José Antonio Miralla (ca. 1790–1825), merchant, poet, and revolutionary, was born in Córdoba, Argentina. Having moved to Buenos Aires, he studied at the Real Colegio de San Carlos. In 1810 he went to Lima, Peru, where he earned a medical degree from the Colegio de San Fernando. After spending some time in Europe, Miralla moved in 1816 to Havana, Cuba. There he operated an import firm and became involved in Cuba’s independence movement. Miralla also translated English, French, and Italian literature into Spanish and published poetry and political pieces. Facing increased pressure due to his revolutionary involvement, Miralla fled to the United States late in 1822. The next year he traveled the country and visited TJ at Monticello. To continue promoting Cuban independence, Miralla left at the end of the year and went to Colombia, and later to Mexico, where he died of a fever in Puebla de los Angeles (Francisco J. Ponte Domínguez, ed., José Antonio Miralla y Sus Trabajos [1960]; Washington Daily National Intelligencer, 17 Dec. 1822).

Ellen W. Randolph (Coolidge) (eleonora) was Miralla’s spanish pupil. Regarding his recent visit to Monticello, Martha Jefferson Randolph wrote that the family had been “very much pleased with him he is a great traveller, scholar and a man of very general information with the most untamed spirits, I ever saw in the wildest young frenchman”; that “he speaks 5 or six languages”; that TJ “says he is a man of a very strong mind notwithstanding his apparent levity”; and that Miralla “took it very much to heart to make a Spaniard of Ellen” (Randolph to Nicholas P. Trist, 25 June 1823 [RC in NcU: NPT]). Virginia J. Randolph (Trist) also described him as “a great linguist” who, “finding that Sister Ellen had formerly spoken spanish appears very much interested in restoring the language to her, and has devoted several hours everyday to instructing her” (Randolph [Trist] to Trist, 23 June 1823 [RC in DLC: NPT]).

In a letter to Trist dated Monticello, 11 Aug. 1823, Randolph (Coolidge) herself recalled Miralla as “a certain Spanish American who paid one visit in June & promised another for October if in the meanwhile his private affairs should not compel his return to Cuba.” He was a “most singular little being, whose presence excited no small commotion in our quiet household. such a compound of talent & absurdity, of learning & frivolity, of simplicity & assurance, I have never yet seen or imagined; born on the banks of the Rio de la Plata; flying for his life at the age of nineteen and in the commencement of the Revolutionary troubles; in Europe serving as a soldier in the Spanish armies during Bonaparte’s invasion, of the mother country; getting into France I do not know how, & out of it I doubt if he knows how himself; kicking up his heels in England for a year or two; settling as a merchant in Cuba, & after a while running to the United States to peep about in every direction; making a tour of the Western Country and calling here to pay his compliments to Mr Jefferson, such is the outline of his history down to the month of June .23 when we had the pleasure of forming his acquaintance, and a great pleasure it was, for he is one of the most agreable & amusing companions I have ever met with. a man of most extensive information, an incessant talker, but never a tiresome one, speaking six languages with almost equal facility, & apparently intimately acquainted with the literature of the nations to which those languages respectively belong, an ardent patriot, a poet, an improvisatore, an incomparable mimic, in short a creature all fire and air ‘in the spirit,’ whilst ‘in the flesh’ bearing a most provoking resemblance to a monkey, at least in size & activity & ceaselessness of motion, always, & occasionally, in grimacing & trick-playing—a pair of brilliant black eyes, full of intelligence & actually burning in their sockets, teeth of dazzling whiteness, a complexion of clear olive, a countenance of mingled vivacity & good-humour, redeem him from the <charge> sin of ugliness which might otherwise be urged against him, & his vanity, and his excessive assurance well deserving the name of impudence unparalleled impudence, are so set off by the originality of his whole character & manner, by his enthusiasm, his frankness, his gaiety & childish playfulness, his tricks & mimickry, his talents & varied & extensive information, and ardent patriotism, & pure republicanism, & folly, frivolity, levity, and absurdity, that what to make of him, or think of him, or by what name to call him, I know not” (RC in NcU: NPT).

In the aforementioned letter of 23 June 1823 from Randolph (Trist) to Trist (torn at seal), TJ’s granddaughter also responded to Trist’s surprise that TJ had never erected a bathing structure at Monticello by admitting that “Grand-Papa has always had some plan afloat for contriving a regular b[athhouse?] but I suppose the difficulty of getting the water on the mountain has prevented his executing [any?] of them, and it would not be much frequented at the foot of the mountain. a large tub built fo[r] the purpose in some degree supplies the defficiency.”