When Thomas Jefferson designed his own gravestone, he chose three accomplishments to carry — "and not a word more." Author of the Declaration of Independence. Author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Father of the University of Virginia. He left off the presidency entirely. Those were the three he wanted to be remembered by.

Jefferson was thirty-three when he drafted the Declaration in the summer of 1776, the youngest writer on the committee Congress had charged with explaining independence to the world. He went on to serve as minister to France, secretary of state, vice president, and two terms as the third President of the United States — and judged none of it worth engraving in stone. He died at Monticello on July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the document that opens this collection, within hours of his old rival John Adams. This portrait renders him in the American engraving tradition — the dignified register of the currency plate and the antiquarian woodcut — as the statesman, not the office-holder he declined to memorialize.

This piece is part of the America 250 collection — Iron Union Co.'s designs marking the 250th anniversary of American independence. It stands alongside the founder portrait of America 250 Washington, the heraldic eagle of 250 Years Of Freedom, and the Declaration's own opening words in When In The Course. Rendered cream on dark, with the 1776 — 2026 commemorative dates marking the quarter-millennium.

Our t-shirts are 100% combed and ring-spun cotton — substantial in the hand, classic fit, side-seamed with shoulder taping for shape retention. Built to last, made to wear in for years.