Cornelia J. Randolph

Cornelia Jefferson Randolph (July 26, 1799 – ) was a granddaughter of United States President Thomas Jefferson. She also was the daughter of Acting First Lady Martha Jefferson Randolph and Governor of Virginia Thomas Mann Randolph Jr.

Life

Cornelia Jefferson Randolph was born on July 26, 1799, at Monticello, the fifth child of Thomas Mann Randolph and Jefferson's daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph. Jefferson wrote to her even before she could write her own reply, sending her children's poems he cut from newspapers and magazines. She lived at Monticello and then Edge Hill, the home of her brother Thomas Jefferson Randolph. In 1825, Randolph complained to her sister "I wish I could do something to support myself instead of this unprofitable drudgery of keeping house here. But I suppose not until we sink entirely will it do for the granddaughters of Thomas Jefferson to take in work of keep a school." Societal conventions regarding female roles prevented Randolph from fully exercising her talents, but after Jefferson's death she and other family members operated a school at Edge Hill.