Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson. April 13, 1743. , Thomas Jefferson was born on April 13, 1743 in Shadwell, Virginia. He was a draftsman of the U.S. Declaration of Independence; the nation's first secretary of state (1789-94); second vice president (1797-1801); and as the third president (1801-09), the statesman responsible for the Louisiana Purchase., Jeffersonville, Indiana is the only city designed by Thomas Jefferson. The city first began as a minor fortification in 1786, and was part of a large land grant known as Clark's Grant, given to General George Rogers Clark and his soldiers as payment for their service in the Revolutionary War. In early June, 1801, the city became the Clark county seat in Indiana Territory., In 1802, local residents used a grid pattern designed by Thomas Jefferson to lay out the original streets of the city, and Indiana Territorial Governor William Henry Harrison named the new city after Jefferson., The town was formally organized in June of 1801 when Lt. Isaac Bowman, of Virginia, and recipient of tract No. 1 of Clark's Grant, donated a portion of his land to the city trustees for division into streets and lots., President Jefferson suggested a plan for the settlement calling for alternating squares to be left open for "trees and turf", to help clear the air of diseases such as yellow fever. The gridiron pattern remains evident in the city's layout to this day.