Thomas Jefferson Visits the Natural Bridge

(A story told, for no good reason, wholly in the present tense.)

On August 18, 1767, Thomas Jefferson makes his way to the Natural Bridge. The trip is arduous, for the route is arduous and anfractuous. He stays first at Steele’s Tavern and then at PaAxton’s Tavern in Glasgow, where Paxton and his sons likely take Jefferson to find the bridge, then much difficult to find, as there is no clean passageways to it. After he buys the 157-acre tract of land in Rockbridge County in 1774, his next trip will be in 1781, when after his tenure as wartime governor of Virginia, Jefferson and his family withdraw to Poplar Forest to escape vengeful British dragoons. Thereafter, he will visit the Natural Bridge, during his retirement, in the years 1815, 1817, and 1821.

The infrequency of Jefferson’s trips to the Natural Bridge throughout his life is no indication of lack of interest in the mirabile naturae. From his years as member of the Continental Congress, as governor of Virginia, as minister plenipotentiary to France, as secretary of state, as vice president, as two-term president of the United States, and finally father of the University of Virginia in the later years of his life, Thomas Jefferson moves from American patriot and revolutionist to high-ranking American politician and then to educationalist. Jefferson just has not the time to do all that he can do to protect the Natural Bridge from predation.

On August 14, 1817, Jefferson will take granddaughters Ellen Randolph and Cornelia Randolph to see the Natural Bridge. In his declining years, Thomas Jefferson is wont to travel to Bedford with certain of his granddaughters. Jefferson writes to daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph (31 Aug. 1817) of the two granddaughters’ habits of study on this trip to Bedford. “Ellen and Cornelia the severest students I have ever met with. they never leave their room but to come to meals. about twilight of the evening, we sally out with the owls & bats, and take our evening exercise on the terras.”

Both granddaughters are precocious.

Ellen Randolph (1796–1876) is the fourth child of Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., and Jefferson’s oldest daughter, Martha. Ellen is especially gifted and eager, and she takes readily to studying—languages especially. Jefferson has an especial fondness of Ellen, who reciprocates those feelings. She will marry Joseph Coolidge in 1825 and move to Boston.

Cornelia Randolph (1799–1871) is the next child after Ellen. She readily takes to painting and sculpture, and Thomas, upon his retirement, teaches her the rudiments of architecture, of which, she will prove to be a talented pupil. Cornelia will never marry. Upon the death of her grandfather, she will live with brother Thomas Jefferson Randolph, first at Tufton and then at Edgehill. She will, during her life, translate and act as editor of The Parlor Gardener: A Treatise on the House Culture of Ornamental Plants.

Of the trip, young Cornelia writes to sister Virginia J. Randolph Trist (17 Aug. 1817): “our trip was attended with disasters & accidents from the time we set off untill we return’d again.” Expecting an overcast and cool day, “it clear’d up the sun shone out & we had one of the hottest most disagreable days for traveling that could be.” Essaying to cross a wooden bridge, “one of the wheel horses broke through & sank up nearly half way in the hole we all got out as quick as we could & found that the bridge was entirely gone to decay & not only several of the logs but one of the sleepers had broken down & that we had been in great danger of going down carriage & horses & all.” The horses are unleashed and Bremo, “much skin’d & bruis’d,” is helped from his dire predicament. They walk up “a long tedious red hill & then pursued our journey in the carriage without any other accident over abominable roads,” and then they chance upon a savage man with gun, rested on his shoulder, in “a very wild looking part of the country.” Cornelia is relieved to find that the savage, to whose barbarous family they are introduced, is an acquaintance of her grandfather, who is paid by Jefferson to watch their carriage as they make their way to the bridge.

To sister Virginia J. Randolph Trist (30 Aug. 1817), Cornelia speaks of awe not just of the Natural Bridge, but of the natural beauty as they pass through the Blue Ridge Mountains. “The air [is] the most charming that I ever felt … & the streams the most clear & rapid & the prospect which we saw here & there through the openings of the trees the finest I ever saw.” They pass through a gap.

when we had gone a mile or two grandpapa call’d to us to look back & I never was more supris’d than to see the mountain we had cross’d so long that it seem’d from that distance to extend at least half way round the horizon, in one continu’d & unbroken ridge, the next day tho’ we saw one still longer, the mountains here are of entirely a different shape from those in Albemarle they are not round & regular as ours are but some are these long ones & others are shap’d like sugar loaves, one that we saw the sides seem’d quite as perpendicular as those of a sugar loaf, I suppose it must be impossible to climb up it.

It is worth noting that Thomas Jefferson is 74 years of age at the time.

Ellen W. Randolph, in a letter to her mother (18 Aug. 1817), has a similar, gloomy depiction of the trip. She describes the trip as “a complete chapter of accidents.” She begins by catching a cold that is not severe enough to confine her to a room, but severe enough “to keep me constantly restless uneasy and nervous.” Yet Ellen adds: “I cannot however regret my trip for the wonder and delight I experienced at the sight of the bridge, (which surely deserves the name of the “most sublime of Nature’s works”) which was greater than I can describe.” She is also taken by Limestone Cave near the mirabile. “the limestone cavern near it was also a great curiosity for us, it is a cave in the solid lime stone rock divided into accessible apartments by a curtain of stone. there is a passage large enough to admit the body of a man on all fours which probably communicates with other apartments never explored. the earth in it is so impregnated with salt pitre that a pound has been got from a bushel of dirt.”

Ellen then adds in a manner that shows complete uptake of her grandfather’s empiricist frame of mind—viz., that of disciplining oneself to frame conclusions in proportion to the evidence on behalf of them.

The manners and character of the people are so different from anything we are accustomed to and the scenery of the country so wild and picturesque, that we almost fancied ourselves in a new world. there is in the men a stern independence and a contempt for forms and appearances, in the women a bustling activity that we do not meet with lower down the country, that is, if it is fair to draw general conclusions from particular instances and if in a tour of three days it was possible to make any observations which can apply to more than the few individuals who came under our notice—

Thomas Jefferson’s final trip to the Natural Bridge will be in 1821. Nearing 80 years of age, he writes to Bernard Peyton (3 Nov. 1821), “I am this moment setting out for Bedford and the Natural Bridge to be here again on the 22^d.” The motivation for the journey, long delayed, is to “have my lines there ascertained.” He plans to stay at Greenlee’s Tavern. Yet that is another story for another day….

Enjoy the video below….

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M. Andrew Holowchak

M. Andrew Holowchak, Ph.D., is a professor of philosophy and history, who taught at institutions such as University of Pittsburgh, University of Michigan, and Rutgers University, Camden. He is author/editor of over 70 books and over 325 published essays on topics such as ethics, ancient philosophy, science, psychoanalysis, and critical thinking. His current research is on Thomas Jefferson—he is acknowledged by many scholars to be the world’s foremost authority—and has published over 230 essays and 28 books on Jefferson. He also has numerous videos and two biweekly series with Donna Vitak, titled “One Work, Five Questions” and "The Real Thomas Jefferson," on Jefferson on YouTube. He can be reached at [email protected]

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