, making use of all she had been taught, in an education which fitted
her for the performance of the various duties which fell to her lot.
After my grandfather retired from public life, she became the mistress
of his house. My father visited his farm in the neighborhood of
Monticello daily, and during the busy season of harvest my mother always
stayed with him while it lasted. My mother educated her six daughters
unassisted by any one. During the summer months, the crowds of visitors
to my grandfather who filled the house and engrossed much of her time,
interrupted our studies and made us lose much precious time; but she had
the art of awakening an interest in what she taught us, and exciting a
desire for improvement, which made us make the most of the quiet winter
months which she could devote to us. She was a good musician, and was
fond of gardening; she superintended personally all household matters,
and in the winter evenings when my grandfather was seated in his
arm-chair in the chimney corner, a small candle-stand was placed between
them, and they spent the evenings reading. She had all the tastes which
made country life agreeable, without losing her relish for the
attractions of town life. Such was my mother as I knew her, and I
remember her most perfectly. She was the mother of twelve children,
eleven of whom lived to grow up.
“My youngest sister’s name was Septimia. She was my mother’s seventh
daughter, and her name was the occasion of a poetic compliment to my
mother from an old Portuguese gentleman, the Abbé Correa de Serra, who
visited my grandfather every year during his long residence in
Philadelphia. He was for several years Portuguese Ambassador to the
United States. His learning, his interesting and instructive
conversation, the amiable, child-like simplicity of his character and
manners, made this old philosopher alike attractive to the older and
younger members of the family. His visits were enjoyed by us all, from
my grandfather and mother down to the youngest child of the house, only
two years old. In allusion to her name of Septimia, he said to my
mother, ‘Your daughters, Mrs. Randolph, are like the Pleiades; they are
called seven, but six only are seen.’ The second daughter died an
infant.
“My mother survived her father upward of ten years, and her husband
about eight years; during that period losing a grown son, James Madison
Randolph, born in the President’s House.
“In the autumn after my grandfather’s death, she went to Boston, and
passed the winter in the house of her son-in-law, Mr. Joseph Coolidge,
of that city, having with her the two youngest children, Septimia and
George Wythe, who went to day-schools during that winter. Septimia was
the only one of her daughters who ever went to school at all; my other
sisters and myself having our education conducted by our mother; she
being our only teacher, assisted somewhat by her father. The following
summer she accompanied my sister, Mrs. Coolidge, to Cambridge, where the
two children again attended day-schools. My eldest brother, Mr.
Jefferson Randolph, was his grandfather’s executor; he had been in all
business affairs the staff of his declining years, and afterward became
a father to his younger brothers. The sale of furniture, pictures, and
other movables at Monticello, took place the winter following my
grandfather’s death, after my mother’s departure for Boston. The rest of
the family passed that winter in my brother’s house, then the ensuing
summer at Monticello, a purchaser for which could not be found until two
years or more after. My mother remained in Cambridge the second winter,
as a boarder, with her two children, in the family of Mr. Stearns,
law-professor of Harvard College, to whose excellent family she became
much attached.
“My sister Cornelia went to join her in Cambridge, and the two were
alternately in Boston and Cambridge, the one with Mrs. Coolidge, and the
other with the children.
“In the spring of 1828, my mother returned to Monticello, accompanied by
Cornelia and Septimia, leaving my brother at a boarding-school in the
country near Cambridge. This being their first separation, it was felt
most acutely on both sides, for he, just ten years old, was an unusually
sensitive and warm-hearted boy, and as the ‘youngling of her flock,’ was
the darling of her heart. He was to remain behind among strangers,
whilst his mother, the object of his passionate fondness and devoted
attachment, was to return without him to that dear old home he so well
remembered and loved. My mother, on her return to Monticello after an
absence of eighteen months, found my father very ill. He had been a part
of the previous winter in Georgia, engaged as commissioner on the part
of the United States in establishing a boundary line between that State
and Florida. His letters spoke of his enjoying the climate, and he
enjoyed also the opportunities which he there found of gratifying his
fondness for botanical studies; but he returned home in very bad health,
and after a few months of severe suffering, died on the 20th of June,
1828, in his sixtieth year. Monticello was sold the following winter. My
mother took leave of her beloved home in December—that home which had
been the scene of her happiest years, where she had enjoyed her dear
father’s society, and been the solace of his age; where her children had
been, most of them, born and grown up around her, and where her own
happy childhood had been passed before the death of her mother.
“She removed with her family to the house of her son Jefferson. My
mother lived a year with my brother’s family, during which time she
formed a plan of keeping a school for young ladies, assisted by her
unmarried daughters, who were to be teachers under her superintendence.
This plan was, however, rendered unnecessary by the donations so
generously made her by the States of South Carolina and Louisiana, of
$10,000 each. About this time, also, Mr. Clay, then Secretary of State,
prompted by the wish to do something in aid of Mr. Jefferson’s daughter,
offered to my husband, who had just then commenced the practice of the
law, one of the higher clerkships in the State Department, with a salary
of $1,400. This offer was accepted by him, with the understanding that
my mother and sisters would go with us to live in Washington as one
family. In the autumn of 1829, we bade adieu to our native mountains,
and removed to Washington. We occupied a small house with a pretty
garden, pleasantly situated, where we lived together, forming one
family, consisting of seven grown persons and four children, the two
youngest being my own, and the other two orphans of my eldest sister,
who had been taken by their grandmother to her home at Monticello, while
her father was still living.
“Upon her arrival in Washington, my mother was visited by everybody, and
received the most marked attentions. The President and the Heads of
Departments called upon her; the lady of the White House of that day,
Mrs. Donelson, and the wives of the cabinet ministers, laid aside
etiquette, and paid her the respect of a first call.
“General Jackson, during the whole time of her residence in Washington,
never omitted making her a visit once a year, accompanied usually by the
Secretary of State. As a tribute to her father’s memory, these marks of
respect were peculiarly gratifying. Her disposition was naturally
cheerful and social, though she was not dependent on society for
happiness. Her habits of regular occupation, possessing as she did
various tastes, the cultivation of which afforded her variety, and
increased her interest in life; and surrounded as she was by a large,
cheerful family circle, she lived contentedly in the country, even
during the winters at Monticello, which were seldom enlivened by
visitors. That season was devoted principally to the education of her
children; the constant crowds of visitors during the rest of the year
leaving her very little time not engrossed by household cares, arising
from the duties of hospitality.
“During the years which she passed in Washington, she resumed many of
her old occupations; her taste for flowers revived, and good music
afforded her enjoyment, although she no longer played much herself after
my grandfather’s death. Her habits of reading she never lost, and she
always began the day with some chapter of the New Testament. She was an
early riser in summer and in winter. She liked an east window in her
bedroom, because it enabled her to read in bed before the household were
stirring. Every year she visited alternately my elder brother at his
residence near Monticello, in the southwest mountains of Virginia, or my
sister, Mrs. Joseph Coolidge, in Boston.
“In the spring of 1831 she was called on to make a painful sacrifice,
such as mothers only can appreciate—she gave her consent to George’s
entering the navy. After passing a winter with her in Washington, he had
entered a school near the University of Virginia, when a midshipman’s
warrant was procured for him. At his boarding-school in Massachusetts,
his conduct had gained for him the respect, confidence, and good-will of
all, teachers and associates; but he was yet a mere child, and his
mother’s heart sickened at the thought of his going forth alone to
encounter the naval perils, as well as brave the hardships of a
sea-faring life. She had, however, the fortitude to approve of what was
judged best for his future, and her sorrow was borne with the patient
and cheerful resignation which belonged to her character.
“The recollection of that parting as a trial for her stirs up, even at
this distance of time, the long dormant feelings which I thought my last
tear had been shed for. You, dear madam, will excuse this revival of
incidents not required for your sketch, and will use such things only as
may have an interest for the public. His first cruise lasted eighteen
months, in the U. S. ship John Adams, which went up the Mediterranean as
far as Constantinople; and one of its incidents was the breaking out of
the cholera on board. He got back to us safely, however, and my mother
was rewarded for her sufferings by the encomiums elicited by his conduct
and character from the officers under whom he had served, and their
predictions as to the useful and honorable career which lay before him.
She continued to hear him highly spoken of, and to learn that he was
respected by all who knew him, and that his leisure hours on board the
ship were devoted to reading and study. In the interval between his
cruises, he was to stay with her in Washington.
“In the second year of her residence there, she had the happiness of
having my brother Lewis, another of her younger children, added to her
family. He obtained a clerkship, which afforded him a post while he was
qualifying himself for the practice of the law, and he remained with us
until his marriage, which took place a few years later. He was highly
gifted, remarkably handsome, and shone in the social circle, but never
formed one of the idle throng always to be found in cities. Very
domestic in his tastes and habits, his leisure hours were divided
between his professional studies and associates belonging to the circle
in which his family moved. He married Miss Martin, a niece of Mrs.
Donelson, with whom he became acquainted at the ‘White House,’ where she
was staying. He then moved to the young State of Arkansas, where a
promising career at the bar was cut short by an early death from
congestive fever, less than a year after his mother’s death.
“In the summer of 1832, my mother parted with the orphan granddaughter,
Ellen Bankhead, whom she had adopted, and who, being then married to Mr.
John Carter, of Albemarle, returned to live on his estate in his native
mountains, and among the scenes of her childhood. Willie, her little
orphan brother, was about that time claimed by his paternal grandfather,
and placed at a day-school near him. In the following spring, Mr. Trist
purchased a house into which we all moved. I think my mother felt more
at home in this pleasant, new abode than she had ever done since leaving
Monticello. The house had been built by Mr. Richard Rush, our Minister
to England for many years, and when we first moved to Washington, was
occupied by this gentleman and his lovely wife and family. It was a
spacious dwelling, admirably planned and built, with a large garden and
out-buildings, the whole enclosed by a high brick wall. There the last
three years of my mother’s life were spent, although her death took
place suddenly at Edgehill, my brother’s residence in Virginia.
“The winter preceding had been marked by the death of my brother, James
Madison Randolph, who had just completed his 27th year. He was buried at
Monticello on a cold day in January. I remember the negroes assembled
there, and made a fire to keep them warm while they waited for the
procession which followed him to his early grave, who, they said, was
the ‘black man’s friend,’ and would have shared his last cent with one
of them. At the time of our removal to that pleasant new home, my
brother-in-law, Mr. Joseph Coolidge, of Boston, having gone to China,
was engaged in business in Canton; his family remaining in Boston. In
the summer of 1834, and during the absence of her husband, my sister
paid us a visit, passing the summer in Virginia at my brother’s, and the
following winter with us in Washington. On that occasion, my mother had
all her daughters with her for the last time; and Lewis, yet unmarried,
was still living with her. The season was remarkable for its severity,
the thermometer falling so low as 16° below zero, on a gallery with a
southern exposure of our house, and so late even as the 1st day of
March, stood at zero—the snow a foot deep in the garden. Soon after the
purchase of that house, Mr. Trist, whose health had been very delicate,
was appointed by General Jackson to be United States Consul at Havana,
which post had become vacant by the death of Mr. Shaler, long
distinguished as our Consul at Algiers. He proceeded there alone, and in
the summer returned to Washington. After remaining with us a few months,
he again went to Havana alone to pass one more winter there, and then
return to take charge of the office of First Comptroller of the
Treasury, which General Jackson had tendered to him. He was still in
Havana in the spring of 1835, when my brother Lewis left us to be
married in Tennessee, and Mr. Coolidge arrived from China and came
immediately to Washington, where his wife and family were still staying
with us. He found my mother slowly recovering from a very severe
illness, considered by our friend and physician, Dr. Hall, as a
‘breaking up of her constitution,’ and which was regarded by my
brothers, Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin (who repaired from their homes
in Virginia to their mother’s bedside), as seriously alarming. She,
however, recovered to a certain point, but never perfectly. Mr. Coolidge
and my sister with their children returned to Boston, whilst my mother
was to follow them as soon as she was able to travel. Accordingly, when
her strength became sufficiently restored, she made the journey, going
from Washington to Baltimore by steamer down the Potomac and up the
Chesapeake Bay, she not having strength for the stagecoach ride of forty
miles, then the only direct public conveyance between the two cities. My
sister Mary accompanied her, and she reached Boston safely. Mr. Trist
returned from Havana in August after my mother’s departure. He had then
decided, most reluctantly yielding to the advice of his physician, to
prolong his residence in Havana: his continuance in that climate for
several years being judged essential to his recovery from an affection
of the throat, of which there were at that period a number of fatal
cases. That winter, instead of accompanying my husband on his return to
Havana, as I should have wished, I had to take up my abode in
Philadelphia to be near our little mute son, Thomas Jefferson, whom I
entered—the youngest pupil there—as a boarder at the institution for
deaf-mutes. This last winter of her life my mother passed in Boston with
but two of her children near her: Mrs. Coolidge and Mary—the others
scattered far away from her, fortunately for their peace of mind
unconscious how soon the last parting was to come. My own departure for
Havana the following autumn was decided on, but dreaded by all—still
nearer was that other parting scene at which we were to meet no more on
earth.
“In the month of May, 1836, my mother left Boston for Virginia,
accompanied by my sister Mary. A final adieu it proved to her daughter,
Mrs. Coolidge—her favorite child, it was generally thought, but we never
felt jealous of her. Our family was, I think, a very united one. On her
journey south, she passed some weeks in Philadelphia on a visit to her
sister-in-law, Mrs. Hackley, the mother of Mrs. Cutts. I was still in
Philadelphia with my little deaf-mute boy, and it was on that occasion
that this precious portrait was secured by my prevailing on her to sit
to Mr. Sully, then considered the best female portrait painter in our
country. Twenty years previously, Mr. Sully had passed some time as a
guest at Monticello, having been employed to make a portrait of my
grandfather for the Military Academy at West Point. Since that time my
mother had changed very much. Mr. Sully had then found her living with
her dear father in that happy home, surrounded by a large, cheerful
family circle unbroken by death. But in the long interval, many of its
members had been taken away, and grief had left its traces not less
plainly stamped upon her face than age. She was thinner and more feeble
than I had ever seen her—it was just six months before her death. I
accompanied her to Mr. Sully’s studio for her first sitting, and as she
took her seat before him she said playfully: ‘Mr. Sully, I shall never
forgive you if you paint me with wrinkles.’ I quickly interposed,—‘Paint
her just as she is, if you please, Mr. Sully: the picture is for me.’ He
said, ‘I shall paint you, Mrs. Randolph, as I remember you twenty years
ago.’ He approved of her dress, particularly a large cape worn by old
ladies, and requested her not to make any change in it. The picture does
represent her twenty years younger than when she sat to him, but it
failed to restore the embonpoint, and especially the expression of
health, and cheerful, even joyous, vivacity, which her countenance then
habitually wore. While she was sitting for her portrait, her youngest
daughter, Septimia, arrived by sea from Pensacola, where she had been
taken by Mr. Trist to pass the winter with some friends, soon after
which my mother pursued her journey to Virginia, accompanied by Mary and
Septimia.
“Mr. Trist returned in August, and I set out with him in September for
Virginia to take leave of my friends. On our arrival at Washington,
finding General Jackson there alone in the White House—soon to set out
for Tennessee, where his family had preceded him—the General expressed a
wish for my husband’s company during the days he might still be detained
there. This being acceded to, I pursued my journey alone, little
dreaming that this detention of a few days was to deprive my husband of
ever again seeing my mother, between whom and himself the warmest
attachment existed. On reaching Edgehill, I found them all assembled
under my brother’s roof, soon to travel together northward again before
the separation so dreaded by us all. My mother and Mary were to pass the
winter with Mrs. Coolidge, in Boston, whilst Cornelia and Septimia were
to accompany me to Havana. I found my mother still looking very delicate
and troubled with sore throat, for which a gargle had been prescribed by
my brother, Dr. Benjamin F. Randolph. She complained of a vertigo when
she threw back her head in using it. The day appointed for our departure
being close at hand, she had exerted herself more than usual in packing
a trunk; the following day she had a sick-headache and kept her bed. She
had all her life been subject to these headaches, but within the last
few years had ceased to have them. One of my sisters expressed the hope
that their recurrence might be a favorable symptom, a proof of returning
vigor, as she had not had anything of the sort since her illness
eighteen months before in Washington. We watched by her bedside, though
feeling no alarm at an affection which we had always been accustomed to
see her suffer with for several days at a time. One of my sisters slept
in the room with her, and before parting with her for the night, I gave
my mother some arrow-root. Early next morning I was called and told she
was worse. I hurried to her bedside, but was too late to be recognized,
a blue shade passed over the beloved face; it was gone and she lay as in
sleep, but life had gone too. It was apoplexy. She died on the 10th of
October, 1836, having just completed her sixty-fourth year on the 27th
of September, ten years and three months after her father, and was laid
by his side in the graveyard at Monticello.”
[Illustration: Drawn by J. Herring after J. Wood. Engraved by J. F. E.
Prudhomme. D. P. Madison]
IV.
DOROTHY P. MADISON.
Washington Irving, in one of his letters, has given an amusing account
of his troubles in Washington, in preparing to attend a levee given by
President Madison. After a ludicrous description of his vexations, he
says, he finally emerged into the blazing splendor of Mrs. Madison’s
drawing-room. Here he was most graciously received, and found a crowded
collection of great and little men, of ugly and old women, and beautiful
young ones. Mrs. Madison, he adds, was a fine, pretty buxom dame, who
had a smile and a pleasant word for everybody. Her sisters, Mrs. Cutts
and Mrs. Washington, were also present on this occasion, and looked
“like the merry wives of Windsor.”
Dorothy Payne, the second child of John and Mary Coles Payne, was born
the 20th of May, 1772. Her mother was a daughter of William Coles, Esq.,
of Coles Hill; and was a lady of pleasing social manners. The family
were Virginians, and though Mrs. Madison was born in the State of North
Carolina, she ever prided herself on a title so dear to all its
possessors: that of being a daughter of the old commonwealth. Her
parents removed to Philadelphia when she was quite young, and joined the
Society of Friends at that place. Here their little daughter was reared
according to the strict system of the society, and by example and
precept taught to ignore all those graceful accomplishments deemed so
necessary in the formation of a woman’s education. Attired in the
close-fitting dress of her order, she would demurely attend to the
duties imposed upon her, and the wonderful undertone of sweetness in her
character kept the brow serene, and the heart ever bright and hopeful.
Hers was a sunny, elastic nature, even as a child; and if she was not
permitted to learn the worldly arts she desired, her disposition was not
soured by these restrictions, and the inner graces which afterward made
her famous, blossomed and bloomed in native harmony. Nothing could
conceal her beautiful character. Nor could the quaint bonnet of the
Friends hide her sparkling eyes and perfectly rounded features from the
admiring gaze of her young acquaintances. At the age of nineteen she was
married to John Todd, a rising young lawyer of Philadelphia and a member
of the Society of Friends. Her father had manumitted his slaves when he
moved to the city, and Miss Payne was accustomed to a life of simplicity
and plentifulness, but never to even comparative wealth. Nor was she
remarkable for her literary abilities or acquired attainments; but her
warm heart beamed goodness from her expressive lips and lent a
fascination to her frank, earnest face. After her union with Mr. Todd,
her time was spent in her modest home according to the secluded manner
of her sect, and during her short married life she pursued the even
tenor of her quiet way, unconscious of her rapidly unfolding beauty, or
of the admiration it was exciting. Soon she was left a widow with an
infant son, and made her home with her widowed mother.
The personal charms of the young widow, united as they were, with
manners cordial, frank and gay, excited the admiration and awakened the
kind feelings of all who came within their influence, and unaided by the
extrinsic and accidental advantages of fortune or fashion, she became a
general favorite, and the object not only of attention, but of serious
and devoted attachment.
In October, 1794, Mrs. Todd was married to Mr. Madison, then one of the
most talented members of Congress, a statesman of wealth and social
position, and withal a great and good man. She had been a widow less
than a year, and was at the time of her second marriage in the
twenty-third year of her age. The ceremony was performed at “Harewood,”
Jefferson county, Virginia, the residence of her younger sister, Lucy,
the wife of George Steptoe Washington. From this time forward she lived
at “Montpelier,” the rural home of Mr. Madison, until he was called
again to public life. It was at this time of her life that she developed
the loveliest traits of her noble character. Placed in a position where
she could command resources, the warmth and generosity of her nature was
displayed, not in lavish personal expenditures, but in dispensing the
bounties bestowed upon her to all who came as suppliants, and in giving
to her widowed mother and orphaned sisters a home. The blessings of her
kindred, and the fond love of her husband, gladdened these, the first
years of her married life, and her relatives and friends were made
partakers of her abundance, while the tender attentions of Mr. Madison
to her aged mother filled her heart to repletion. Had she not been
placed in a position harmonious to her nature, it is probable that her
days would have been spent in indifferent adherence to a dull routine,
and the rills of her heart which bubbled and sang so gleefully in the
summer of her content, never been discovered beneath the weight of
circumstances. Fortunately hers was a disposition to rightfully
appreciate the gifts of fortune and social consideration, and in
accepting her bright future prospects, she determined to nourish the
smothered generosity of her soul. Hitherto her lot had been
circumscribed and the charitable desires of her heart been restrained;
but when the power was given her to do good, she filled the measure of
her life with the benedictions of humanity, and reigned in the
affections of her friends without a rival.