Biography | Thomas Jefferson — Born Near This Marker at Shadwell on 13 April 1743

People treat 13 April 1743 as if it were the only date on the record.

The Library of Congress timeline keeps both calendars.

Thomas Jefferson was born at Shadwell plantation on 2 April 1743 Old Style, which is 13 April by the New Style calendar Britain and its colonies adopted in 1752.

His parents were Peter Jefferson, a surveyor and planter, and Jane Randolph.

Peter had bought the Shadwell tract by 1741 and named it after the London parish where Jane was born.

Thomas was their third child and first son.

He spent his earliest years here, left for Tuckahoe after his father's death arrangements required it, and returned to Shadwell for the long stretch from 1752 until the house failed him.

On 1 February 1770 the dwelling burned.

Most of his books and family papers went with it.

He had already begun a house on the mountain he called Monticello, and by November 1770 he was living there.

Nothing of the original Shadwell house stands.

A Virginia Department of Historic Resources marker, W-202, was erected in 2001 on U.S. 250, a few hundred yards northwest of the birth site, to replace an older roadside text that had mixed occupancy dates.

The pin is that marker, not a reconstructed nursery.

Photo: Rembrandt Peale, Thomas Jefferson, 1800, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons