Vice President

John Adams

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, diplomat, second President; 1735—1826.

Aaron Burr

Continental Army officer, lawyer, politician, Vice President under Thomas Jefferson; killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel; 1756—1836.

George Clinton

Soldier, politician, New York governor, vice president under Jefferson and Madison; 1739—1812.

Elbridge Gerry

Signer of the Declaration of Independence, vice president under Madison; 1744—1814.

Thomas Jefferson

Lawyer, architect, drafter of the Declaration of Independence, Virginia governor, diplomat, third President, founder of the University of Virginia; 1743—1826.

Visitors to Monticello often wonder at its practical accessories. Jefferson labored a month to save a minute. His home was impractical from the start — by reason of its very site (on a mountain), by the height given the first version of the building (later disguised in a way that left useless spaces in and around its dome), by the perpetual course of its dismantling and reassembly. To make the house more convenient, he made his daughter and her children live for years in a chaos of artistic second thoughts, sometimes sheltered only by canvas as the roof rose, fell, and assumed new shapes in his mind.

— Garry Wills

Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1978)