He came from one of America’s wealthiest landowning families, and was ranked the fourth richest US president in a recent study. But Thomas Jefferson, the nation’s third president, harbored a secret during his time in the White House: he was almost constantly in penury, and struggled to pay his food bills, servants and other household expenses.
The revelation comes in a previously unpublished letter that Jefferson, who was president from 1801 to 1809, wrote to a friend who acted as his financial agent in October 1802.
The document, valued at $40,000, is for sale by Pennsylvania dealer the Raab Collection to commemorate the Fourth of July holiday, also the 198th anniversary of Jefferson’s death.
That Jefferson, a founder and primary author of the Declaration of Independence, died broke is not new. Like many plantation owners of the period, he struggled to balance the books, and left a debt of $107,000 (more than $1m today) that led heirs to sell his possessions, including slaves and his beloved Monticello estate in Virginia.
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