et out on horseback for
Williamsburg, the capital of Virginia, where he proposed to enter the
college of William and Mary. Up to this time he had never seen a town, or
even a village, except the hamlet of Charlottesville, which is about four
miles from Shadwell. Williamsburg--described in contemporary language as
"the centre of taste, fashion, and refinement"--was an unpaved village, of
about one thousand inhabitants, surrounded by an expanse of dark green
tobacco fields as far as the eye could reach. It was, however, well
situated upon a plateau midway between the York and James rivers, and was
swept by breezes which tempered the heat of the summer sun and kept the
town free from mosquitoes.

Williamsburg was also well laid out, and it has the honor of having served
as a model for the city of Washington. It consisted chiefly of a single
street, one hundred feet broad and three quarters of a mile long, with the
capitol at one end, the college at the other, and a ten-acre square with
public buildings in the middle. Here in his palace lived the colonial
governor. The town also contained "ten or twelve gentlemen's families,
besides merchants and tradesmen." These were the permanent inhabitants;
and during the "season"--the midwinter months--the planters' families came
to town in their coaches, the gentlemen on horseback, and the little
capital was then a scene of gayety and dissipation.

Such was Williamsburg in 1760 when Thomas Jefferson, the frontier
planter's son, rode slowly into town at the close of an early spring day,
surveying with the outward indifference, but keen inward curiosity of a
countryman, the place which was to be his residence for seven years,--in
one sense the most important, because the most formative, period of his
life. He was a tall stripling, rather slightly built,--after the model of
the Randolphs,--but extremely well-knit, muscular, and agile. His face was
freckled, and his features were somewhat pointed. His hair is variously
described as red, reddish, and sandy, and the color of his eyes as blue,
gray, and also hazel. The expression of his face was frank, cheerful, and
engaging. He was not handsome in youth, but "a very good-looking man in
middle age, and quite a handsome old man." At maturity he stood six feet
two and a half inches. "Mr. Jefferson," said Mr. Bacon, at one time the
superintendent of his estate, "was well proportioned and straight as a
gun-barrel. He was like a fine horse, he h