Financial Matters

Scope and Contents Jefferson sought to prevent expansion of European colonization in America, in addition to gathering scientific information (botany, zoology, geography and geology), by sending a government-sponsored exploratory party to the American West. He issued a confidential message to Congress in 1803, requesting funds for an expedition to send men to explore the territory that extended to the Pacific Ocean. His initial message to Congress did not emphasize the scientific nature of the expedition;...

Scope and Contents In 1795 Thomas Jefferson sold a number of law books, including Worral’s catalogue, Sir Edward Coke’s treatise on Littleton, and reports compiled by Raymond, Salkeld, and Peere Williams, to his friend Archibald Stuart, an uncharacteristic transaction for a man who devoted a great deal of time and money to his books and who also took many prospective law students under his tutelage. The mystery was solved when many of the books sold to Stuart were returned to Monticello in 1991-92 and it was...

Scope and Contents The larvae of the Hessian fly (Mayetolia destructor), which destroyed wheat crops, began spreading across America from the Northeast in the late 18th and early 19th centuries (it reached Monticello around 1811 and now resides wherever wheat is grown in the United States). Jefferson took an interest in studying and stopping or eliminating the pest but, overwhelmed by political duties (and Federalist stabs at his scientific pursuits of all kinds), left Thomas Mann Randolph and Samuel L. Mitchell...

Scope and Contents Jefferson’s expenditures and receipts for the year 1812-1813 serve as a model for his lifetime struggle to balance extravagant expenses of slaves and family, as well as guests to be wined and dined, with a fluctuating income as planter, politician, and retired gentleman.

Scope and Contents Ever in search of improvements and innovations in the agricultural life of his country, Jefferson took special interest in importing dry, mountain, or upland rice to replace the cultivation of the coastal rice in America (the swampy plantations were breeding grounds for malaria). He beseeched the Vietnamese Prince Nguyen Anh for the dry rice of Cochin China, with the aid of friend Benjamin Vaughan received from Sir Joseph Banks (influential in English plant exploration and in many ways similar...

Scope and Contents The identification of longitude was one of the serious endeavors of scientists both professional, such as Astronomer Royal Nevil Maskelyne of Greenwich, and amateur, including Thomas Jefferson. While Maskelyne collected calculations of astronomical phenomena and projected the moon’s position in Nautical Almanac and Astronomical Ephemeris (which, along with John Harrison’s 1773 "discovery of longitude" with a consistently accurate time-piece, proved invaluable to navigation), Jefferson toured...

Scope and Contents First essay: General Watson, senior military aide to Franklin Delano Roosevelt, built Kenwood in 1939 as a weekend retreat. FDR stayed at Kenwood at least four times between 1941-45, including the weekend before D-Day (June 6, 1944). Second essay: Jefferson sought to bring uniform standards to the currency of the new country. During his visits to Europe, he collected coins from various countries and investigated ways to create coinage. The lack of a uniform currency hampered the economy...

Scope and Contents Jefferson spent his early childhood at the Randolph estate of Tuckahoe, and the house’s evolving structure and usage played an important role in his architectural imagination. Thomas Mann Randolph expanded the house from his grandfather Thomas Randolph’s original two-story, four-room abode to a large H-shaped home with a spacious saloon joining the symmetrical wings. The interior finish of the hyphen and south wing was likely done by Richard Bayliss (who worked on Carter’s Grove and Wilton),...

Scope and Contents Jefferson had mixed feelings about dogs, as they were both dangerous -- as predators when not properly fed and as disease-carriers when rabid -- and useful farm animals. He obtained Bergère, an intelligent and industrious sheep dog from France, whom the slave Isaac recalls along with some of Jefferson’s other eccentrically named pets and animals. Though Jefferson sympathized with Judge Richard Peters (who in 1810 complained of the dangers of dogs to sheep) and Peter Minor of Albemarle (who...