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created equal” continue to inspire people Terry stands in front of the historic Capitol building in Colonial Williamsburg,
from around the world, and established Virginia.
the foundation of self-government and
individual freedom in America. After often even spoke about the inevitability in Alexandria. He surveyed most of the
writing the Declaration of Independence, that they must be set free, and yet he freed area called Historic Alexandria today,
Jefferson spent the next 33 years in public some but not all of his. from the docks to the Main Street. He
life, serving as delegate to the Virginia even built a small house for himself that
General Assembly and to Congress, gover- Jefferson died broke. His estate was still stands. His favorite tavern, called
nor of Virginia, minister to France, secre- around two million dollars (by modern Gadsby’s, remains on the corner.
tary of state, vice president and president standards) in debt. All the property had to
from 1801 to 1809. Notable achievements be sold as well as the slaves. Families were We walked the streets of the historic sea-
of Jefferson’s presidency include the Loui- split apart: husbands and wives, brothers port. We imagined ourselves in the 1700s,
siana Purchase and the Lewis and Clark and sisters, parents and children, even traveling from a far land and reaching
Expedition as well as sending the United Sally Hemings, with whom he fathered six this bustling place. Surely we would be in
States Marine Corps to eliminate the Bar- children, has no mention in his memoirs. need of good food, good drink and a clean
bary Pirates. There is no gravesite or record of Sally’s place to sleep. We were hungry.
remains. (Archeologists discovered her
If you had visited Monticello in Jeffer- living quarters in July 2017.) Gadsby’s establishment was a center of
son’s time, you would have been greeted political, business and social life in Alex-
in the grand two-story room by Burrell ALEXANDRIA andria and the new federal city of Wash-
Colbert, Jefferson’s enslaved butler. The ington, D.C. The tavern was known for its
great clock above the doorway (Jefferson’s Like Jefferson, George Washington en- ÀQHGLQLQJZLWKPDQ\RIWKHGLVKHVFUH-
ingenious invention that incorporates a tered William and Mary College as a teen- ated from fresh seafood from the Potomac
weighted, self-winding series of gears and DJHUWRVWXG\VXUYH\LQJ+LVÀUVWMREZDV
pulls) displays the exact time as well as
day of the week.

Today we are greeted by docents who in-
troduce the various rooms. Terry and I
felt like we could spend an hour in the
foyer where many of the native artifacts
brought back by Lewis and Clark are ex-
hibited. We paid extra to tour the upstairs
rooms and also took the Slave Tour.

We walked the gardens. It took 21 en-
slaved gardeners three years to create
Jefferson’s famous vegetable garden. He
experimented with plants and extended
their harvest by several months because
of his innovations.

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I felt a sense of ambivalence. On the one
hand, Thomas Jefferson is the intellectual,
philosophical brain of America. Without
the ideals articulated in the declaration
and Constitution, who knows what kind
of government we would have today. On
the other hand, he owned slaves and quite

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