Thomas Jefferson's Obituary
[From the New-York American]
This paper is again arrayed in sables, and another of the sons of our heroic
age has passed to the tomb. By a coincidence marvellous and enviable,
THOMAS JEFFERSON in like manner with his great compeer, John Adams, breathed
his last on the 4th of July. Emphatically may we say, with a Boston paper,
had the horses and the chariot of fire descended to take up the
patriarchs, it might have been more wonderful, but not more glorious.
We remember nothing in the annals of man so striking, so beautiful, as the
death of these two "time-honoured" patriots, on the jubilee of that
freedom, which they devoted themselves and all that was dear to them, to
proclaim and establish.
It cannot all be chance. It may be permitted to us to believe, that the prayer
most natural on such a day, in the mouths of such men, "Lord, now lettest thou
thy servant depart in peace," was put up and favourably heard. The god who
gave them being, and inspired their hearts in the day of peril, and in a
desponding land, filled them with hope and with confidence -- who has
through a long (and to other countries a calamitous) period of fifty years,
watched, and signally protected the ark of freedom, which under his guidance
they reared, until it has now become the light, and hope, and promise of the
universe; -- that God may in his wisdom, and in his tenderness, have seen fit
to interpose, and on the fiftieth anniversary of the great day of
independence, have recalled to himself the spirits of these mighty
TWO, who, having seen fulfilled and surpassed all that in
the most daring aspirations of youthful hope and ardor, they had venrured to
anticipate for their country, and having attained to the highest honours which
a grateful nation could pay, could no longer worthily linger upon earth.
The following is the only brief record yet received of Mr. Jefferson's death.
Office of the Baltimore American, July 6, 1826, 2 o'clock, P.M.
DEATH OF THOMAS JEFFERSON.
The Post Master has received the following letter, containing the intelligence
of the death of the venerable patriot Jefferson!
CHARLOTTESVILLE, July 4, 1826.
SIR -- I give you a mere line to say, that Mr. JEFFERSON
expired to-day at 10 minutes before 1 o'clock. It is an event which has been
hourly expected for three or four days past.
Your friend,
P. MINOR.
John S. Skinner, esq. Baltimore.
The Philadelphia National Gazette states that Mr. JEFFERSON,
"expired, at Monticello, at ten minutes before one o'clock, on the
Fourth of July, within the same hour at which the Declaration of
Independence was promulgated in the hall of Congress,
FIFTY YEARS AGO. His demise was expected for three or four
days before it took place ;--he was sensible of its approach, and prescribed
the mode of his own interment."
[From
page 1 of Argus & City Gazette (Albany, N.Y.), July 10, 1826]
No common event has clothed our columns in the habiliments of
mourning. Two of the great and gifted of our countrymen, the venerated
fathers of our Republic, THOMAS JEFFERSON and JOHN ADAMS, are no more!
It is not amongst the least of the events so wisely ordered in the progress
of this country, that the Author of the Declaration of its Liberties, and his
eminent associate in that duty should be permitted not only to live, and
to witness the prosperous experiment of half a century, but that on that
day fifty years on which they signed and issued their Declaration to the
world, they should be called, both together, from amongst a people so
signally blessed by their labours.
THey were glorious in their lives, and in their deaths they were not
divided. They have enjoyed in their life-time equal and the highest honours
within the gift of a grateful country. In their deaths, the measure
of their fame is full. Their memories are hallowed.
Mr. Adams was in the 92d year of his age. Mr. Jefferson was aged 83 years 3
months and 2 days.