N the 23rd day of March, 1839, in a log house in Bloomfield, Nelson County, Kentucky, United States America, was born to Volney and Elizabeth Gore a son--Thomas Jefferson Gore.

      Volney and Elizabeth Gore were American by birth, but descendants of the earliest English settlers in Virginia, who it is believed were living in America before the arrival in 1620 of the 100 passengers in the "Mayflower." Little is known of the history of the very early members of this family. Volney Gore's grandfather was born in Ireland, but his grandmother (who was a Quakeress) and his father and mother were all born in Virginia. Johnathan and Peggy Gore (his father and mother) were married at an early age, and in company with Nicholas and Elizabeth Minor and Benjamin and Chloe Stone went away, into the forest and made homes for themselves in that beautiful open country. Fourteen children were born to Johnathan and Peggy Gore, Volney being the thirteenth. Their grandchildren totalled 87.

      Elizabeth Stone Gore was the daughter of Thomas and Fanny Minor Stone, and granddaughter of both Benjamin and Chloe Stone and Nicholas and Elizabeth Minor. She was the eldest of a family of eight.

      To these three pioneer families were born 32 children and grandchildren 167.

      Volney Gore became a farmer, and after marrying Elizabeth Stone settled on a farm in Bloomfield, [9] Kentucky. There were four children of this union--Minor (now living in Bloomfield), Annie (who died when young), Thomas Jefferson and Fannie (now Mrs. Joe Burnett of New London, United States America). Volney Gore was a good man and greatly admired for his honesty and integrity. He was a man who was always willing to help anybody in need. He believed in paying twenty shillings in the pound and defrauding no man. This was his religion, and he lived up to it. He was absolutely honest and straightforward in the small every-day things of life, and when in the wrong was always ready to acknowledge it. One morning he discovered that a saddle had been left outside all night. He questioned Minor and Jefferson concerning it, but they denied knowing anything about it. Somehow he thought Minor guilty and punished him. Some days afterwards, to his own mortification, he found that he had left the saddle out himself. He was terribly upset to think that he had punished the boy for his own carelessness, and straightway found Minor and apologised to him and asked for his forgiveness. Volney Gore seldom went to church in those days, but he never kept his wife and children away. Years afterwards, when Thomas Jefferson was holding a mission in his own Home Town, it was his joy one night after preaching to see his father, during the invitation hymn, make his way to the front seat and confess his faith in Christ. That was a very happy time for both father and son.

      Elizabeth Stone Gore was a saintly woman. Her religion was a very real thing to her, and she lived the Christian life so wonderfully. She possessed a most unusually sweet disposition. She loved the church, and always on Sundays would drive into the town with the children and attend the services held there. She was always loving and gentle. Never did she speak harshly to her children. Her law was the law of love. One day Jefferson was sitting beside [10] her as she was spinning, and as she worked she sang her favourite hymn--

He looked up into her face--the face that seemed to him so like that of an angel--and he thought, Whatever would I do if mother died! She was the big thing in Thomas Jefferson's young life.

      Uncle Ben Stone lived with the family and taught in school, and it was to his school that the children went. One incident Thomas Jefferson never forgot. Although usually a good boy at school, one day he must have annoyed Uncle Ben, for he told him to get a switch, and when he returned with one gave him a little switching. This was a very unusual thing to happen to him; so just as soon as school was over he went home as fast as he could and told his mother all about it. She waited till her brother came home, and then told him that when her boy needed punishing she would attend to it herself. Thomas Jefferson knew how severe that punishment would be: she had never so much as spoken a cross word to him. The gold watch, which he brought to Australia and always used and which was admired by so many, had been a gift from Uncle Ben.

      The home in Bloomfield was the usual style of log house seen then. It was a two-story structure with an attic room right at the top. This was Jefferson's room. This little room at the top of the house had been the place where he had dreamed his dreams as a boy, and in after years when far away from home had held such happy memories always for him. Just near the back door was the old well where the boys drew the water to be used in the house. Further away was the barn where the boys mended the harness, and where the darkeys used to play their old banjos and sing in the summer evenings. The house was built [11] on the hill-side, and at the bottom of the hill there was a creek, and then just beyond that the beautiful Kentucky woods.

      Volney and Elizabeth Gore kept a number of slaves, but they were among the kind slave-owners, and the dark people were their friends rather than their servants. The children all played together. Thomas Jefferson always had a great admiration for the darkeys, and one of his earliest recollections was of a time when he was driving up to the town with his father and somehow or other he tumbled out of the cart and the wheels went over his foot. His father lifted him into the cart, and was rather troubled as to what to do with him, but Jefferson said, "Take me to Aunt Jemima's"; and what a fuss Aunt Jemima made of him, putting him to bed and waiting on him. Nothing was too much for her to do. She was a slave, but what unbounded pleasure she got out of doing something for one she loved! [12]

[TJG 9-12]