| Birth: | May 20, 1746
Gloucester County
Virginia, USA | | Death: | Aug. 5, 1806
Richmond
Richmond City
Virginia, USA | 
Folk Figure. The child of a well-connected family who married a prominent man and became the mother-in-law of Chief Justice John Marshall, today she is chiefly known as the object of Thomas Jefferson's first adolescent crush. Born to wealth and position but orphaned at 10, she was raised in Yorktown at the home of her aunt and uncle, Elizabeth and William Nelson. Rebecca was the sister of one of Jefferson's classmates at the College of William and Mary; just when and where Jefferson first noticed her is unclear, though it may have been as early as 1760 and they would certainly have attended many of the same social functions. By the fall of 1762 the future statesman was thoroughly smitten but the problem was he failed to communicate his feelings to Rebecca. Though there is some question as to how much genuine interest the devoutly religious girl could have had in the famously unorthodox Jefferson, at some point in 1762 Rebecca gave him a silhouette of herself which he carried in his watch case until it was ruined when the watch got wet. Jefferson wrote of his longing for Rebecca to his friends using a code of Greek and Latin anagrams but was unable to summon the courage to ask her for a replacement silhouette and made little or no effort to see her. On October 6, 1763, after an evening of dancing at the Apollo Room, Jefferson made a clumsy marriage proposal which Rebecca rejected. He soon gave one more try during which he, as one author put it, poured out his love "with all the passion of a legal brief". While Jefferson is today considered eloquent and articulate because of his writings, in person such was far from the case; that final conversation apparently ended his advances, if not his infatuation. Rebecca's 1764 engagement to Jaquelin (Jack) Ambler triggered the first bout of Jefferson's famous headaches, episodes which occurred over the years during periods of stress and didn't end until his retirement from the White House. Jack Ambler had a distinguished career in Virginia politics, ironically serving on the Governor's Council during Jefferson's terms. Rebecca lived out her days in Richmond, her final years somewhat clouded by the same familial disposition to psychiatric problems that essentially ruined her daughter Polly Marshall's last decades. Various aspects of the misfired love of Tom and Rebecca are told in each of the many Jefferson biographies, with a full treatment given in Jon Kukla's 2007 "Mr. Jefferson's Women". (bio by: Bob Hufford)
Family links:
Spouse:
Jaquelin Ambler (1742 - 1798)
Children:
Mary Willis Ambler Marshall (1766 - 1831)*
Annie Ambler Fisher (1772 - 1832)*
*Calculated relationship
Search Amazon for Rebecca Ambler | | | Burial:
Saint Johns Episcopal Churchyard
Richmond
Richmond City
Virginia, USA |
Maintained by: Find A Grave
Originally Created by: Bob Hufford
Record added: Nov 09, 2008
Find A Grave Memorial# 31242838 |
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