A newly discovered letter by Thomas Jefferson shows ‘a regular guy with financial burdens’

The note, valued at $40,000, is for sale in honor of Fourth of July, also the 198th anniversary of the president's death

He came from one of America's wealthiest landowning families, and was ranked the fourth richest US president in a recent study. But Thomas Jefferson, the nation's third president, harbored a secret during his time in the White House: he was almost constantly in penury, and struggled to pay his food bills, servants and other household expenses.

The revelation comes in a previously unpublished letter that Jefferson, who was president from 1801 to 1809, wrote to a friend who acted as his financial agent in October 1802.