Peter Jefferson

Peter Jefferson (February 29, 1708 – August 17, 1757) was a planter, cartographer, and politician in colonial Virginia best known for being the father of the third president of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. The "Fry-Jefferson Map", created by Peter in collaboration with Joshua Fry in 1757, accurately charted the Allegheny Mountains for the first time and showed the northbound route of "The Great Road from the Yadkin River through Virginia to Philadelphia distant 455 Miles", which later became Great Wagon Road. The map also indicates the southbound route of the Trading Path from Petersburg, Virginia to Old Hawfields, North Carolina and beyond.

Early life

Jefferson was born at a settlement called Osbornes (Osbornes was also the birthplace of his father, Captain Thomas Jefferson in 1677.) The settlement was a local shipping center and tobacco inspection station. His father, Thomas Jefferson, was a captain in the local militia and justice of the peace. a large property owner, and Mary Field (1680–1715), who was the daughter of Major Peter Field of New Kent County, Virginia, and granddaughter of Henry Soane (1622–1661), a member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Jefferson's mother, Mary Field Jefferson, died when he was eight years of age. His father died when he was 24 years of age. While at Tuckahoe, Peter also oversaw the development of his plantation at Shadwell, traveling there as needed while also deftly managing the affairs of the Tuckahoe plantation.

Jefferson had more than sixty slaves at Shadwell. Thomas inherited the land along the Rivanna River with views of the mountain to be called Monticello. Randolph inherited "Snowdon," the so-called Fluvanna Lands.All of his children were beneficiaries of his estate.

Career

Andrew Burstein in The Washington Post described Peter Jefferson as "an accomplished, strong-minded, self-reliant frontiersman" He was among the initial settlers of Albemarle County, Virginia in 1737 and acquired property over the years to farm tobacco. By the time of his death, he held 7,200 acres.

He was also a cartographer and surveyor. In 1746, he and Thomas Lewis ran the Fairfax Line, a surveyor's line between the headwaters of the Rappahannock and North Branch Potomac Rivers, which established the limits of the "Northern Neck land grant" (also known as the "Fairfax Grant").

In 1749, Peter Jefferson, along with Joshua Fry, Thomas Walker, Edmund Pendleton and others, established the Loyal Company of Virginia, and were granted 800,000 acres (3,200 km2) in present-day Virginia, West Virginia and Kentucky. In the same year, with Joshua Fry, Jefferson extended the survey of the Virginia-North Carolina border, begun by William Byrd II some time earlier. The detailed Fry-Jefferson Map, cited by his son Thomas in his 1781 book Notes on the State of Virginia, was produced by him and Fry.

In 1754 and 1755, he served in the Virginia House of Burgesses.