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Thomas Jefferson at Monticello
In the 1750s, Peter Jefferson established a tobacco farm on the slopes of a small mountain across the Rivanna River from Shadwell. Thomas Jefferson called this mountain Monticello and made it the center of his world. In 1770, after the mountain was leveled for construction of the main house, Thomas Jefferson moved into a two-room dwelling there. His bride, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, joined him two years later.
For the next 40 years, free and enslaved workers built and rebuilt his now-famous house. For more than 60 years, his enslaved laborers produced his cash crops of tobacco and wheat. |