Thomas Mann Randolph

Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. (October 1, 1768 – June 20, 1828) was an American planter, soldier, and politician from Virginia. He served as a member of both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, a representative in the United States Congress, and as the 21st governor of Virginia, from 1819 to 1822. He married Martha Jefferson, the oldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. They had eleven children who survived childhood. As an adult, Randolph developed alcoholism, and he and his wife separated for some time before his death.

Personal life

Early life and education

Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. was born on October 1, 1768, at Tuckahoe in the Colony of Virginia.

Randolph's patrilineal great-great-grandfather was immigrant William Randolph of Turkey Island. His great-grandfathers were Richard Randolph (grandfather of Ann Cary), and Thomas Randolph of Tuckahoe. The Randolphs were among the First Families of Virginia. Randolph was a lineal descendant of Pocahontas through his mother.

Randolph received his early education from his mother and private tutors, as was customary in many planter families. He attended the College of William & Mary, in Williamsburg, Virginia, and the University of Edinburgh, Scotland from 1785 to 1788. Though he did not graduate, he continued studying independently and became a respected botanist. In 1794, Randolph was elected a member to the American Philosophical Society. Thomas Mann Randolph Sr. bought land at Varina for Randolph, who made it into a profitable plantation.

Marriage and children

On February 23, 1790, Randolph married Martha Jefferson, daughter of Thomas Jefferson and his wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. The Jefferson and Randolph families had shared progenitors; Thomas Jefferson Randolph (1792–1875), who married Jane Hollins Nicholas (1798-1871), daughter of Wilson Cary Nicholas. Ellen Wayles Randolph (1794–1795) died young during a trip that Patsy and her husband took from July 1795 to October 1795 to improve his health. Ellen Wayles Randolph (1796–1876), who was named after a deceased sister, and was married to Joseph Coolidge (1798-1879) Cornelia Jefferson Randolph (1799–1871). In the 1830s, she established a school at Edge Hill, then her brother's estate, where she taught painting, sculpture, and drawing. She translated and published, The Parlor Gardener: A Treatise on the House Culture of Ornamental Plants. Translated from the French and Adapted to American Use. Cornelia never married. Virginia Jefferson Randolph (1801–1881), who married Nicholas Trist (1800–1874). Mary Jefferson Randolph (1803–1876). She lived at Edge Hill and helped her sister-in-law, Jane, supervise the household of her brother Thomas Jefferson Randolph. She and her sister Cornelia also visited the houses of their siblings during times of sickness. She never married. James Madison Randolph (1806–1834) was born at the President's House, now called the White House, on January 17, 1806. Benjamin Franklin Randolph (1808–1871), who married Sarah Champe "Sally" Carter (1808-1896). Meriwether Lewis Randolph (1810–1837), who married Elizabeth Anderson Martin (1815-1871). After his death, Martin married Andrew Jackson Donelson, a nephew of President Andrew Jackson. Septimia Anne Randolph (1814–1887), who married Dr. David Scott Meikleham (1804-1849). George Wythe Randolph (1818–1867), who briefly in 1862 was Secretary of War of the Confederate States of America, and who married Mary Elizabeth Adams Pope (1830-1871).

Martha and Thomas Randolph lived at Belmont from November 1797 until the summer of 1799. They had decided to settle primarily in Albemarle County while maintaining the Varina estate. In January 1800, the Randolphs moved into Edge Hill (near Shadwell). After her father retired, Martha and their children lived at Monticello beginning in 1808 and including the period when Randolph was governor. At the end of 1790, Thomas Randolph Sr., at the age of 50, married Gabriella Harvie, who was seventeen and the daughter of John Harvie. They had two children, a daughter who died in infancy and a son they named Thomas Mann Randolph (1792–1848), as if "erasing his first son from his prior marriage." Randolph's father died in 1793, and his half-brother inherited Tuckahoe. Randolph was made executor of the will, but to his dismay, he was not assigned guardian of the minor children.

Randolph sold the Varina plantation in 1825 to Pleasant Akin or Aiken of Petersburg. Randolph was no longer a landowner, which affected his ability to vote and hold office. This made him even angrier and resentful that his family had focused their energy on holding on to Monticello, which was also in financial peril, over Edge Hill. The angrier he got, the more that his family distanced themselves from him. (The Monticello site states that: "After her father's death in 1826, the family was forced to sell Monticello and Martha moved to Tufton to live with her eldest son, Thomas Jefferson Randolph." and was elected as a Republican to the Eighth and Ninth United States Congresses, serving from March 4, 1803, to March 3, 1807.)

During the War of 1812, he was a colonel of the Twentieth Infantry. His political career in Virginia ended in 1825, when, running for reelection to the House of Delegates from Albemarle County, Randolph finished third among as many candidates, with only the top two candidates earning election. Randolph's colleague in the previous session, William F. Gordon, received the most votes, while Charlottesville attorney Rice W. Woods finished second, garnering 215 votes to Randolph's 79.

After office Desperate for work in late 1826, Randolph applied to and obtained employment from Secretary of War James Barbour, a former governor of Virginia, as a federal commission member to settle a boundary dispute between Georgia and the territory of Florida. The Georgia government suddenly terminated the survey on April 18, 1827, and though Barbour and President John Quincy Adams considered appointing Randolph as a federal agent to deal with the Creeks, such talk, and Randolph's political career, ended when Randolph virulently criticized the indifferent handling of the boundary expedition by Barbour and Secretary of State Henry Clay in Virginia newspapers.

Slavery Their enslaved workers followed them as they moved within the state from Varina to Belmont, and then to Edge Hill. The Manns moved to Monticello after Jefferson's presidential terms. They brought enslaved people with them, including Priscilla Hemings. She was the wife of John Hemings. When Edge Hill was foreclosed, the plantation's bondspeople were sold. They corresponded about plantation business, such as when Jefferson asked Randolph to "speak to Lilly [an overseer] as to the treatment of the nailers." Randolph stopped managing affairs at Monticello after he became estranged from his family after around 1812.