Dft (MHi); written on the address-leaf of a letter addressed, in the hand of Edmund Randolph, to “Thomas Jefferson esquire Monticello Albemarle.” This draft contains many alterations, deletions, and interlineations, of which two are noted below.

This appears to be the first intimate, personal letter written by TJ after his wife’s death and the great care which he took in its composition, to say nothing of the expressions that he allowed to remain, testify to the overwhelming grief that he experienced. Randolph may have visited Monticello about this time and he certainly gave one of the most graphic accounts of Jefferson’s grief: “Mrs. Jefferson has at last shaken off her tormenting pains, by yielding to them, and has left our friend inconsolable. I ever thought him to rank domestic happiness in the first class of the chief good; but scarcely supposed that his grief would be so violent as to justify the circulating report of his swooning away whenever he sees his children” (Randolph to Madison, 20 Sep. 1782, quoted in Henkels Catalogue 694 [1892], lot 86). James Madison thought TJ’s “philosophical temper renders the circulating rumor which you mention altogether incredible” (Madison to Randolph, 30 Sep. 1782, DLC: Madison Papers), but TJ’s daughter Martha left an account which validates the basis for the rumor that Randolph reported: “… after her death, during the first month of desolation that followed I was his constant companion, while we remained at Monticello. … As a nurse no female ever had more tenderness or anxiety; he nursed my poor Mother in turn with aunt Carr [Mrs. Dabney Carr] and her own sisters [Randall, Jefferson, I, 382, gives the reading as “sister,” who, of course, would have been the recipient of the present letter] setting up with her and administring her medecines and drink to the last. For four months that she lingered he was never out of Calling. When not at her bed side he was writing in a small room which opened immediately at the head of her bed. A moment before the closing scene he was led from the room almost in a state of insensibility by his sister Mrs. Carr who with great difficulty got him into his library where he fainted and remained so long insensible that they feared he never would revive. The scene that followed I did not witness but the violence of his emotion, of his grief when almost by stealth I entered his room at night to this day I dare not trust myself to describe. He kept his room for three weeks and I was never a moment from his side. He walked almost incessantly night and day only lying down occasionally when nature was completely exhausted on a pallet that had been brought in during his long fainting fit. My Aunts remained constantly with him for some weeks, I do not remember how many. When at last he left his room he rode out and from that time he was incessantly on horseback rambling about the mountain in the least frequented roads and just as often through the woods; in those melancholy rambles I was his constant companion, a solitary witness to many a violent burst of grief, the remembrance of which has consecrated particular scenes of that lost home beyond the power of time to obliterate” (“Reminiscences of Th.J. by MR,” from a MS copy made by Mary and Anne Cary Randolph, ViU; one word supplied from text in Randall, Jefferson, i, 382, who states that these recollections were drawn up in answer to some queries from Tucker for use in his biography of TJ). Though written nearly half a century afterwards, this comment by Martha (who was ten at the time of her mother’s death) is so clear in its details as to leave little doubt of its general accuracy. It may be safely assumed, therefore, that the statement “He kept his room for three weeks” and the assertion “My Aunts remained constantly with him for some weeks” are dependable and that TJ began to emerge from his deep withdrawal sometime in late September. Presumably Mrs. Eppes had returned to Eppington by the end of that month; the date of 3 Oct. 1782 has been assigned to the present letter as the probable date of its composition on the ground that, on that date, TJ entered in his Account Book: “gave…[Jupiter] to pay ferrges by Eppington to Richmd 5/.” I shall begin to expect Jack: This was probably John Wayles Eppes, who later married TJ’s daughter Mary.