The 2024 summer speaker series “The First Three: From Washington to Jefferson” will continue at 5 p.m. Thursday, August 15, at Historic Christ Church & Museum (HCC&M), 420 Christ Church Road, Weems. Historian Susan Kern will present “The Jeffersons at Shadwell.”
In this perspective that recasts Virginia’s “frontier” history and Thomas Jefferson’s early years, Kern uses material culture to explore the social history of Shadwell, the late colonial plantation that was home to Jane and Peter Jefferson, their eight children, including Thomas, and an enslaved workforce of about 60 African-Americans, reported HCC&M executive director Robert Teagle.
Kern’s excavations at Shadwell reveal new ways to understand how powerful families maintained social, business and family connections across Virginia, from the Virginia-North Carolina line to the Northern Neck. Her work also uncovers…
