Thomas Jefferson was born in what is now Albermarle County, Virginia, in 1743, over two hundred years ago.

Hardly anybody lived where his father built his home. Sometimes Indians would come by the house; sometimes men on their way to the mountains, to hunt wild animals for their fur. The nearest neighbors were so far away that, if they wanted to come visiting, they often had to spend the night.

It was fun to be a boy then just as it is fun to be a boy now. Tom liked to fish; he liked to swim; he liked to hunt in the deep, dark woods. Always, too, he liked to do things for himself instead of depending on other people. He wanted to be independent.

You will enjoy this story of the boyhood of one of the greatest of Americans. It is a most interesting story, just as delightful reading as the other popular books in this series—Abe Lincoln: Frontier Boy, by Augusta Stevenson, and Boy of Old Virginia: Robert E. Lee, by the same author as Tom Jefferson. Miss Monsell is Registrar at Richmond College.

As Thomas Jefferson grew older, he began to feel that it wasn't enough for him to be independent, all by himself. "All men," he said, "are born equal . They all have the right to be independent."

Because he believed this, he wanted to make his country independent. He wanted the people in America to govern themselves.

You will read in history how he wrote the Declaration of Independence; how he became the third President of the United States of America and made the United States so very much larger than it had been. If men are born equal, all should have free schools; and you will read how he helped to start them. You will read how, his whole life long, he tried to make this a country where men could lead useful, independent lives.

This is not a history book. It is a story about Thomas Jefferson when he was a freckled, red-haired boy. But in the boy, as he played and worked, studied and adventured, you will see the traits which, when he was a man, were to make him famous in many ways. For he was an architect, an inventor, a statesman, a lover of the land and a friend of man.

From the dust jacket