W&M ScholarWorks Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects 2005 The Jeffersons at Shadwell: The social and material world of a Virginia family Susan A. Kern College of William & Mary - Arts & Sciences Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wm.edu/etd Part of the Art and Design Commons, History of Art, Architecture, and Archaeology Commons, and the United States History Commons Recommended Citation Kern, Susan A., "The Jeffersons at Shadwell: The social and material world of a Virginia family" (2005). Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects. Paper 1539623475. https://dx.doi.org/doi:10.21220/s2-3ava-7266 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Theses, Dissertations, & Master Projects at W&M ScholarWorks. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects by an authorized administrator of W&M ScholarWorks. For more information, please contact [email protected]. NOTE TO USERS This reproduction is the best copy available. ® UMI Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with with permission permission of the of copyright the copyright owner. owner.Further reproductionFurther reproduction prohibited without prohibited permission. without permission. THE JEFFERSONS AT SHAD WELL The Social and Material World of a Virginia Family A Dissertation Presented to The Faculty of the Department of History The College of William and Mary in Virginia In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy By Susan A. Kern 2005 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. APPROVAL SHEET This dissertation is submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Susan A. Ksrn Approved by the Committee, May 2005 JamesT. \\Tiittehburg!, Chair James L. Axtell /fac ? Dale E. Hoak Barbara'tj Carson American/Studies ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments iv List of Tables vii List of Figures viii Abstract xi Foreword 2 Introduction 3 Chapter 1. The Material World of the Jeffersons at Shadwell 21 Chapter 2. Making Women’s Work Apparent: The Household 79 Chapter 3. Plantation Business: Peter Jefferson at Home 133 Chapter 4. Slavery and Fieldwork 189 Chapter 5. The Home Quarter: Material Culture and Status 239 Chapter 6. The Colony’s Business: Peter Jefferson’s Vantage 305 Chapter 7. The Intangible Legacies: Keeping and Creating Family History 355 Conclusion 413 Afterword: Thomas Jefferson Revisited 419 Appendix I: Issues, Methods of Interpretation, and Sources 425 Appendix ILa. Inventory of the Estate of Peter Jefferson 448 b. Inventory of the Estate of Jane Jefferson 456 c. Inventory of the Estate of Jane Jefferson Junior. 457 Appendix III: “Jane Jefferson-Her Booke.” 459 Bibliography 492 Vita 524 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Archaeology is never a lone endeavor. Bill Kelso founded this search into the first years of Thomas Jefferson at Shadwell before leaving to find the first years of Virginia at Jamestown. I thank him for entrusting me with his legacies. Barbara Heath, now Director of Archaeology at Jefferson’s Poplar Forest, was instrumental in establishing the research design for our first years of work at Shadwell. Ben Ford’s research along the river on the mill sites contributed to the whole. The identification and catalogue organization of the artifacts was instrumental to making sense of them. Cynthia Whitley, Drake Patten, and Jonathan Farris performed this often-behind-the- scene role. Drake’s further research and interpretation has been especially relevant to telling the stories of people who lived at Shadwell. Allison Tillack supplied any kind of support that was needed, almost any time. The Shadwell archaeology reports include the names of legions of field school students and excavators who moved dirt and documented Shadwell and moved artifacts in the Monticello Archaeology Lab. In the post-Shadwell era, the Monticello Archaeology Department still supports my research and writing. I thank director Fraser Neiman for keeping the door open. I thank archaeologists Derek Wheeler, Leslie McFaden, and Karen Smith for help with photographs, files, drawings, and other support. Also at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Cinder Stanton and Ann Lucas have readily answered questions and helped consider evidence. Their on-going inquiries into various topics related to Jefferson and Monticello are always inspiring. Peter Hatch, Bill Beiswanger, Doug Wilson, Anna Koester, Kris Onuf, Kathy Revell, and Zanne MacDonald have shared evidence and sources. The various and ever-changing members of the Williamsburg Material Culture Reading Group, especially Barbara Carson, Betty Leviner, Colleen Isaac, and Ann Martin, have produced many substantive discussions of sources, interpretation, meaning, and ways of thinking about material culture during semi-regular meetings. The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation houses some of the world’s specialists in Chesapeake and early American studies. Many people have offered time for casual questions and in-depth responses about objects, inventories, and ways of looking at the past. I thank Lorena Walsh for sharing thoughts on amenities indexing, probate inventories, and monetary values. Linda Baumgarten offered observations on clothing in the Jefferson inventories and took time to show me examples in the CW collections. John Hyman and John Davis took time to consider the silver spoon from the Shadwell house cellar. Kevin Kelly and Lou Powers answered queries about education, Indians, and other aspects of early American life. Wayne Randolph’s extensive knowledge of early agricultural tools informed much of my discussion of plantation labor. Robin Kipps shared her expertise about medical and apothecary topics. The members of Colonial Williamsburg’s Architectural Research Department have offered field work, opinions, examples, drawings, photographs, and a husband. This iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. group’s contribution to ways of thinking about and knowledge of the Chesapeake is beyond compare. Carl Lounsbury, Ed Chappell, Willie Graham, Mark Wenger, and Michael Bourne all offered their expertise at various times. Carl has read and re-read, carried books, and contributed many good ideas to my project. Other scholars who contributed thoughts about the site or materials include Garrett Fesler, Anna Koester, Turk McCleskey, Doug Sanford, Camille Wells, Jim Deetz, Seth Mallios, Martin Gallivan, Jeff Hantman. (I apologize for anyone I’ve forgotten.) I thank Benne Brown for his help with Peter Jefferson’s book list. Tracy Lounsbury for translating Latin, Margaret Robertson for mapping skills. Betty Leviner and John Hyman for sharing books and ideas and good food. Barbara Carson and Cary Carson for encouragement, good cheer, and books. Rhys Isaac for his interest. I thank friends who listened and read and offered comments: Ann Lucas, Lisa Crutchfield, Claire Dempsey, Stuart Kern, and Rosemarie Kelley. Helpful librarians and archivists make researching better. At Swem Library, in particular, I thank Margaret Cook for being especially helpful to researchers. At the Rockefeller Library I thank Marianne Martin, Visual Resources Editorial Librarian. I also thank the special collections librarians at the University of Virginia. As I write this, electronic databases and publications make certain research possible that was not available to, say, Dumas Malone. These includes such things as electronic editions of Thomas Jefferson’s letters and papers that enable searches that could not have been performed twenty years ago when certain words or phrases were not even indexed. The Jefferson Papers at the International Center for Jefferson Studies at Monticello, Massachusetts Historical Society, and University of Virginia are making Jefferson material more accessible. Similarly, projects such as Early English Books Online have made it possible to consult historic texts around the world without leaving the comforts of home. Other services that have changed the dynamics of research include JSTOR and InfoTrac, for which I give thanks to Swem Library on a regular basis. A Beehive-Mills Lane Architecture Fellowship at Museum of Early Southern Decorative Arts, Winston-Salem, N.C., in 1997, offered an opportunity to sort out early Piedmont building information. A fellowship at the Robert J. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies in Charlottesville, Va., enabled more work on Jefferson documents. Minor research grants and summer research grants from the College of William and Mary funded microfilm of county records and library travel. Part of chapter six appeared as “"Where did the Indians Sleep?: An Archaeological and Ethnohistorical Study of Mid-Eighteenth-Century Piedmont Virginia," in Maria Franklin and Garrett Fesler, ed., Historical Archaeology, Identity Formation, and the Interpretation o f Ethnicity, 1999. I thank Maria and Garret for their reading and comments. A version of chapter one appears as “The Material World of the Jeffersons at Shadwell,” in the William and Mary Quarterly, April 2005. The whole work is better for the close attention that the editors