Question: Who was this American Founding Father, a proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights, examined Ice Age fossils of Kentucky's Big Bone Lick?

Big Bone Lick State Park is located at Big Bone in Boone County, Kentucky.  The name of the park comes from the Pleistocene megafauna fossils found there.  Mammoths are believed to have been drawn to this location by a salt lick deposited around sulphur springs.  Other animals including forms of bison, caribou, deer, elk, horse, mastodon, moose, musk ox, peccary, sloth, and possibly tapir also grazed the vegetation and salty earth around the springs that the animals relied on for their diet.  The area near the springs was very soft and marshy causing many animals to become stuck with no way to escape.  It bills itself as "the birthplace of American paleontology", a term which dates from the 1807 expedition by William Clark undertaken at the direction of President Thomas Jefferson.  In Nicholas Cresswell's journal, dated 1774 to 1777, he records a visit in 1775 to what was then called "Elephant Bone Lick."  In this account, Cresswell describes finding several bones of "prodigious size", as well as tusk fragments, and teeth—one weighing approximately 10 pounds.  While he assumed the bones were from ancient elephants, the local native traditions claimed the bones to be those of white buffaloes that had been poisoned by the salty water. <SEP>  These fossils were studied by eminent intellectuals like France's George Cuvier and local statesmen and frontiersman like Daniel Boone, Benjamin Franklin, William Henry Harrison, Thomas Jefferson, and George Washington. The history of paleontology in the United States refers to the developments and discoveries regarding fossils found within or by people from the United States of America.  Local paleontology began informally with Native Americans, who have been familiar with fossils for thousands of years.  They both told myths about them and applied them to practical purposes.  African slaves also contributed their knowledge; the first reasonably accurate recorded identification of vertebrate fossils in the new world was made by slaves on a South Carolina plantation who recognized the elephant affinities of mammoth molars uncovered there in 1725.  The first major fossil discovery to attract the attention of formally trained scientists were the Ice Age fossils of Kentucky's Big Bone Lick.  By the end of the 18th century possible dinosaur fossils had already been found. <SEP> Paleontology in Kentucky refers to paleontological research occurring within or conducted by people from the U.S. state of Kentucky.  Kentucky's abundance of exposed sedimentary rock makes it an ideal source of fossils.  The oldest exposed rocks in Kentucky are of Ordovician age.  The geologic column of Kentucky also contains rocks deposited during the ensuing periods until the end of the Pennsylvanian.  During this span of time the state was first home to a warm shallow sea home to an abundance and variety of brachiopods, cephalopods, crinoids, and trilobites.  During the Devonian, a large reef system formed at what is now the Falls of the Ohio.  Swamps covered Kentucky during the ensuing Carboniferous period.  Then a gap spans from the start of the Permian to the Pleistocene, although the gap is interrupted by minor deposits of Cretaceous and Eocene rocks.  These deposits mainly preserve plant fossils.  Ice Age Kentucky was home to short-faced bear, bison, elk, lions, mammoths, mastodons, and giant ground sloths.  Local Native Americans interpreted fossils of this age at Big Bone Lick as belonging to ancient monsters killed by benevolent mystical little people.  This same fossil deposit would attract attention from major American figures like George Washington, Daniel Boone, and, especially, Thomas Jefferson.  Amateur fossil collectors should be aware that they need permission from landowners to prospect legally on private property.  Brachiopods are the Kentucky state fossil. <SEP>  Previously, he was elected the second Vice President of the United States, serving under John Adams from 1797 to 1801.  A proponent of democracy, republicanism, and individual rights motivating American colonists to break from Great Britain and form a new nation, he produced formative documents and decisions at both the state and national level. Thomas Jefferson (April 13 [O.S. April 2] 1743 – July 4, 1826) was an American Founding Father who was the principal author of the Declaration of Independence and later served as the third President of the United States from 1801 to 1809.  He was a land owner and farmer.