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Thomas Jefferson : A Founding Father

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Thomas Jefferson: A Founding Father There are a quite a few Founding Fathers that created this nation. One in particular is Thomas Jefferson who is most commonly known as the writer of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Jefferson was born in Shadwell, Virginia on April 13, 1743. At the age of 9 he officially began his studies. He continued through boarding school until he was sixteen all the while excelling in the classical languages. Thomas Jefferson owed his fortune to his father, Peter Jefferson who was a planter of some means and very little is actually known of his mother Jane Randolph Jefferson who died in 1776. In the year 1757 Peter Jefferson passed away leaving Thomas Jefferson more than 7,000+ acres of land in Western Virginia. The year 1760 came and Jefferson enrolled in the College of William and Mary, taking various classes of science, mathematics, rhetoric, philosophy, and literature. During this time, few young adults could actually afford the same quality and personal education that Thomas Jefferson did. While these years were going on, he met and fell in love with twenty-three year old Martha Wayles Skelton, who was a wealth widow and daughter of a prominent Virginia lawyer and landowner. Skelton’s first husband and their infant son had died years prior. Thomas and Martha were married on January 1, 1772, moving into Monticello, Jefferson’s one-room brick Virginia plantation home.

While a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses from 1769-1774,

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