[2] Jefferson was married twice: at the age of 21 in 1850, to actress Margaret Clements Lockyer (1832–1861), who died young after bearing their four children.

[citation needed] In 1833, at the age of four years, Jefferson was carried on stage at the Washington theatre in a bag by an actor named Thomas D. Rice.

He put Jefferson alongside him in black face and dress with Rice performing his well-known character "Jim Crow" and little Joseph as Little Joe.

Both Jefferson and Burke performed continuously, and the entire family toured in what was then considered the American West and South.

[2] Jefferson learned to perform in a variety of space, for instance in the dining rooms of country hotels, without any stage or scenery.

[citation needed] Other early parts included Newman Noggs in Nicholas Nickleby, Caleb Plummer in Dot (an adaption of The Cricket on the Hearth), Dr. Pangloss in George Colman the Younger's The Heir at Law, Salem Scudder in The Octoroon, and Bob Acres in The Rivals.

[citation needed] In 1859, Jefferson made a dramatic adaptation of Washington Irving's story of "Rip Van Winkle", drawing from older plays.

[11] Jefferson started writing while he was abroad in Australia, and on his way back to America in 1865 he heard news of the end of the war and Abraham Lincoln's assassination by John Wilkes Booth.

Jefferson, who was generally known for being just as fun loving and alive as he was on stage as one of the most brilliant comedic actors of the nineteenth century, did not show any visible reaction to the news.

With the help of play doctor Dion Boucicault, Rip Van Winkle took to the stage that very year, opening at the Adelphi Theatre in London September 4, 1865.

A London theatre historian several decades later recounted, "No truer, more pathetic, or purely artistic piece of acting, within its limits, has ever been seen upon the English stage than Jefferson's rendering of Washington Irving's vagabond hero."

Dion Boucicault, who revised Rip Van Winkle, turned it into "a pronounced success and [it] ran for one hundred and seventy nights."

With opening night on September 5, 1865 at the Adelphi Theatre in London, Jefferson portrayed what would become one of the most celebrated characters of the 19th-century stage.

This fame added to the glory of his country, both at home and abroad…"[14] Returning to America, Jefferson made it his stock play, making annual tours of the states with it, and occasionally reviving The Heir at Law in which he played Dr. Pangloss, The Cricket on the Hearth (Caleb Plummer), and The Rivals (Bob Acres).

He was elected to The Lambs Theatre Club as an Honorary Lifetime member in 1890,[15] and was one of the first to establish the traveling troupes who superseded the old system of local stock companies.

[citation needed] Jefferson also starred in a number of films as the Van Winkle character, starting in the 1896 Awakening of Rip.

The 1919 silent film Deliverance, a biography of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan, includes a scene where the two women visit Jefferson in his dressing room before a performance as Rip Van Winkle.