THOMAS JEFFERSON 1743-1826

Thomas Jefferson, third President of this United States and writer and a signer of the Declaration of Independence would seem to be enough to make him the subject of every school child, and we would hope that it would ever be so.
The teaching of our early history in today's schools may not be what our older generation would hope for however.
Many people may not know that when he was a young man he was in the Virginia State Legislature and tried, unsuccessfully, to pass legislation banning slavery in Virginia.
Jefferson was born into a rich and prominent family of Virginia and as the eldest child inherited the estate called Monticello when he was fourteen years old.  He studied Law and became prominent in the politics of the day.   He was elected to the Virginia Legislature after hearing Patrick Henry's speech against the Stamp Act and became a vigorous champion for freedom from the Crown.
Mr. Jefferson married in 1772 to Mrs. Martha Skelton, a wealthy widow 23 years of age.  Her father was a prominent lawyer and Jefferson learned much from his father in law.
During Jefferson's Presidency, from 1801-1809, he took the opportunity to put a stop to the practice of paying tribute to the Barbary Pirates to allow safe passage of our trading vessels.  He sent the fleet to the Barbary Coast, put the Marines ashore, and ended that practice while, at the same time, ending the slave trade from that area.
President Jefferson's purchase of Louisiana from France, more than a million square acres, may be his most meaningful act.  That single act opened up the United States all the way to the west coast.
Thomas Jefferson has been maligned time after time for owning slaves without any mention at all of his efforts to end it.  As president he took no salary and had to sell off  acres of his land to survive toward the end of his life.
Jefferson died on July 4, 1826 almost at exactly the same time as John Adams, two great men going home together.....Medicineman!