(2 of 3)
When he was 17, Jefferson entered college at William and Mary in Williamsburg, capital of the colony. his principal teacher, a Scot named William Small, imparted to the youth his own searching cast of mind as well as a thorough grounding in natural philosophy and mathematics. The invaluable Small also introduced his student to two other figures whose influence still marks him: Francis Fauquier, a humane, generous, formidably literate man who was then Virginia's acting Royal Governor, and George Wythe, a Williamsburg lawyer and an expert classicist. The four often dined together at the Governor's Palace and enjoyed the musicales there, Jefferson himself participating on the violin. The three older men, drawn by the grace and intellect of the country youth, helped polish his manners while they discussed the theories of Isaac Newton or John Locke.
After college, Jefferson began the study of law with Wythe, moving frequently, as he acquired his own practice, between Williamsburg and his family's estate at Shadwell, 90 miles to the northwest. At 21 he came into his inheritance, and in 1769 he began work on his own estate, four miles from Shadwell, which is still uncompleted and which he calls Monticello, the Italian for "little mountain." (Its elevation is only 500 feet, but it provides a view of 20 miles to the Blue Ridge Mountains.)
With a love of classical architecture inspired by his study of Italian Architect Andrea Palladio, Jefferson began designing the house himself, sketching perfectly symmetrical octagonal wings extending from a central section. It will make an admirable setting for one of the most notable private libraries in the Colonies (more than 1,200 volumes).
A methodical, almost obsessively orderly man, Jefferson has long kept a garden book in which he jots down when the flowers bloom at Monticello and when they die, as well as various account books in which even the smallest expenditure and receipt are entered. More recently, he has begun a farm book to record his plantings and crops, and in another ledger he has started recording each day's temperature. Last week, on the day his Declaration was accepted, he observed not only that the temperature was 68° at 6 o'clock in the morning but that it was 72¼° at 9, 76° at 1 in the afternoon and 73½° at 9 that night.
A tall man (6 feet 2 inches), but not particularly handsome, Jefferson married relatively late, at 28. his wife, lovely, musical Martha Wayles Skelton, was the widow of his college friend Bathurst Skelton. According to the family story —he himself is reticent about his private life—Jefferson apparently misjudged the traveling time and arrived with his new bride at Monticello in the snow late one night. Only a one-room building for his use was completed at the tune, and the servants had all gone to bed, leaving no fires burning. Despite that inauspicious beginning, the Jeffersons appear unusually contented. They have one daughter, Martha, 4 (a second daughter died this year at two), and Mrs. Jefferson is thought to be expecting another child early next year. Jefferson, who used to love to travel about with his black servant Jupiter at his side, now tries to avoid any duty that calls him away from Monticello for long.