Ellen Wayles Randolph

Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge (October 1796 – April 21, 1876) was the granddaughter of Thomas Jefferson and daughter of Martha Jefferson Randolph and Thomas Mann Randolph. Coolidge had a close relationship with Jefferson, serving as an assistant until her marriage. Early years Born in October 1796, Ellen (Eleonora) Wayles Randolph was the daughter of Thomas Mann Randolph and Martha Jefferson Randolph. Coolidge was a well-educated woman, proficient in languages. She learned Latin, French, and other modern languages. Martha, a very well-educated woman for the time, taught her children. While some of the children struggled with their studies, by four years of age, Coolidge was deemed "wonderfully apt" by her mother. In November 1802, during Jefferson's first term as president, she traveled with her brother Jeff and her mother to Washington, D.C. for a six-week visit at the President's House (now called the White House). Martha left her older and younger children at Monticello. Coolidge frequently wrote to the president about her studies, what books she had been reading, and her poultry and gardening. Coolidge and her siblings had an "idyllic rural life", playing outdoors on the plantation's vast lawn, acquiring a good education, and enjoying civility at Monticello. In 1825, Coolidge commissioned her friend Jane Braddick Peticolas to capture a scene of her brother playing on the lawn as he is watched by two sisters. Relationship with her grandfather Thomas Jefferson, Coolidge's grandfather, returned to Monticello after he completed his terms as president. Martha Jefferson Randolph and her children also lived at Monticello at that time. She was close to her maternal grandfather who took her on trips to Poplar Forest. He also paid for her travel to Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., and Richmond. She was so close to Jefferson, acting as his assistant and as his agent when traveling, that it was thought she might not marry.