Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/449

Rh began his connection with Laura Keene's theatre in New York city, which lasted until 1859. Here he first came prominently before the public on 18 Oct., 1858, as Asa Trenchard in &ldquo;Our American Cousin.&rdquo; Laura Keene's company was one of unusual strength, and under admirable management. It included besides herself William R. Blake, Edward A. Sothern, and Charles W. Couldock, and later Dion Boucicault and his wife, all of whom, in course of time, became prominent. Young Jefferson, in this and several other dramas, fairly surpassed all his fellow-actors. The ease and simplicity of his method stood widely apart from the mannerism of his surroundings, and it was noticeable how, in distinction from others who nightly rehearsed their parts with studied inflections of speech and in unvarying attitudes, his representations were controlled by passing feelings and impressions that gave variety and freshness to each performance. The play ran for more than 150 nights. Among Jefferson's other parts were Newman Noggs in &ldquo;Nicholas Nickleby,&rdquo; Caleb Plummer in &ldquo;The Cricket on the Hearth,&rdquo; Dr. Pangloss in &ldquo;The Heir at Law,&rdquo; Bob Acres in &ldquo;The Rivals,&rdquo; and Dr. Ollapod in the &ldquo;Poor Gentleman.&rdquo; Later he repeated these characters at the Winter garden theatre in New York city and other places as a star performer, with increasing popularity. In 1860 Jefferson visited California, where he met with little success, and soon afterward sailed for Australia, where he acted four years with reputation and profit. In September, 1865, against his inclination he made his debut in London at the Adelphi theatre in &ldquo;Rip Van Winkle,&rdquo; playing the part with success for more than 150 nights. He also appeared in Manchester and other large cities, returning to the United States in 1866. After the death of his first wife, Mr. Jefferson was married, in 1867, to Miss Sarah Warren. Since then his performances have included a few favorite parts, of which &ldquo;Rip Van Winkle&rdquo; is the principal one. For over twenty years this drama has been played in almost every city of the United States. It has yielded Dion Boucicault, the playwright, in purchase-money and royalties, about $25,000. Several dramatizations of Irving's story had been attempted at different times, and played both in this country and in England, notably that of James H. Hackett, but none of them held the stage. In 1860 Jefferson played in one of these old versions at the Winter garden theatre in New York city. While he was in London the American actor arranged with Boucicault for an entire reconstruction of the drama, selecting the best situations from all the old renderings, and coupling his own suggestions with the playwright's skill and experience. In retirement Jefferson's pastimes are those of an angler and painter. Some of his landscapes in oil bid fair to attract public attention. His summers are spent on a farm in New Jersey, his midwinters at his sugar-plantation on the Bayou Teche, La. At present (1887) he is writing an autobiography.

JEFFERSON, Thomas, third president of the United States, b. in Shadwell, Albemarle co., Va., 2 April, 1743 ; d. at Monticello, in the same county, 4 July, 1826. His father was Peter Jefferson, who, with the aid of thirty slaves, tilled a tobacco and wheat farm of 1,900 acres; a man physically strong, a good mathematician, skilled in surveying, fond of standard literature, and in politics a British Whig. Like his fathers before him, Peter Jefferson was a justice of the peace, a vestryman of his parish, and a member of the colonial legislature. The first of the Virginia Jeffersons, who were of Welsh extraction, was a member of the Virginia legislature of 1619, noted as the first legislative body ever convened on the western continent. Peter married in 1738 Jane, daughter of Isham Randolph, a wealthy and conspicuous member of the family of that name. Of their ten children, Thomas was the third, born in a plain, spacious farm-house, traces of which still exist. He inherited a full measure of his father's bodily strength and stature, both having been esteemed in their prime the strongest men of their county. He inherited also his father's inclination to liberal politics, his taste for literature, and his aptitude for mathematics. Peter Jefferson died in 1757, when his son Thomas was fourteen years of age. On his death-bed he left an injunction that the education of his son, already well advanced in a preparatory school, should be completed at the College of William and Mary, a circumstance which his son always remembered with gratitude, saying that if he had to choose between the education and the estate his father left him, he would choose the education. His schoolmates reported that at school he was noted for good scholarship, industry, and shyness. Without leaving his father's land he could shoot turkeys, deer, foxes, and other game. His father in his last hours had specially charged his mother not to permit him to neglect the exercise requisite for health and strength ; but the admonition was scarcely necessary, for the youth was a keen hunter and had been taught by his father to swim his horse over the Rivanna, a tributary of the James, which flowed by the estate. The Jeffersons were a musical family; the girls sang the songs of the time, and Thomas, practising the violin assiduously from boyhood, became an excellent performer. At seventeen, when he entered the College of William and Mary, he was tall, raw-boned, freckled, and sandy-haired, with large feet and hands, thick wrists, and prominent cheek-bones and chin. His comrades described him as far from handsome, a fresh, healthy-looking youth, very erect, agile, and strong, with something of rusticity in his air and demeanor. The college was not then efficient nor well equipped, but there was one true educator connected with it, Dr. William Small, of Scotland, professor of mathematics. Jefferson gratefully remembered him as an ardent student of science, who possessed a happy talent for communicating knowledges man of agreeable manners and enlightened mind. He goes so far as to say in his autobiography that his coining under the influence of Dr. Small "probably fixed the destinies of my life." The learned and genial professor became attached to his receptive pupil, made him the daily companion of his walks, and gave him those views of the connection of the sciences and of the system of things of which man is a part which then prevailed in the advanced scientific circles of Europe. Prof. Small was a friend of the poet Erasmus Darwin, progenitor of an illustrious line of learned men. Jefferson was a hard student in college, and at times forgot his