Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson was the wife of Thomas Jefferson. Born in Virginia in 1748, she died at the family's Monticello home on September 6, 1782, several months after giving birth to her last child and 19 years before her husband became the third president of the United States.
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There are no known portraits of Martha Jefferson, and only four documents in her handwriting have survived.
Martha Wayles married Bathurst Skelton in 1766, but he died two years later. The young widow returned to her parents' plantation home in colonial Virginia with her young son, John, who later died at age 3. She married Thomas Jefferson on January 1, 1772, and moved to his home, Monticello.
The Jeffersons had six children, but only Martha (called Patsy) and Maria (baptized Mary but called Polly) survived past early childhood. Two daughters and a son died in infancy, and Lucy, their last child, died of whooping cough at age 2. Martha was weakened by the physical strain of so many pregnancies. In September 1782 she died at Monticello, possibly from complications following Lucy's birth in May 1782. Thomas went into seclusion for weeks following his wife's death, and wanting to keep his memories of Martha private, he burned all their letters to one another and rarely spoke of her after her death. In 1784 he chose to leave Monticello, succeeding Benjamin Franklin as American minister to France.
After Jefferson became president in 1801, he often called upon Dolley Madison, wife of his secretary of state, James Madison, to handle social events at the White House. On other occasions his daughters Patsy and Polly served as hostesses. During Jefferson's second administration, Patsy gave birth to a son, the first baby to be born in the White House.
Copyright © 1994-2009 Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. For more information visit Britannica.com.
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