Background
Thomas Jefferson Page was born on January 4, 1808 in Rosewell, Virginia, United States. He was the eighth son of Mann and Elizabeth (Nelson) Page and grandson of Governor John Page and Governor Thomas Nelson of Virginia.
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Thomas Jefferson Page was born on January 4, 1808 in Rosewell, Virginia, United States. He was the eighth son of Mann and Elizabeth (Nelson) Page and grandson of Governor John Page and Governor Thomas Nelson of Virginia.
Thomas Jefferson Page was appointed midshipman on October 1, 1827, and joined the Erie in the West Indies. Then followed several years of coast survey work, 1833 - 1842, during which time he was promoted to lieutenant, 1837, and gained special favor with the director of the survey, Ferdinand Rudolph Hassler. After a cruise in the Columbus to the Mediterranean and Brazil, 1842 - 1844, he was attached to the Naval Observatory, and then in the Far East commanded the brig Dolphin, 1848-51. Here, in association with his friend R. B. Forbes, a Boston merchant, he realized the need of a surveying expedition in the China seas, for the benefit of commerce and whalers, and upon his return proposed it to the department. This expedition was organized, but enlarged to include the Bering Sea and North Pacific, and put under a senior officer, Commander Ringgold. Page was offered second in command but declined and was subsequently assigned to command another expedition, in the small side-wheel steamer Water Witch, to "survey and explore the river La Plata and its tributaries, " which had just been opened to commerce after the fall of the dictator Rosas in Argentina.
The Water Witch left Norfolk February 8, 1853, and after considerable delay at Buenos Aires, during treaty negotiations with the new government, sailed in September for the ascent of the Paran and Paraguay rivers. In the next two years the expedition covered 3600 miles of river navigation and 4400 miles of exploration ashore, accounts of which appear in the commander's report and in his book, La Plata: The Argentine Confederation and Paraguay (1859), which went to two editions and was translated into Spanish. Page appears to have conducted his work with great energy and with adequate diplomacy, though Lieut. (later Rear Admiral) Ammen, who was for a time under him, expresses the view that Page "was entirely a gentleman, but not well fitted to command such an expedition". Page had secured full privileges in their national waters from Brazil and Argentina, but had difficulties on this point with the dictator Lopez of Paraguay, especially after a quarrel between Lopez and an American trading company organized by the United States consul at Asuncion, Edward Augustus Hopkins, in which Page supported the consul.
By a decree of October 3, 1854, the Water Witch was excluded from Paraguayan waters, and on February 1, 1855, while under the temporary command of Lieutenant William N. Jeffers, she was fired upon from the Paraguayan fort Itapira while ascending the Paran. Page was greatly incensed, sought vainly for a demonstration from Commodore Salter of the Brazil Squadron, and on returning home in May 1856, called for an expedition to bring Paraguay to account for this action and alleged injuries to the trading company. President Buchanan took up the matter in his first message (1857), and a force of nineteen ships was dispatched under Commodore Shubrick with Page, now commander (1855), as fleet captain. A treaty with Paraguay was quickly arranged, and Page, relieved of fleet duties, resumed explorations from the spring of 1859 to the autumn of 1860, ascending the Paraguay to the head of navigation.
In the Civil War Page joined the Confederacy, was for over a year in command of batteries at Gloucester Point, York River, and was employed here and elsewhere in Virginia river defenses until March 1863, when he went to Europe to command one of the Confederate ironclads building there. After a year of seclusion in Florence, Italy, he was appointed in December 1864 to command the Stonewall, formerly the Sphynx, a powerful ironclad built in France for the Confederacy, then sold to Denmark, and by Denmark retransferred after the War of 1864. Page took her out of Copenhagen January 7, 1865, received officers and stores off Quiberon, and then put in at Corunna and later Ferrol. Here he was watched by the Niagara, Capt. Thomas Tingey Craven, and the Sacramento, but when the Stonewall steamed out on March 24, and challenged battle, Craven prudently refused to risk his wooden vessels. After stopping at Lisbon, March 26, the Stonewall crossed to Havana, where on news of the downfall of the Confederacy she was turned over to the Spanish authorities. After the war Page went to Argentina and spent some time on a cattle farm in Entre Rios, then superintended the construction of four Argentine ironclads in England, and about 1880 went to Florence. He died in Rome in his ninety-second year.
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Thomas Jefferson Page had a wife, Benjamina, daughter of Benjamin Price of Loudoun County, Virginia, whom he married in Washington in 1838. They had five sons and two daughters.