Jefferson, the revolutionary of many parts--author of the Declaration of Independence; third President of' the U.S.; first eminent American paleontologist; lexicographer of Indian dialects; designer of his own dumb-waiter, duplicate writing machine, revolving chair and weather vane; architect; purchaser of Louisiana--was also a musician. In fact some historians consider him to have been, with possibly one rival for the title, America's first great amateur violinist. The rival was John Randolph, before he turned Royalist and abandoned his native land.
Throughout most of his life Jefferson prized the violin above all his other hobbies, practicing it daily. The biographer James Parton writes that he engaged in three hours of study a day for 12 years. When traveling on diplomatic missions he often carried a small, compact violin of a type widely used by dancing masters of the period. According to the catalog which is now a permanent exhibit of the Congressional Library, Jefferson's library included 11 ponderous works on music. He never tired of suggesting practical improvements for musical instruments. In a letter to Francis Hopkinson, the first great American composer, Jefferson urged him to develop an upper and lower octave for the sticcado, a dulcimer with only three octaves which another friend of Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, was fond of playing.
When Jefferson fell in love with the attractive widow Martha Skelton he wooed her with music. The approach proved irresistible, for Mrs. Skelton was a harpsichord player herself. To the distress of other contenders for her hand Jefferson was able to play string duets with her. After a series of these they became engaged. Together they continued their studies with an Italian teacher named Alberti. Music remained a special bond between them, helping to make their marriage one of the happiest in Virginia.
The first violin Jefferson owned, the one on which he played a jig for Patrick Henry, was probably of cheap make. It may also have been the violin that was nearly destroyed when his house took fire in 1770. The accident occurred in his absence. A Negro slave knowing his master's fondness for the instrument, snatched it from the flames at considerable risk to himself. In any case, the rescued violin could not have been the far costlier, rarer one which once belonged to John Randolph and figured in a fantastic contract between the two men.
Randolph was a notorious turncoat, backing the British when the issue of the American Revolution was joined. But until this came between them Jefferson and Randolph were warm friends and musical associates. Randolph had acquired his fiddle in Italy when he was King George III's attorney general. It was a Cremona made by Nicholaus Amati in 1660. The workmanship was masterly. It had the brilliant amber varnish for which the maker was noted. Fingerboard, tailpiece and chin rest were of ebony, the string pegs of ivory, the back of curly maple and the top of spruce. Jefferson could not conceal his envy of Randolph. So one day the two virtuosos drew up a contract. Patrick Henry witnessed it and it was filed later in Williamsburg.
"It is agreed between John Randolph and Thomas Jefferson," the contract read, "that in case the said John shall survive the said Thomas, the executors of the said Thomas shall deliver to the said John 80 pounds sterling of the books of the said Thomas to be chosen by the said John; and in case the said Thomas should survive the said John the executors of the said John shall deliver to the said Thomas the violin the said John brought with him into Virginia, together with all his music composed for the violin.
As it happened, Jefferson acquired the Amati before Randolph's death. Whether Randolph wanted to make a gesture of friendship despite their estrangement or whether, as harsher historians have suggested, he needed cash for a quick getaway, he sold it for a paltry 13 pounds.
Jefferson played the Amati for the last time in 1786. In that year, while in France as a diplomatic agent, he fell and dislocated his right wrist. The bone was badly set, leaving the wrist permanently stiff.
Nothing further was heard about Tom Jefferson's fiddle for 113 years. Then one day in 1899 a cellist and dealer in rare violins, Albert Hildebrandt of Baltimore, gave a recital in Charlottesville. Next day, while being shaved by a Negro barber, he asked if there were any old violins for sale in the neighborhood. The barber directed him to another Negro, a man 93 years old who lived on the outskirts of the city. This man showed Hildebrandt what looked to be an Amati dated 1660 and explained that it had been bequeathed to his father, a slave, by his master, Thomas .Jefferson. Hildebrandt bought it on the spot for a handsome sum and took it home with him to Baltimore. Although there was room for doubt -- and there still is -- that the violin was Jefferson's own, Hildebrandt remained convinced that it was.
He displayed it in his shop window. Occasionally he lent it to concert soloists. But for years he refused to sell it, even though one customer offered him 750 acres of choice Kansas land in exchange for it.
Eventually Hildebrandt changed his mind. He let a Los Angeles dealer named Ralph Holmes have it. Holmes, in turn, sold it to William A. Clark Jr., son of the Montana senator, a wealthy Jeffersonian collector and a violinist himself. Clark had studied with a man also named Clark--Edwin H. Clark. Both Clarks were together when the purchase was made from the Holmes Music Company. In 1934, following William Clark's death, Edwin Clark inherited the instrument.
As news of this bequest reached Virginia, prominent Jeffersonians, notably the officers of the Jefferson Memorial Foundation, apparently believing, as did Hildebrandt, that the relic was authentic, made efforts to restore it to its early home in Monticello. But Clark wanted $35,000 for it, and the foundation had no such funds. In 1945 he died, leaving it to his widow.
The Jefferson fiddle was last publicly exhibited in Los Angeles during the Jefferson Bicentennial in 1943. It was in a perfect state of preservation. Its tone was still sweet and full, its carrying power still high. Jefferson himself would undoubtedly have approved the description on the plaque hanging over it: "Words cannot convey a just idea of the superlative merits of this king among violins."
