Thomas Jefferson's Epicurean Development

This is to start a thread to assist in research and discussion of what we can reconstruct about Thomas Jefferson's interest in and development of Epicurean ideas. What can we reconstruct as a timetable as to when Jefferson first began to become familiar with Epicurean ideas, leading up to his 1819 letter to William Short where he wrote "I too am an Epicurean?" Jefferson died in 1826, so the 1819 letter was near the end of his life.