George Washington

It was not as a commander like Washington, nor a fiery orator like Patrick Henry, that he gained his chief title to fame — it was as the draftsman of state papers and legislative bills and legal statutes.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. xii (Easton Press, 1993)

[Peter Jefferson] drew no more major boundary lines, but he was county surveyor in Goochland that year; he was again a magistrate of Albemarle by the following spring, and a couple of years after that he became county surveyor there in succession to Joshua Fry, who had just died at Fort Cumberland while commanding the Virginia forces on the frontier. George Washington was his lieutenant. Fry has been credited with being the chief constructive influence in the life of Peter Jefferson, and not improperly. His good will continued to manifest itself after he was dead. He named his associate an executor of his will, left him the surveying instruments which they had used together, and in effect bequeathed him his major public offices.

• Jefferson the Virginian
  • p. 26 (Easton Press, 1993)