Tag: Thomas Jefferson

Virginia Expels Lord Dunmore, the 250th of Gwynn’s Island

On By Rob OrrisonIn 1776, African-American, Battlefields & Historic Places, Battles, Loyalist, Memory, Militia (Loyalist) Leadership, Slavery, UncategorizedLeave a comment

July 9-10, 2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the actions at Gwynn’s Island, Virginia. Located in Mathews County, Gwynn’s Island became the last post that Lord Dunmore and his small force of Loyalists and British Regulars could hold in Virginia. The battle marked the end of Lord Dunmore’s military campaign in Virginia and helped secure Patriot control of the colony. Lord Dunmore’s force consisted of Loyalists, British soldiers, and former slaves who had accepted his promise of freedom in exchange for military service.

Thomas Jefferson drew this sketch of Gwynn’s Island in July 1776, Library of Congress

After several raids along Virginia’s coastline, Dunmore established a base on Gwynn’s Island in the Chesapeake Bay. Patriot leaders viewed the island as a threat because it allowed British forces to launch attacks on nearby communities. Brigadier General Andrew Lewis led approximately 1,200 Virginia militia to confront Dunmore’s forces. Lewis positioned artillery on the mainland opposite the island and began a bombardment on July 9, 1776. The Patriot cannon fire damaged British defenses, destroyed supplies, and caused significant casualties.

Disease also weakened Dunmore’s camp. Smallpox had spread among his soldiers and supporters, reducing their ability to defend the island effectively. Facing continuous artillery fire and the effects of illness, Dunmore decided to abandon Gwynn’s Island. During the night of July 9–10, British ships evacuated the remaining troops, leaving the Patriots in control. Dunmore’s force suffered minimal casualties during the battle (including Lord Dunmore suffering a minor injury when his ship was struck), but they were decimated by the diseases that plagued his force. About 400 to 500 former slaves people in the Ethiopian Regiment and roughly 150 white loyalists died of disease. Many dying were left behind when Dunmore left the island. The reported conditions on the island were horrible.

The victory at Gwynn’s Island effectively ended organized British and Loyalist efforts to regain control of Virginia during the early years of the Revolution. Although British naval raids continued along the coast, Dunmore never returned to lead another campaign in the colony. The battle strengthened Patriot confidence, protected Virginia from an immediate British threat, and allowed the colony to focus on supporting the broader struggle for American independence. Today, the island is still a rural recreational retreat for many, recently interpretation about the battle and its history have been installed to tell the important story of what took place there in July 1776.

To learn more about Gwynn’s Island, check out our Rev War Revelry with Patrick Hannum here: https://youtu.be/e4JJgir65h8?si=i4RRrBF3FT9z4UqQ

Adams and Jefferson and the 200th Anniversary of America’s 50th Birthday

On By Chris MackowskiIn UncategorizedLeave a comment

July 4, 2026 is not only the 250th anniversary of America’s birth, it’s also the 200th anniversary of the near-simultaneous deaths of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. It’s one of the greatest coincidences in American history: the two Founders most responsible for independence died on the 50th anniversary of Independence Day.

John Adams, 1816

Jefferson was 83; Adams 90. 

Nearly toothless, nearly blind, Adams could hardly get around. He lacked the vigor that had once let him walk miles a day for exercise. Jefferson had been slowly wearing down from an aggravated prostate problem and, by 1826, was taking large daily doses of laudanum as treatment.

Both knew they were well into their twilights. When asked to appear at commemoration ceremonies for the 50th anniversary of the Declaration, both declined. Aware their respective conditions prohibited robust orations, let alone travel to get anywhere. Adams cited his “feeble state” while Jefferson his “ill health.”

Jefferson did muster a beautiful message to be read aloud in his absence. He knew it was likely his last public message and so summoned all his powers of eloquent penmanship. 

“[T]he mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favor, few booted and spurred, ready to ride the legitimately, by the grace of God.”
Adams, true to form, kept things blunt in his written message: “Independence forever. Not one word more.”

On July 4, 1826, Jefferson went first. He had been in declining health for days and by July 3, had been fading in and out of consciousness, barely hanging on. Late in the day, he woke to ask his granddaughter, “Is it the fourth yet?” Jefferson understood the symbolic power his death would have if it came on such an auspicious occasion. He had no way of knowing that his revolutionary partner/rival/friend in Quincy, Massachusetts was also on death’s door. Adams had collapsed quite suddenly on the morning of the fourth—apparently a heart attack—deteriorating throughout the day.

Thomas Jefferson, 1821

Jefferson lingered into July 4 and died at 12:50 p.m.—a bust of Adams watching over him from across his study. Adams died at 6:00 that evening, unaware that his old friend had preceded him by just a few hours. He was pleased to think that Jefferson, his junior, would outlast him. “Thomas Jefferson survives,” he said.

The statement had a powerful, dramatic flare, that makes such a perfect, tidy ending to the story. Although not literally accurate, Adams knew, even then, that Jefferson’s optimistic, aspirational vision of American history had triumphed over his own more realistic take on events. Adams hated the romanticized version of the American founding that had sprung up. How ironic that his death and Jefferson’s and the Declaration 50th anniversary all coincided—as romantic a flourish as possible for the end of the Revolutionary Era.

Chris Mackowski is the author of Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution, part of the Emerging Revolutionary War Series from Savas Beatie.

Thomas Jefferson on July 4, 1776

On By Rob OrrisonIn Revolutionary War, Battlefields & Historic Places, Continental Leadership, Continental Congress, 1776, America 250Leave a comment
The rebuilt Jacob Graff House

July 4, 1776 was not an unusual day when it began for Thomas Jefferson. It started off as any normal Thursday. Jefferson documented that he woke up around at dawn on the second floor of the Jacob Graff House at the corner of Market and 7th Streets. He spent the morning shopping in nearby Philadelphia stores. He documented the temperature that day at an ironic high of 76 degrees (much cooler than the expected 100+ degree heat on July 4, 2026). As he perused the stores on Philadelphia that morning, he purchased seven thermometers as well as women’s gloves. Jefferson also noted donating one shilling six pence to charity.

Jefferson was on hand as the Second Continental Congress convened at 9:00am in the Assembly Room of the Pennsylvania State House. The day before, Jefferson sat through discussion on editing his draft of the Declaration of Independence. He would also spend this morning listening to others editing down his document by one-third. Jefferson took great offense to the edits and preserved his original draft for posterity.

Jefferson used this chair in the Graff House to write the declaration. Today the chair is on display at the American
Philosophical Society

After some time spent finishing the edits to Jefferson’s Declaration, the Congress approved the document later that morning. Congress then ordered local printer John Dunlap to print 200 copies of the Declaration now known as the “Dunlap Broadsides.” Dunlap worked quickly to set his printer’s type and began printing the copies the night of July 4th. For Jefferson and the other members of Congress, the rest of the day was spent on various items around defense, relations with native tribes and other committee work. No noted celebration of the occasion of passing the Declaration. Congress also directed John Adams, Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson to design a new “Great Seal” for the new nation. [2]

It was not until later in life did men such as Adams and Jefferson give the day its prominence in American ethos. Though Adams called on Americans to celebrate July 2, today we celebrate the day that the Declaration was adopted. Both days are surely worth their own celebrations.

[1] – Jefferson the Virginian by Dumas Malone, pg. 229.

[2] – Letters of Delegate of the First and Second Continental Congresses,1774-1789. edited by Edmund C. Burnett

The Anticipation of Late June 1776

On By Chris MackowskiIn 1776, Adams, John and Abigail, PoliticsLeave a comment

Do you remember those 1970s-era TV commercials for Heinz ketchup? A young boy, with his glass ketchup bottle turned upside down over a hamburger, waits for the ketchup to flow. In the background, Carly Simon sang, “Anticipation”: “It’s making me wait. It’s keeping me way-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yayting.”

Had Carly Simon been alive 250 years ago, I have no doubt her song would have been playing in the background for Thomas Jefferson on June 29, 1776. The day before, June 28, he and his four colleagues on the “Committee of Five” had formally submitted their draft of the Declaration of Independence. Congress accepted the draft, but delegates were not yet ready to take up the document as a piece of business. They would not do so until July 1.

What might those days of limbo have felt like?

Continue reading “The Anticipation of Late June 1776” →

250 Years Ago Today: Drafting the Declaration’s Drafting Committee

On By Chris MackowskiIn Uncategorized1 Comment

“You do it.”

“No, you do it.”

“No, you do it.”

“No. YOU do it. You’re a Virginian, and you write ten times better than me.”

“Okay.”

To read John Adams’s telling of the tale, that’s basically how he, as chair of the drafting committee, drafted Thomas Jefferson to draft the Declaration of Independence.[1] Jefferson’s version, of course, sounds a little different: “[T]hey unanimously pressed on myself alone to undertake the draught. I consented; I drew it. . . .”[2]

While we may never know the details of the discussion, we do know that the drafting committee first met 250 years ago today, on June 11, 1776. Along with Adams and Jefferson—representing Massachusetts and Virginia—the committee included Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania, Robert Livingston of New York, and Roger Sherman of Connecticut.

Livingston and Sherman tend to end up as footnotes to the story of the committee. Livingston, an ally of John Dickinson, was added to the committee as a concession to those cool, conservative men. Sherman, meanwhile, had a knack for footnote-ism. Aside from serving as an asterisk on the drafting committee, he’s also famous as a trivia answer for being the only person to sign all four Founding documents: the charter of the Continental Association, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution.

Franklin’s presence on the committee surprised no one. As the most famous man in America—and, by extension, in the Congress—his celebrity would provide a useful boost to the committee’s final work. It helped, too, that much of his fame came from his pen, which made him a natural fit for the committee.

Adams had the legal mind and the deepest knowledge of government and politics. He was not slouch as a writer, either. But Jefferson had earned his very place in Congress because of his felicity of expression with a pen. His Summary View of the Rights of British Americans (1774) earned him wide recognition in his native Virginia and appointment to the Second Continental Congress. The ideas he expressed also clearly marked him as a radical aligned with the independence movement. Adams admired Jefferson for being “prompt, frank, explicit and decisive” even if he was also notoriously silent for most of his time in Congress.

Jefferson didn’t want to be in Philadelphia to begin with, and in fact, he absented himself from August 1, 1775 until May 14, 1776, citing his wife’s ill health and obligations at home. When he returned to Congress, he did so only from a begrudging sense of obligation. “I am here in the same uneasy, anxious state in which I was in the fall without Mrs. Jefferson, who could not come with me,” he wrote.[3]

Yet Jefferson and his “masterly Pen,” as Adams called it, returned to Philadelphia just in time to put that pen to use. On the drafting committee. Jefferson really wanted to be putting that pen to use writing the constitution for the state of Virginia. He would even go so far as to draft a Constitution of his own and send it to Williamsburg since he couldn’t be there himself, but the document never received consideration. George Mason would end up leading that effort.

By all accounts, the members of the drafting committee saw the task as a throwaway assignment. When Congress eventually voted in favor of independence on July 2, John Adams thought that would be the day the nation would forever commemorate; no one thought of the first public reading of the Declaration on July 4 as being much more than a formality.

Only later, once the document assumed a position in American myth, did the members begin to attach significance to their participation in the drafting process—ergo the dueling versions Adams and Jefferson recalled in their (much) later years. Adams laid out his version in 1822; Jefferson in 1823.

Jefferson took about two weeks to write the first draft, then showed it to Franklin and Adams, “requesting their corrections; because they were the two members of whose judgments and amendments I wished most to have the benefit before presenting it to the Committee. . . .”[4] (Apparently, this established the practice of treating Livingston and Sherman as footnotes.) Adams and Franklin suggested a few important refinements. For instance, Franklin deftly turned “We hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable” into the subtler but more powerful “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Adams’s handwriting on the original document shows him adding a reference to “their Creator” in an astute instance of knowing his audience. Overall, though, Adams “was delighted with its high tone, and the flights of Oratory with which it abounded,” he later wrote.[5] (Walter Isaacson’s recent The Greatest Sentence Ever Written offers a wonderful exploration of the writing and editing process.)

On June 28, Jefferson would submit his final draft, which Congress would take up for discussion and approval on July 3 (after a painful editing-by-committee process that made Jefferson nearly despondent).

Like all great myths, the details of the committee’s work—from its origins to its final revisions—are brilliantly gauzy enough that we can see what we want to if we squint just right. The real story never quite comes into focus. That’s the frustrating reality for historians but the bewitching charm for everyone else.

And it’s a perfect metaphor for the entire Founding, isn’t it: Adams and Jefferson, both there at the beginning, both explaining a different interpretation of events. Their visions continue to duel today—and if we’re wise, we’ll listen to what both of them have to say.

Chris Mackowski is the author of Atlas of Independence: John Adams and the American Revolution, part of the Emerging Revolutionary War Series from Savas Beatie.

[1] Adams’s full account can be found here: “From John Adams to Timothy Pickering, 6 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

[2] Jefferson’s account can be found here: “From Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 30 August 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/98-01-02-3728. 

[3] “From Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Nelson, 16 May 1776,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-01-02-0153. [Original source: The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, vol. 1, 1760–1776, ed. Julian P. Boyd. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1950, pp. 292–293.]

[4] “Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 30 August 1823,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Madison/04-03-02-0113. [Original source: The Papers of James Madison, Retirement Series, vol. 3, 1 March 1823 – 24 February 1826, ed. David B. Mattern, J. C. A. Stagg, Mary Parke Johnson, and Katherine E. Harbury. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2016, pp. 114–116.]

[5] “From John Adams to Timothy Pickering, 6 August 1822,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Adams/99-02-02-7674.

“free and Independent States”: The 250th Anniversary of the Lee Resolution

On By Kevin PawlakIn 1776, America 250, Continental Congress, Personalities, PoliticsLeave a comment

Nothing marked Friday, June 7, 1776, as an unusual day in Philadelphia. Residents of the city would not have taken much notice of Richard Henry Lee walking the three blocks from his temporary quarters in the home of Dr. William Shippen to the Pennsylvania State House, as he had done for several weeks prior as a member of Virginia’s delegation in the Second Continental Congress.

There was little in Lee’s manners or features that stood out, save his tall and lanky frame and the vanishing hair of a 44-year-old man in 18th-century America. Passers by might have noted the black silk glove covering Lee’s mangled, one-finger left hand, the stark reminder of a hunting accident he suffered years ago.

Richard Henry Lee, 1794.

One document in a stack of papers Lee carried looked like any other about the mundane business of the Congress trying to come to grips with fielding an army against Great Britain while also remaining loosely tied to the mother country. It was a document to sever that tie and declare Britain’s American colonies “free and independent states.”

Continue reading ““free and Independent States”: The 250th Anniversary of the Lee Resolution” →

The Post Office Disses Sam Adams for America’s 250

On By Chris MackowskiIn America 250, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory1 Comment

“Without the character of Samuel Adams, the true history of the American Revolution can never be written,” John Adams once said of his cousin.

Well, someone better tell the United States Postal Service!

On April 10, the USPS issued a new set of stamps, “Figures of the American Revolution,” as part of its ongoing initiative to commemorate America’s 250th birthday. (See the USPS’s full press release below.) The set features 25 of the most important people related to the American Founding.

Sam Adams, apparently, isn’t one of them.

Never mind Sam’s instrumental role as an organizer in Boston’s Sons of Liberty or his role in managing public opinion. Never mind the Committees of Correspondence he helped organize throughout Massachusetts and across the colonies. Never mind his masterful use of propaganda to implant events like the Boston Massacre or the Boston Tea Party in American imagination—let alone the effective use of those events as tools of protest. Never mind the central leadership role he played at the First Continental Congress. Never mind Boston’s centrality in the start of open hostilities with Great Britain.  

And yet, somehow, Sam didn’t leave enough of a stamp on the American Revolution!

In fairness to the Postal Service, a collection like the Figures of the American Revolution is like a retrospective “greatest hits” collection from a band: decisions have to be made about what gets included and what gets left off.

So, if you were to add Sam Adams to the collection, who’s currently on the sheet that you would remove to make room for him?

The figures appear in alphabetical order. Here’s the full list:

  • Abigail Adams
  • John Adams
  • Agwalongdongwas
  • James Armistead
  • Cornplanter
  • John Dickinson
  • Benjamin Franklin
  • Elizabeth Freeman
  • Bernardo de Gálvez
  • Nathanael Greene
  • Alexander Hamilton
  • Lemuel Haynes
  • Patrick Henry
  • John Jay
  • Thomas Jefferson
  • Thaddeus Kosciuszko
  • Marquis de Lafayette
  • James Madison
  • Thomas Paine
  • Esther De Berdt Reed
  • Paul Revere
  • Deborah Sampson
  • Baron von Steuben
  • Mercy Otis Warren
  • George Washington

Here’s the USPS’s press release:

Continue reading “The Post Office Disses Sam Adams for America’s 250” →

Why 1776?

On By jmmcdonald28In 1775, America 250, Continental Congress, Continental Leadership, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Politics, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

The American Revolution lasted eight years, 1775-1783. Why then do we celebrate 1776 and not the end of the war? Continental Congress presented the Declaration of Independence to the world on July 4, 1776. That’s the big deal. 

There was something different about this revolution against British authority. The colonies were better organized. The people, policymakers, and military worked in harmony, though imperfect, toward freeing themselves from the bonds of the British Empire. Lexington and Concord had loudly proclaimed the shots heard round the world in April 1775.

By the second year, the colonial armies already had two significant military achievements in the winter and early spring. The militia turned back the invading southern British army at the battle of Moore’s Creek Bridge, North Carolina, in February. This victory contained the Redcoats in the southern theater to South Carolina. Up north, the British army withdrew from Boston in March, giving the colonists a physical and moral achievement. The leaders of the Glorious Cause, however, knew violence and blood wouldn’t be enough to win the war as failed Scottish and Irish uprisings had demonstrated all too well.

It was now up to the Continental Congress to fire a political shot. Congress tasked a committee of five to draft a declaration in June 1776. The members included Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Sherman, and Robert R. Livingston. Jefferson was the principal author. By July 1776, a final version was signed and submitted. It was only two paragraphs, but its words were, and still are, heard round the world.

The Declaration of Independence succinctly describes two of the five “Ws” of the war. Why we were fighting, or the main political goal, was first to be put forth. The colonists demanded a political divorce from British rule. As the committee wrote, at times “…it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another …” Instead, the colonies wanted to form their own government based on a constitutional republic. It would be equal in standing to all other sovereign nations. That was the Why.  

Then our founding fathers pulled the trigger and laid out the What, the reasons or “unalienable rights” we were fighting for against the crown. “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The King and Parliament hadn’t given these rights to any of their colonies or even their own citizens.

In fact, quite the reverse, British rule had subjugated the American colonies in “a long train of abuses and usurpations.” Redcoats threw colonists in jail without due process. Colonists were hung without a trial or after an unfair trial. Parliament levied taxes on colonial goods at a whim. We were subjects. We were here to serve the crown. Facing such despotism, the colonies had every right to abolish political ties with the British Empire and pursue life, liberty, and happiness.

It’s these three rights that we will soon be celebrating by commemorating the 250th Anniversary of the document that declared those rights, the Declaration of Independence.  

The Greatest Sentence Ever Written?

On By Chris MackowskiIn Book ReviewLeave a comment

Is the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence the greatest sentence ever written?

That’s the contention of historian Walter Isaacson in his slim new book, The Greatest Sentence Ever Written. As a refresher:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

“[E]ach of its words and concepts bears scrutiny and appreciation,” Isaacson says, and then goes about in short chapter-length essays to do just that.[1]

Or almost so. His execution doesn’t go off with quite that kind of exactness. For instance, “hold” doesn’t get any particular attention. The verbs is always the most important word in a sentence because it’s the engine that drives the action. One could spend a little time on “hold” and its specific meaning and the perils inherent in it (anything held can be dropped!). Isaacson may or may not have missed opportunities by skipping some of the words that he apparently deemed unimportant.

But where he does parse out parts of the sentence, he shines. He explores the common ground of “We,” what made “truths” “self-evident,” and the restrictiveness behind the seemingly inclusive “all men.” What is “equality” in the context of the rest of the sentence? What did the Founders mean by any of these things?

Continue reading “The Greatest Sentence Ever Written?” →

“The Jeffersons & Alexandria”

On By erwguestIn Battlefields & Historic Places, Civilian, Emerging Revolutionary War, Memory, Personalities, Revolutionary WarLeave a comment

On the anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, Emerging Revolutionary War welcomes back guest historian Madeline Feierstein.

Alexandria, Virginia, is famous for its presidential native son: George Washington. The Old Town has maintained its colonial charm, in spite of raging warfare and demolition waves since its founding in 1749. This port city, however, has hosted numerous other American presidents – especially Thomas Jefferson. Our third president visited and stayed in Alexandria on several occasions, and his connections to this Northern Virginia locale extended past his death in 1826.

While enroute to Philadelphia, Jefferson typically went north of Alexandria to cross the Potomac into Maryland. It was not until after the Revolution, and with his emergent friendship with George Washington, that his visits to Alexandria became regular and expected. But as an Alexandrian, I’ve heard more “town lore” about Washington’s longstanding affiliation with the city than any other president. The following accounts are not exhaustive, but they aim to spotlight the reasons for Jefferson’s presence and his impact on the city itself.

1790 was a critical year for the region. The National Capital Act was hotly debated. Where would America’s main city be located? Mayor William Hunter extended an invitation to Jefferson in March 1790 for dinner in his honor at the Fountain Tavern, which no longer stands, and where he had previously stayed.[1] At this time, his passage through Alexandria coincided with his trip to New York to assume the role of Secretary of State.

Jefferson understood Alexandria’s importance as a thriving commercial and political center, especially since the next nearest urban hubs were days away in Richmond and Baltimore. Mayor Hunter hoped that Alexandria would be in the running for capital selection, and that this dinner would confirm the statesman’s opinion: “You have returned to your native Country [from France]. Permit us the inhabitants of Alexandria to join with the rest of our fellow citizens in the warmest congratulations to you on that happy event. As a commercial town, we feel ourselves particularly indebted to you for the indulgencies which your enlightened representations to the Court of France have secured to our trade. You have freed commerce from its shackles…”[2]

In September of that year, Jefferson met with George Washington back in Alexandria to continue the discussion of where to assign the new capital. He and James Madison, along with notable figures in the Georgetown and Great Falls neighborhoods, negotiated the boundaries of the new federal city. Jefferson and Madison stayed overnight in Alexandria on September 14 before turning homeward bound.[3]

Gadsby’s Tavern is one of the most famous spots in Old Town. Famous for being the site of Washington’s farewell (to the presidency in New York), and a general meeting spot for the city’s elites, it’s no wonder that Jefferson also frequented this establishment! In January 1801, he stayed at the Tavern before his first inauguration. Ten days later, the ceremony, a banquet was held for him at Gadsby’s – and it apparently had the honor of being the “largest event ever given in the city.”[4]

There is no evidence that Jefferson came back to Alexandria after this 1801 visit. Additionally, no business interests here are documented, which is odd considering Alexandria’s reputation for commerce and industry. He appeared to prefer to travel north of the city to and from Monticello at this point, once again taking the ferry across the Potomac from Georgetown and continuing through what is now Loudon County southward. But the Jefferson connection did not end with the President’s change of scenery.

Granddaughter Virginia Jefferson Randolph Trist (1801-1882) and her husband moved to Alexandria in 1874. Her own daughter, Martha Burke, Jefferson’s great-granddaughter, resided in the city with her family. After Virginia’s husband died, she moved in with Martha until her own death.[5] Another granddaughter, Virginia’s sister, Cornelia Jefferson Randolph (1799–1871) joined niece Martha’s home, where she also died.[6]

Extensive family members of Thomas Jefferson are buried in Alexandria’s Ivy Hill Cemetery. Martha Burke’s daughter, Ellen Coolidge Burke, was quite active in the city’s civic causes. A reference and catalogue librarian, she is notable for expanding library services and opening branches in the surrounding neighborhoods.[7] A few miles away from where her great-great-grandfather wined and dined, a library was named in her honor before she died in 1975.

[1] “Washington, D.C.,” Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, n.d., https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/washington-dc.

[2] “Address of Welcome from the Mayor of Alexandria, 11 March 1790,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-16-02-0129.

[3] “Memorandum from Thomas Jefferson, 14 September 1790,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Washington/05-06-02-0209.

 

[4] “George Taylor to Thomas Jefferson, 9 March 1801,” Founders Online, National Archives, https://founders.archives.gov/documents/Jefferson/01-33-02-0191.

 

[5] “Virginia Jefferson Randolph Trist,” Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, n.d., https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/virginia-jefferson-randolph-trist.

 

[6] “Cornelia Jefferson Randolph,” Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, n.d., https://www.monticello.org/encyclopedia/cornelia-jefferson-randolph.

 

[7] “Women’s History in Alexandria,” Office of Historic Alexandria, 19 November 2025, https://www.alexandriava.gov/historic-alexandria/womens-history-in-alexandria.

Bio:

Madeline Feierstein is an Alexandria, VA historian and founder of the educational and historical consulting company Rooted in Place, LLC. A native of Washington, D.C., her work has been showcased across the Capital Region. Madeline is a writer for Emerging Civil War and the National Museum of Civil War Medicine. She leads significant projects to document the sick, injured, and imprisoned soldiers that passed through Alexandria and Washington, D.C. Madeline holds a Bachelor of Science in Criminology from George Mason University and a Master’s in American History from Southern New Hampshire University. Explore her research at www.madelinefeierstein.com.