Jefferson’s European Education

In 1788, while serving as an American diplomat in Paris, Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) spent two weeks on the road for an unofficial private journey along the Rhine. In my article, Germany’s Route 66: A Road Trip on Bundesstraße 3, I wrote how parts of that modern road make it possible to follow Jefferson’s trail today. Of course, in Jefferson’s time the route took him across a patchwork of German duchies, principalities, and kingdoms rather than what is now united Germany. Travel at that time was far more arduous than it is today, but it’s still a bit of an adventure to retrace Jefferson’s German path today. You would not be the first person to have the idea of following in Jefferson’s footsteps, but it’s a wonderful way to discover Germany and experience a bit of US history at the same time.

Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States, in his official presidential portrait by Rembrandt Peale (1778-1860). PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Jefferson’s contacts with German-speakers began before he went to Europe. The American Founding Father, diplomat, lawyer, architect, and philosopher served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. During his long career and lifetime, Jefferson had various encounters with Hessians, Prussians, and other Germanic people. These encounters happened first in the New World and later in Europe.

Jefferson Before Europe

The principal author of the Declaration of Independence grew up and was educated in Virginia. Before Jefferson traveled to Europe in 1784 to serve as a diplomat for the newly created nation, Jefferson had never ventured south of his home state, or more than 50 miles west of his Monticello residence. He had ventured north as far as Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, and had seen much of America’s East Coast. But the man who later oversaw the Louisiana Purchase that greatly expanded the country, never saw that territory. In fact one reason Jefferson met with the Prussian adventurer and scientist Alexander von Humboldt, when he visited the United States in spring 1804, following a five-year expedition in Latin America, was to pump Humboldt for information regarding the Louisiana territory and related political events.

Over the next two decades Jefferson and Humboldt corresponded via transatlantic mail until shortly before Jefferson’s death in 1826. The two men had a love of France and the French language in common. They discussed current events and informed each other about their respective works. For Jefferson their correspondence allowed him to maintain contact with Europe in general, and France and Paris in particular. The Prussian Humboldt, like Jefferson, was a devoted Francophile who greatly preferred Paris over Berlin. Humboldt spent much of his life residing in the French capital, only moving back to Berlin after the king commanded it.

As a legislator and later the governor of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson encountered various Prussians and Hessians in Virginia and America. Here are a couple of examples:

• Baron von Steuben | Jefferson had some mixed dealings with the Prussian Major General Baron Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben (1730-1794). Von Steuben is legendary for his services with the Continental Army, teaching George Washington’s army essential military tactics and discipline. He was also also instrumental in the founding of West Point. During the general’s stay in Virginia, several clashes arose between von Steuben and the state’s governor Jefferson. According to author Paul Lockhart (The Drillmaster of Valley Forge, 2008), the “heated exchange between Steuben and Jefferson, jarring as it was, had no lasting significance. Whatever his faults as a war leader, Jefferson was still a great man, and did not take Steuben’s fulminations personally.”
• Hessian Prisoners of War | In 1779 Jefferson befriended Hessian prisoners of war in Virginia, including Major General Friedrich von Riedesel (Friedrich Adolf Riedesel Freiherr zu Eisenbach) and Baron von Geismar (Friedrich Caspar von Geismar), whom Jefferson helped to obtain early release so that Geismar could return home to Hesse-Hanau to see his aging father. The German troops (rented out by a ruler as auxiliaries under German command, not “mercenaries”) were not all Hessian, but they got that name because about 65 percent of them came from the German states of Hesse-Hanau and Hesse-Cassel, now part of the modern German federal state of Hesse (Hessen in German). The Hessians had no great fervor for the British cause, and were fairly well treated as POWs in America. In 1777 British general John Burgoyne’s 6,000 British and Hessian forces suffered defeat at the hands of the American General Horatio Gates at Saratoga, New York. First detained in Boston, the POWs (now numbering only about 4,000 men) were sent south after a year to an area near Charlottesville, Virginia, where they arrived after a long, cold march in a bitterly cold winter. Many would later settle in the New World.As a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, Jefferson took an interest in the Hessians, seeing opportunities in their arrival. As was the custom at the time, detained officers were allowed to rent private homes near the cabins where the troops were living. Jefferson helped find private houses for the British and Hessian officers to rent. The prisoners of war also purchased food and supplies from local residents, and contributed to the local economy in other ways. Jefferson’s friendship with Geismar was long-lasting, leading to correspondence between the two, and a meeting in Hesse-Hanau during Jefferson’s 1788 Rhineland trip.

Monticello as it appears today. The design was greatly influenced by Thomas Jefferson’s time in Europe. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Jefferson In Europe

When Jefferson crossed the Atlantic for his assignment as a diplomat in France, the journey entailed a three-week voyage on a sailing vessel that depended on wind and sea currents. Once in Europe, the Virginia native soon became much more well-traveled. In addition to his official duties and travels in France, for business or pleasure Thomas Jefferson also visited England, northern Italy, the Netherlands, and the Rhineland region from Kleves (Cleves) in the north to Kehl and Strasbourg in the south (see map below). In Europe he traveled by horse-drawn coach, on foot, by boat, and sometimes on the back of an animal.

When Jefferson arrived in Paris in 1784, it was the largest city he had ever seen. Its 600,000 inhabitants and vast expanse covered with interesting architecture far exceeded any city in North America. At the same time, Philadelphia, the capital and largest city in the United States, only had a population of about 40,000, just 1/15th of Paris. He later traveled with John Adams on a diplomatic trip to London, a city even larger than Paris. But wherever he went, he bought books. Lots of books. His library at Monticello was the largest and best in America for many years. After the Library of Congress was burned down by the British in 1814, Jefferson agreed to sell his personal library at a bargain price to replace it. The destroyed LOC had 3,000 volumes. Jefferson’s collection was more than twice that size.

Jefferson used what then passed for travel guides written in English or French. Unfortunately, he could not use the first of Karl Baedecker’s detailed red travel guides. Rheinreise (“Journey along the Rhine”) was not published until 1838, 12 years after Jefferson’s death, and it was in German. Baedecker’s English edition of The Rhine, which would have been ideal for the American polymath, did not appear until 1861. Following his Rhine excursion, in June 1788, Jefferson wrote his own brief travel guide entitled “Hints to Americans Travelling in Europe.” (See a link to it below.)

The Prussian King Frederick the Great in a 1781 portrait by Anton Graff. The original is on display at Sanssouci. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

Germany?
We can’t really say that Jefferson visited Germany in 1788, for the simple reason that there was no Germany until 1871. When the United States first established direct diplomatic relations with “Germany,” it was with the Kingdom of Prussia and its royal court headed by Frederick II (Frederick the Great, Friedrich der Große in German) in Berlin and Potsdam. Jefferson’s friend and colleague John Adams was later posted in Berlin as the very first US ambassador to Prussia from December 1797 to May 1801. But even at that time, much of what we call Germany today was still a patchwork of small states ruled by various dukes, princes or kings.

However, Jefferson’s itinerary only took him, at most, along the western edges of Prussia. He never came close to Berlin. Nor did he ever set foot in Bavaria (then a kingdom at times under the control of Prussia, Austria or France). It was not until 1805 that Bavaria had the borders it more or less has now. Jefferson’s travels followed the banks of the Rhine river upstream to Kehl and Strasbourg, where he turned westward across France to make his way back to Paris. We’ll sketch out his actual path along the Rhine below.

Jefferson’s Foreign Languages
Although Thomas Jefferson was a well-educated man who could converse in three languages other than English (French, Italian, and Latin), he never learned German, despite some indications he may have tried to do so. Thus, all of his interactions with German-speakers were in English, French, or occasionally even in Latin. This meant that during his travels through the Rhineland he often experienced poor communication and misunderstandings. Had he spoken German and been able to read German literature (Goethe, Schiller) and philosophy (Leibniz, Kant), he might have better understood the culture and the history. (He also had a reading knowledge of Greek and Spanish, neither of much use in Germany.) Jefferson’s infamous complaint about German coachmen being “stubborn and obstinate” probably had more to do with his lack of German skills than the coachmen – who probably could not understand a word of what he was trying to say.

Jefferson was a compulsive note-taker and a keen observer of his surroundings while traveling. In Europe, when he wasn’t working in a diplomatic capacity, he had one main thing on his mind wherever he went: the design of his Monticello expansion project. The architecture, the gardens, the landscaping. This also explains why he almost totally ignored Gothic cathedrals in his copious notes, preferring to remark about more modern classic styles that he could adapt to his Virginia home.

He was also impressed by the layout or plan of some of the German cities he visited. Karlsruhe and Mannheim, with their grid designs, particularly interested him. He even shared Karlsruhe’s fan-shaped layout, with all the main streets radiating from the baroque palace, with the French architect and city planner Pierre L’Enfant. Later, in 1791, as his new nation was designing its new capital city, L’Enfant used that design as a model for Washington, DC.

Jefferson in Paris

Jefferson was stationed in Paris as US Minister from 1784 to 1789. When he left France to return to the United States, he was planning to return before long. What he did not know was that the new President Washington would appoint him as the US Secretary of State, preventing any return to Europe, and altering his life and career forever. The French Revolution broke out while Jefferson was still in Paris. It was still raging when he left France. He sympathized with the revolution, but objected to the ensuing violence.

• 1784 | Jefferson arrived in Paris in August 1784 to serve as a special minister to France under the Congress of the Confederation. He joined Benjamin Franklin and John Adams (the father of John Quincy Adams) in Paris with the imposing title of “Minister Plenipotentiary for Negotiating Treaties of Amity and Commerce with Great Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, Hamburg, Saxony…” and more than a dozen other nations. The recently widowed diplomat was accompanied by his young daughter Patsy and two enslaved servants. Less than a year later he received a new title: Minister (ambassador) to France, succeeding Benjamin Franklin.
• 1785-1789 | Jefferson served in Paris as the US envoy to France until September 1789, when he reluctantly returned to the newly created United States of America. During his years in Paris, Jefferson traveled in France, and paid visits to London, northern Italy, the Netherlands, and the Rhineland region of what is today Germany.
• 1785 | In Paris, Jefferson, along with Ben Franklin and John Adams, negotiated the Treaty of Amity and Commerce between the Kingdom of Prussia and the United States of America, at the behest George Washington and the Prussian King Frederick the Great in September 1785. Paris-based Jefferson worked with Count Karl-Wilhelm Finck von Finckenstein, the Prussian Prime Minister, and the king’s representative, Friedrich Wilhelm von Thulemeyer, to negotiate the first treaty between the United States and a foreign country after the Revolutionary War. The completed document was signed by Franklin at Passy, by Jefferson at Paris, by Adams in London, and finally by Thulemeyer at The Hague. The treaty was officially ratified by Prussia on 25 September 1785, and by the U.S. Congress on 17 May 1786.* (A delay in the arrival of the signed treaty in the US led to the late American ratification.) Another first: Thanks to Benjamin Franklin, this was the first treaty ever to include a provision for the humane treatment of prisoners of war during wartime. The treaty was renewed in 1799 following negotiations conducted by John Adams, then posted in Berlin as the very first US ambassador to Prussia (from December 1797 to May 1801).
  

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  *The official copies of the Prussian-American treaty were in English and French, not German. French was at this time the international diplomatic language, which most diplomats of the day could speak, read, and write. As an educated man of the time, Frederick the Great (Friedrich der Große) himself could speak and write French, although it was not without errors. But Frederick spoke his native German, by his own admission, “like a coachman” (comme un cocher). A quotation often misattributed to the king, that he spoke “Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men, and German to his horse,” may have been uttered by the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V (1500-1558), or not. But Frederick did indeed favor French over German at his Prussian court, and he generally favored French authors and French literature over German.

• 1789 | On 27 April the French Revolution began with riots by workers in Paris, while Jefferson was still stationed in Paris, only months before his planned return to America. King Louis XVI had called the Estates-General to meet, hoping it would approve additional taxes, but anti-monarchy sentiment increased, finally reaching the point when the citizens of Paris stormed the Bastille, a royal prison, on July 14. Jefferson was still in Paris at that time, and he consulted with the Marquis de Lafayette, the French hero of the American Revolutionary War. The last gasp of the revolution did not come until a new constitution was adopted in autumn of 1795, but Napoleon Bonaparte would wage war on into 1799. The traditional official date for end of the French Revolution is 24 December 1799, with the adoption of the Constitution of the Year VIII under Bonaparte.

Jefferson’s Rhine journey began in Cleves (YELLOW STAR) and ended in Kehl/Strasbourg (RED SQUARE). MAP: Based on a map at monticello.org

The Rhineland Tour

Jefferson had recently completed negotiations in Amsterdam before privately embarking on his Rhineland tour. The following highlights from Jefferson’s travel itinerary are a sample of the many cities, towns, and castles that the American diplomat visited during his two-week private side trip while he returned from Amsterdam to Paris via the Rhine river. He entered German-speaking territory on 2 April 1788.

Spelling Notes: In the original text, Jefferson uses 18th century spellings and capitalization. As a Francophone, he also uses the French version of German place names (Spire for Speyer [also Spires in English], Mayence for Mainz, Francfort-sur-le-Main for Frankfurt am Main, etc.) as well as for the names of people (Baron de Geismar for Baron von Geismar). We have modernized the spelling in most cases to make it easier to read. If you want to see the original versions, see the “Sources” links below.

SOURCES: Notes of a Tour through Holland and the Rhine Valley, 3 March–23 April 1788 and “Hints to Americans Travelling in Europe” – 19 June 1788

• Cleve (2 April 1788) | Jefferson entered German-speaking territory when he crossed the Rhine from the Netherlands at Cleve (Kleve), making his way south along the Rhine to Duisburg and Düsseldorf. For some destinations below we indicate Thomas Jefferson’s (TJ) written notes.
• Duisburg and Düsseldorf (3 April) | TJ: “Duysberg [Duisburg] is but a village, in fact, walled in; the buildings mostly of brick. No new ones which indicate a thriving state. I had understood that near that were remains of the encampment of [the Roman general] Varus, in which he and his legions fell by the arms of Arminius [Hermann der Cherusker] (in the time of Tiberius I think it was) but there was not a person to be found in Duisburg who could understand either English, French, Italian or Latin. So I could make no enquiry.”
• Cologne (4 April) | TJ: “Cologne is a sovereign city, having no territory out of its walls. It contains about 60,000 inhabitants; appears to have much commerce, and to abound with poor.”
• Bonn, Andernach, Koblenz (5 April) | After experiencing the bad roads between Bonn and Frankfurt, Jefferson was happy to pay the turnpike tolls on the better maintained, more comfortable roads south of Frankfurt.
• Nassau (5 April) | TJ: “Nassau is a village the whole rents of which should not amount to more than a hundred or two guineas, yet it gives the title of Prince to the House of Orange to which it belongs.” – NOTE: The town of Nassau (now in Rhineland-Palatinate) gave its name to the prominent royal House of Nassau and directly or indirectly to numerous geographical entities, including a sovereign state, the Duchy of Nassau, the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, the historical and geographical region Nassau in Germany, as well as Nassau County, New York in the US, and the capital city of Nassau in the Bahamas.
• Schwelbach (6 April) | TJ: “The road from Nassau to Schwelbach is over hills, or rather mountains, both high and steep; always poor, and above half of them barren in beech and oak. At Schwelbach there is some chestnut. The other parts are either in winter grain, or preparing for that of the Spring. Between Schwelbach and Wiesbaden we come in sight of the plains of the Rhine, which are very extensive.”
• Frankfurt am Main (7-10 April) | Jefferson stayed at the Red House Inn (zum Rothen Haus). TJ: “The son of the tavern keeper speaks English and French, has resided some time in London, is sensible and obliging.” In a letter to his personal secretary William Short from Frankfurt, dated 9 April, Jefferson wrote: “My old friend the Baron de Geismar met me here, on a letter I had written him from Amsterdam, and has been my Cicerone [tour guide]. It happens to be the moment of the fair of Frankfurt which is very great. Yesterday we made an excursion up the Main to Hanau*, passing the ground where the battle of Bergen was fought in the war before last. Tomorrow we shall go to the vineyards of Hochheim, and perhaps to Rüdesheim and Johannesberg, where the most celebrated wines are made. Then I shall pass on to Mayence [Mainz], Worms, Mannheim, Heidelberg and Speyer, and from this last place to Strasbourg.”*The town of Hanau, not far from Frankfurt, is known for being the birthplace of Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm. It was one of the largest garrisons of the U.S. Army in Europe after WWII. At its peak during the Cold War, the American military community had a population of 45,000 including US civilians and family members. The base closed in 2018.

The formal gardens at Schwetzingen in the French style that Jefferson did not care for. PHOTO: Achim Mende, schloss-schwetzingen.de

• Schwetzingen (9 April) | TJ: “The gardens at Schwetzingen show how much money may be laid out to make an ugly thing. What is called the English quarter however relieves the eye from the straight rows of trees, round and square basins which constitute the great mass of the garden. There are some tolerable morsels of Grecian architecture, and a good ruin.” – Jefferson was not a fan of the French-style formal garden. He preferred the more natural English gardens. He was a big fan of ruins, whether real or artificial.
• Hochheim am Main (10-11 April) | Jefferson, a confirmed vinophile, made many observations concerning Rhine and other wines. TJ: “Though they begin to make wine, as has been said, at Cologne, and continue it up the river indefinitely, yet it is only from Rüdesheim to Hochheim, that wines of the very first quality are made. The river happens there to run due east and west, so as to give to its hills on that side a southern aspect, and even in this canton, it is only Hochheim, Johannesberg, and Rüdesheim that are considered as of the very first quality.” A sign in a Hochheim vineyard commemorates Thomas Jefferson’s visit here, noting that he “drank the oldest wine, a Hochheimer from 1726.” Jefferson also bought 100 grapevines in Hochheim for his garden in Paris.

This present day view of vineyards in Hochheim in the Rheingau is not very different from what Jefferson saw during his visit in 1788. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

• Mainz (12 April) | TJ: “We cross the Rhine at Mayence [Mainz] on a bridge 1,840 feet long, supported by 47 boats. It is not in a direct line, but curved up against the stream, which may strengthen it.”
• Worms, Mannheim (13-14 April) | Jefferson found Mannheim’s grid plan interesting, but he was more impressed with Karlsruhe (below). He celebrated his 45th birthday on 13 April in Mannheim.
• Heidelberg (14 April) | TJ: “The chateau is the most imposing ruin of modern ages. Its situation is the most romantic and the most delightful possible. I should have been glad to have passed days at it.” Jefferson also admired (and measured) the gigantic wine vat (Großes Fass), or “the famous ton of Heidelberg” (tun, vat or barrel) in Jefferson’s words. It was in fact the fourth barrel, the first dating from 1591, the last being constructed in 1751. Each succeeding vat was larger than the previous one. The 1751 vat Jefferson saw is still there today, having only been filled with wine three times, as it was prone to leaking. Due to the drying of the wood the vat’s current capacity is 219,000 liters (57,854 U.S. gallons).
• Karlsruhe (15 April) | Karlsruhe was a relatively new planned city. First laid out on the eastern side of the Rhine in 1715 by Karl Wilhelm, the Margrave of Baden-Durlach. The central design with streets radiating out from the palace in a fan shape remains largely intact today. (See the photo below.) Jefferson made sketches of the design that he later passed on to Pierre L’Enfant, one of the designers of Washington, DC.

Jefferson was impressed by the fan-like layout of Karlsruhe, so much so that he sent a copy of the street design to Pierre L’Enfant as a model for the design of Washington, DC. Whether it was actually incorporated into the city’s design is debatable. PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons

• Kehl, Strasbourg (16 April) | TJ: “At Strasbourg we pass the Rhine on a wooden bridge.” From Kehl over the river to Strasbourg in Alsace, today’s Europa Bridge.
• Strasbourg (16-18 April) | Jefferson marveled over the city’s Gothic cathedral (“the highest and handsomest in the world”), but the bibliophile was even more impressed by Amand Koenig’s bookstore in Strasbourg. Although it stood near the cathedral, Jefferson gushed more about Koenig’s, describing it as “the best shop of classical books I ever saw.” Even after returning to Paris, Jefferson continued to be one of the bookshop’s best customers. Alas, Koenig’s is now long gone, but the cathedral endures.

I hope you have enjoyed our look at Jefferson’s German connections, his Rhineland visit, and the comments he recorded for posterity. I’m exhausted by just reading about it all, and impressed by Jefferson’s stamina in an age when travel was far more stressful than it is today.

– HF