Martha Jefferson Randolph 1772–1836

Born Monticello, Virginia
First Lady 1801–1809

The education of Martha “Patsy” Jefferson, in Philadelphia and Paris, was closely overseen by her father, Thomas Jefferson, who doted on his eldest child. After she married Thomas Mann Randolph in 1790, she continued to support her widowed father, both in Washington, D.C., and later at his home, Monticello, in Virginia. At Monticello, she kept house with the help of an extended family, which included her deceased mother’s enslaved half-sister, Sally Hemings, and the illegitimate children that Hemings bore to Thomas Jefferson. (Randolph’s half-siblings were also her cousins.)

When Thomas Sully painted this portrait of Randolph, she had outlived both her father and her husband. She appears in a black mourning dress; her serious face with its firm jaw is framed by jaunty curls and frills of imported lace.

Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello