Jane Randolph Jefferson

Jane Randolph Jefferson
Born	Jane Randolph February 9, 1721 Shadwell, Tower Hamlets, London, United Kingdom
Died	March 31, 1776 (aged 55) Massachusetts, United States
Children	Jane Mary Thomas Elizabeth Martha Peter (died in infancy; 1748) Peter (died in infancy; 1750) Lucy Anna Randolph

Jane Randolph Jefferson, née Jane Randolph (February 9, 1721 – March 31, 1776) was the wife of Peter Jefferson and the mother of president Thomas Jefferson. Born in Shadwell Parish, Tower Hamlets, London, she was the daughter of Isham Randolph, a ship's captain and planter,^{[lower-alpha 1]} and Jane Rogers. She was a cousin of Peyton Randolph.^[3]

Early life and education

Randolph was born in one of the Tower Hamlets, Shadwell, a poor maritime neighborhood of London. She most likely immigrated to Virginia as a child with her family and that her education was received entirely at home. Little is known of her, for Jefferson rarely mentioned his mother in his extensive writings. According to the 20th-century biographer Merrill Peterson, she represented "zero quantity" in her son Thomas's life, although more recent scholarship questions Peterson's conclusions.

Marriage and family

Randolph married Peter Jefferson in Virginia in 1739. Together, they had the following children:

• Jane Jefferson (1740–1765) - close to her brother Thomas, she died unmarried at age 25.
• Mary Jefferson Bolling (1741–1817) - her husband John Bolling served in the Virginia House of Burgesses.
• Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), third President of the United States
• Elizabeth Jefferson (1744–1774) - mentally handicapped
• Martha Jefferson Carr (1746–1811) - her husband Dabney Carr, Thomas Jefferson's best friend, helped launch the intercolonial Committee of Correspondence in Virginia in March 1773, the first step to coordinated colonial action against Great Britain.
• Lucy Jefferson Lewis (1752–1810)
• Anna Scott Jefferson Marks (1755–1828) – twin of Randolph
• Randolph Jefferson (1755–1815) – twin of Anna Scott

Jane Randolph Jefferson died from what was described at the time as an "apoplexy" on March 31, 1776, barely three months before Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence.^[3]

Ancestry

Ancestors of Jane Randolph Jefferson

16. William Randolph               8. Richard Randolph                       17. Dorothy Lane               4. William Randolph                             18. John Ryland               9. Elizabeth Ryland                       2. Isham Randolph                                   20. William Isham               10. Henry Isham                       21. Mary Brett               5. Mary Isham                             22. Christopher Banks               11. Katherine Banks                       1. Jane Randolph Jefferson                                         12. Thomas Rogers                       6. Charles Rogers                             13. Elizabeth ?                       3. Jane Rogers                                   28. George Lilburn               14. William Lilburn                       29. Eleanor Hicks               7. Jane Lilburn                             30. Cristopher Nicholson               15. Elizabeth Nicholson                       31. Jane Butler

References

1. Malone, Dumas. Jefferson, The Virginian. Jefferson and His Time. Little, Brown. 1948, 437–40.
2. Brodie, Fawn M. Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. New York: Norton, 33–34.
3. "Jane Randolph Jefferson", Monticello, Thomas Jefferson Foundation

• "Jane Randolph Jefferson". Monticello. Charlottesville, Virginia: Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Inc. February 2003. Retrieved November 1, 2010.

1. Jefferson personally showed little interest in his ancestry; on his father's side he only knew of the existence of his grandfather.^[1][2] Malone writes that Jefferson vaguely knew that his grandfather "had a place on the Fluvanna River which he called Snowden after a mountain in Wales near which the Jeffersons were supposed once to have lived".