This cemetery was started in fruition of an agreement between Thomas Jefferson and Dabney Carr, who were friends and school mates in Jefferson's younger years. They agreed in their youth, that they would be buried under a large oak tree that stood on the grounds of Monticello. Carr married Jefferson's sister and died in 1773. His was the first grave on the site, which Jefferson laid out as a family cemetery. President Thomas Jefferson was buried here in 1826. The present monument on the site wasn't the original designed by Jefferson, rather it was erected by the United States in 1883. Its base covers the graves of Jefferson, his wife, his two daughters and of Governor Thomas Mann Randolph, his son-in-law. The graveyard remains on the Monticello property and has continued to be a family burial ground.