Sarah Nicholas Randolph

Sarah Nicholas Randolph (October 12, 1839 – April 25, 1892) was an American educator, school principal, historian, and an author. Her father accepted the debts of Thomas Jefferson's estate, which greatly impaired his ability to support his family. He was a farmer and politician, drafting a bill for the gradual emancipation of enslaved people, before the American Civil War. It was not enacted. His financial circumstances worsened during the war. The school had a good reputation, known for its academic program as well as instilling character in the girls. In 1879, she moved to the Ellicott Mills, Maryland, area, where she was the principal of the Patapsco Institute. She established the Miss Randolph's School of Girls in Baltimore in 1884. She ran the school until her death.

Historian and author

She corresponded with Hugh Blair Grigsby, a historian, about details and accuracy of History of the Life and Times of James Madison by William C. Rives and John Smith's Pocahontas.

She wrote about her great grandfather in The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson: Compiled from Family Letters and Reminiscences that was published in 1871. It discusses the relationship between Thomas Jefferson Randolph and his maternal grandfather Thomas Jefferson.

Her work, The Lord Will Provide, was published in 1872. "The Kentucky Resolutions in a New Light" was published in The Nation on May 5, 1887. Randolph contributed to magazines. She was ill with consumption for several years, and spent the last several weeks of life in bedrest at her home. She died on April 25, 1892, in Baltimore, Maryland, and she was buried in the Monticello cemetery.