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On closer inspection, does not yield the impression that Thomas actually believed Randolph would come. The whole first paragraph of the letter contains instructions on what Randolph is to do with the clover and greensward seed that he has ordered. If Thomas had expected to see Randolph, either that same day, or within a short period of time, such instructions would have been unnecessary.     Two claims exist that we felt needed to be addressed. A History of Todd County, Kentucky, a biographical sketch of Dr. Walter B. Jefferson, states that his father, Randolph’s son Isham, was a native of that [Albemarle] county, and was raised by his uncle, Thomas.”(29) However, the history is not documented. Randolph Jefferson did not die until 1815, two years after Isham married, so there is no known reason that Isham should have been raised by his uncle. Family letters contain no hint or discussion of Isham’s presence at Monticello. The same is true of the claim, used by several authors, that Randolph’s sons were schooled at Monticello. No evidence has been found to support that claim in either Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book or in family letters of the period. Rather, during much of the time period in question, Monticello was undergoing renovation and Jefferson was not in residence.(30) The only one of Randolph’s sons mentioned in a letter(31) is James Lilburne, and that is not until 1813, five years after Sally’s last child was born: In conversing with your son Lilburne, I found that he would prefer employing himself in reading and improving his mind rather than in being idle. It is late for him to begin, but he has still time enough, to acquire such a degree of information as may make him a very useful and respectable member of society . . . if both you and he approve of it, I think he had better come and pass some time here.(32)     Jefferson does not say that Lilburne should come over as his older brothers had done. And, if the older boys had been schooled at Monticello, it would seem logical that Lilburne would simply have joined them when he was old enough rather than waiting until he was older. That there was a specific conversation regarding what Lilburne wanted would seem to indicate that this situation was the exception rather than the rule. No evidence exists that proves the presence of Randolph or his sons at Monticello until several years after Sally’s last child was born. Documents from the 1800s      A surprising number of letters and other documents from the early nineteenth century still survive. Although some of these documents, such as James T. Callendar’s newspaper articles, are connected directly to the problem, others, such as John Hartwell Cocke’s diary, and the Frances Wright story, are not connected, and only reveal information by implication. Taken together, however, the documents create an interesting picture.     The earliest of these documents was a newspaper article written in the Richmond Recorder by James T. Callendar. Written in 1802, the article made allegations that Jefferson had a child with “Dusky Sally.” Callendar referred to the child as “President Tom,” and remarked that the child bore an uncanny likeness to President Jefferson. The publication of the article aroused a storm of controversy that has still not abated. But we know that James T. Callendar, had become a political enemy of Jefferson. He and other enemies of Jefferson wrote concerning Jefferson’s relationship and children with Sally, in an effort to tarnish his image.      As for evidence from Thomas Jefferson himself regarding his association with Sally, he wrote the following letter to his daughter, Mary Jefferson Eppes, in July of 1802, concerning her proposed visit to Monticello and the presence of measles at the plantation: I have not heard yet of the disease having got to Monticello, but . . . it cannot have failed to have gone there immediately; and as there are no young children there but Bet’s and Sally’s, and the disease is communicable before a person knows they have it, I have no doubt those children have past through it. The children of the plantation being a mile and a half off, can easily be guarded against. . . . I think therefore you may be there in perfect security.(33)     Oddly, Jefferson does not seem concerned about the presence of Bet’s and Sally’s children exposing his grandchildren to the measles, although in the same letter he is careful to warn his daughter, “You should make enquiry on the road before you go into any house. . . .”(34) The letter also seems to verify that Sally and her children lived in Monticello, itself, not in the slave quarters.     In December of 1802, the Richmond Recorder reprinted a Frederick-town Herald item concerning Callendar’s charges: Other information assures us, that Mr. Jefferson’s Sally and their children are real persons, and that the woman has a room to herself at Monticello in the character of seamstress to the family, if not as housekeeper, that she is an industrious and orderly creature in her behavior, but that her intimacy with her master is well known, and that on this account, she is treated by the rest of the house as one much above the level of his other servants. Her son, who Callendar calls President Tom, we are also assured, bears a strong likeness to Mr. Jefferson. We make bold to these circumstances of confirmation, because although the subject is a delicate one, we can not see why we are to affect any great squeamishness against speaking plainly of what we consider an undoubted fact interesting to the public.(35)      In May of 1805, Thomas Turner wrote a letter to the Boston Repertory Newspaper: The affair of black (or rather mulatto) Sally is unquestionably true. They have cohabited for many years, and the fruit of the connexion abundantly exists in proof of the fact—To crown this affair, an opinion has existed to which Mr. Jefferson, it is supposed, cannot be a stranger, that this very Sally is the natural daughter of Mr. Wales, who was the father of the actual Mrs. Jefferson—The eldest son (called Beverly) is well known to many.(36)     What particularly makes this letter worthy of notice is that Turner had ties to the Jefferson family(37) and would not have been relying on gossip and rumor. Thomas Turner was a close associate of David Meade Randolph whose wife was a sister of Jefferson’s son-in-law, Thomas Randolph. In July of 1805, Jefferson wrote a letter to Attorney General Levi Lincoln. That letter was enclosed in a cover letter sent to Secretary of the Navy, Robert Smith. Smith was to read the letter before passing the enclosure to Lincoln: The inclosed copy of a letter to Mr. Lincoln will so fully explain its own object, that I need say nothing in that way. I communicate it to particular friends because I wish to stand with them on the ground of truth, neither better nor worse than that makes me. You will perceive that I plead guilty to one of their charges, that when young and single I offered love to a handsome lady. I acknowledge its incorrectness. It is the only one founded on truth among all their allegations against me.(38)     Jefferson supporters have pointed to this letter as his denial of the Hemings arrangement, but that reads into the letter meaning beyond its words. First, because the enclosure to Lincoln did not survive, there is no way to know exactly what it said.   Secondly, this letter, and presumably the enclosure, was written in response to a situation involving Betsy Walker and her husband. The Walkers had made a number of charges against Jefferson, including that he had pursued a romantic relationship with her into the early years of his marriage. The words, “all their allegations against me,” refer to the Walkers and the specific charges they had brought, not the Hemings affair. Further, Jefferson himself, in an 1816 reference to Federalist charges, wrote: As to federal slanders, I never wished them to be answered.(39)     That statement certainly clarifies Jefferson’s earlier letter. In 1815, Jefferson clarified his opinion on this matter when he wrote to an acquaintance, Francis C. Gray, to answer Gray’s question, “When does a black man become white?” You asked me in conversation, what constituted a mulatto by our law. . . . Our canon considers two crosses with the pure white, and a third with any degree of mixture, however small, as clearing the issue of Negro blood.(40)     Jefferson goes on in the letter to express this concept as an algebraic equation. The very interesting idea that arises from this letter is that Jefferson may not have considered himself as involved in “miscegenation.” Sally’s mother, Betty Hemings, was the offspring of a “full-blooded African” slave and an English seaman. Sally herself was reputed to be the daughter of Betty Hemings and John Wayles, Betty’s owner. This made Sally Hemings half-sister to Jefferson’s wife, Martha Wayles. That constituted two crosses with pure white, so Sally’s child(ren) with Jefferson would be considered white, having cleared “the issue of Negro blood” of that time period.      An English writer, Frances Trollope, included in her book Domestic Manners of the Americans (published in 1832), the following story told by political lecturer, Frances Wright, who had visited Jefferson at Monticello in 1824: Mr. Jefferson is said to have been the father of children by almost all of his numerous gang of female slaves . . . when, as it sometimes happened, his children by Quadroon slaves were white enough to escape suspicion of their origin he did not pursue them if they attempted to escape, saying laughingly, “Let the rogues get off, if they can; I will not hinder them.”(41)     In an even earlier book, the Duc de La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt had written: In Virginia mongrel Negroes are found in greater number than in Carolina and Georgia; and I have even seen, especially at Mr. Jefferson’s, slaves, who, neither in point of colour nor features, shewed the least trace of their original descent; but their mothers being slaves, they retain, of consequence, the same condition.(42)     John Hartwell Co cke, who was a friend of Jefferson’s, wrote two diary entries in his later life that commented directly on the Jefferson-Hemings issue. Writing about masters with slave families, Co cke comments: 26 January 1853: . . . they are not few, nor far between. I can enumerate a score of such cases in our beloved Old Dominion that have come in my way this life, without seeking for them. Were they enumerated with administration of the State, they would be found by hundreds. Nor is it to be wondered at, when Mr. Jefferson’s notorious example is considered.43 23 April 1859: The defenders of the Institution omit to look at the feature—that all Batchelors or a large majority at least—keep as a substitute for a wife some individual of the . . . Slaves. In Virginia this damnable practice exists as much as anywhere and probably more, as Mr. Jefferson’s example can be pleaded for its defense.(44)

Cocke was not writing for the public, or with any intention that his words would be published. These entries were in his private diary, for his eyes alone. Why would he bother to use a fact he knew to be untrue?  He was Jefferson’s friend and a frequent visitor at Monticello, and was certainly in a position to know—or guess at—the paternity of persons on the estate. 
 

   The census taker who took the 1870 census for Huntington Township, Ross County, Ohio, and listed Madison Hemings, son of Sally, wrote, “This man is the son of Thomas Jefferson” after Madison’s entry.(45) Obviously, what was said between these two men will never be known, but it must have been powerful and persuasive. The census taker knew he was creating a federal document that would eventually go to Washington, D.C. To write such a statement was an extraordinary occurrence.
 

   One could speculate that perhaps Madison, like his brother Eston, bore a resemblance to Jefferson. A story in the Chillicothe Scioto Gazette, on 1 August 1902, comments on the likeness:  So striking was the likeness [to Jefferson] that on one occasion the writer of this sketch in company with [four men, named] while going from Pennsylvania Avenue to the White House, came upon the bronze statue of Jefferson, . . . “Gentlemen, who in Chillicothe looks most like that statue?” I asked. “Why, Eston Hemings!”(46)

    The oral histories of Madison Hemings and Edmund Bacon, Jefferson’s overseer, were also examined. Both men were interviewed when they were older, which leaves open the possibility that their memories are not entirely correct. Also, each of them has a point of view or belief to protect, again leading to the shading or distortion of memories. However, parts of each interview are supported by other testimonies or writings that would seem to lend them credence.

Harriet Hemings

The last mention of Harriet Hemings, in Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, is the notation by her name “ran 22,”47 indicating that she “ran away” in 1822. In an interview, Edmund Bacon reports that,
When she was nearly grown, by Mr. Jefferson’s direction, I paid her stage fare to Philadelphia, gave her fifty dollars.(48)

    In Madison Hemings’ 1873 interview in the Pike County Gazette, he says of his sister Harriet that she
. . . married a white man in good standing in Washington City. . . . She raised a family of children, and so far as I know they were never suspected of being tainted with African blood in the community where she lived or lives. I have not heard from her for ten years. . . (49)

    In all the years since those two interviews, only Pearl M. Graham, writing in The Journal of Negro History,50 in 1961, claims to have spoken with Harriet’s descendants.

Cautions, Anomalies, and Conclusions

One of our most referenced books was Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, edited by Betts.(51) The first 178 pages of the book are photocopied pages from Jefferson’s original book. We noted an anomaly that bears mention here. In the ”Register of Births,” on page 31, appears a record of children born to Jefferson’s slaves. Listed under the year 1790, several entries have been erased or scraped away. Of the last several letters, all that remains after the “removal” of the third entry in the males column (entry #85) is one syllable—either an “ly’s” or a “by’s.” On other pages Jefferson has merely drawn a line through mistakes. Why were these entries removed, when, and by whom? Is it significant that this would have been the year that Sally gave birth to a child possibly conceived in France? Is this simply verification of Madison’s statement that Sally “gave birth to a child . . .it lived but a short time,”52 and had the name been removed when the child died? These entries could bear further study, using the original page, so that no questions remain.

    Comparing the times that Thomas Jefferson was at Monticello to the estimated conception date for Sally’s children shows that Thomas Jefferson was in residence at Monticello at the right time to be the father of her children. The conception dates are based on the “average” length of a human pregnancy based on the date of birth. The conception date would be plus or minus a few days.

    Although no absolute evidence that Thomas Jefferson fathered Eston Hemings was found, there was certainly a lack of evidence indicating Eston had been fathered by any other Jefferson in the area. Circumstantial evidence provided by tax and census records, and the lack of mention in Monticello records and family letters, would seem to rule out Randolph’s sons. Those letters that came later from Randolph to his brother seem to indicate that poor health and the business of running his own plantation kept his visits to Monticello infrequent. Other Jeffersons in the area lived a two-day ride away. Family letters do not mention that they visited. We concluded that only Thomas Jefferson was verifiably in constant close contact with Sally Hemings at the appropriate time to father Eston, and, most probably, Sally’s older children, as well. Our conclusion seems obvious, but it is a conclusion that may never be totally proven.

However, the game is still afoot . . .

Sherlock Holmes(53)

Endnotes

 

1.        The BCG Genealogical Standards Manual, Board for Certification of Genealogists (Orem, Utah: Ancestry Publishing, 2000), 9.

2.        Eugene A. Foster, et al., “Jefferson Fathered Slave’s Last Child,” Nature 396 (November 5, 1998): 27, 28.

3.        E. H. Jefferson listed in the 1855 Madison, Wisconsin directory, and in the Forest Hills Cemetery, online, www.ci.madison.wi.us/parks/thomas_jefferson__forest_hill_ce.htm; www.monticello.org/plantation/appendixh.html. Also, Eston’s son, John W. Jefferson, is listed in the 1860 U.S. Census, 2nd Ward, City of Madison, Dane County, Wisconsin, Population Schedule, p. 505, dwelling 248, family 256, line 24.

4.        “Reply: The Thomas Jefferson Paternity Case,” Nature 397 (January 7, 1999): 32.

5.        Thomas Jefferson (1677 to 1731) was the grandfather of President Thomas Jefferson. He only had two sons that lived to adulthood and married: Field and Peter. President Thomas Jefferson and his brother, Randolph, were sons of Peter Jefferson.

6.        “The Possible Paternity of Other Jeffersons,” Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, online, www.monticello.org/plantation/dnareport5.html, downloaded 8 April 2002.

7.        Edwin Morris Betts, ed., Thomas Jefferson’s Farm Book, With Commentary and Relevant Extracts from Other Writings (New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1953).

8.        Several sources have listed the birth dates of Randolph’s children as being much earlier. Randolph had a daughter born about 1782/83. The boys appear to have been born after her.

9.        Virginia Research Outline, (Salt Lake City: Family History Library).

10.      N. R. Murray, Albemarle County, VA Marriages (Hammond, LA, 1986), 145.

11.      1830 to 1860 U.S. Censuses of Albemarle County, Virginia were searched to determine the birth dates of Randolph’s children.

12.      John Vogt, Fluvanna County Marriages 1781 to 1849 (Athens, GA: Iberian Press, 1984), 29.

13.      N. R. Murray, op cit, 145.

14.      Tax list, Albemarle Co., Virginia, 1801to 1813, film 202444 (Salt Lake City: Family History Library).

15.      Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Randolph Jefferson, 11 January 1789; in Thomas Jefferson and his Unknown Brother Randolph, Tracy J. McGregor Library (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1942) 13.

16.      Isham R. Jefferson household, 1830 U.S. Census, Fluvanna Co., Virginia, p. 353, line 19; National Archives Microfilm Publication M19, roll 195.

17.      John Vogt, op cit, 29.

18.      Robert L. Jefferson household, 1850 U.S. Census, Albemarle Co., Virginia, Population Schedule, p. 283, dwelling 1853, family 1853; National Archives Microfilm Publication M432, roll 932.

19.      N. R. Murray, op cit, 145.

20.      Tax List, Nelson Co., Virginia, 1809 to 1845, film 1870172, (Salt Lake City: Family History Library).

21.      Randolph Jefferson household, 1810 U.S. Census, Buckingham Co., Virginia, p. 785; National Archives Microfilm Publication M252, roll 66.

22.      There are no records indicating that Sally Hemings ever traveled to Randolph Jefferson’s plantation, with or without Thomas Jefferson.

23.      Letter, Randolph Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson, 8 June 1810; in Thomas Jefferson and his Unknown Brother Randolph, Tracy J. McGregor Library (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1942) 17.

24.      Letter, Randolph Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson, 6 Oct. 1811; ibid, 20.

25.      Letter, Randolph Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson, 8 Feb. 1812; ibid, 22.

26.      Letter, Randolph Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson, 24 Feb. 1813; ibid, 24.

27.      Letter, Randolph Jefferson to Thomas Jefferson, 6 Oct. 1811; ibid, 20.

28.      Letter, Thomas Jefferson to Randolph Jefferson, 12 Aug. 1807; ibid, 14.

29.      J. H. Battle, ed., A History of Todd County Kentucky (Easley, SC: Southern Historical Press, 1979), 296.

30.      Monticello was renovated while Thomas Jefferson was in Washington as the President, 1801 to 1809. According to census and tax records, Randolph Jefferson was living at his plantation and not away requiring his children to be raised by someone else. The 1810 Census shows Randolph’s children at home with him.

31.      Thomas Jefferson Jr., a small baby at the time, was mentioned briefly in his Uncle Thomas Jefferson’s letter of January 11, 1789 to his brother, Randolph Jefferson.

32.      Letter from Thomas Jefferson to Randolph Jefferson, 25 May 1813; ibid, 26.

33.      Edwin Morris Betts and James Adam Bear, Jr., eds., The Family Letters of Thomas Jefferson, (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1986; original, 1966 University of Missouri Press).

34.      Ibid, 232.

35.      Richmond Recorder, Dec. 1802; printed in Durey, With the Hammer of Truth, 159.

36.      Boston Repertory, 31 May 1805; printed in Woodson, op cit, 73.

37.      Thomas Turner was a close acquaintance of David Meade Randolph, whose wife was a sister of Jefferson’s son in law, Thomas Mann Randolph. “Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings” (Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, Jan. 2000).

38.      Dumas Malone, Jefferson and His Time (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1971) 4:222.

39.      Letter, Thomas Jefferson to George Logan, 20 June 1816; quoted in Richard E. Dixon, “The Case Against Thomas Jefferson: A Trial Analysis of the Evidence on Paternity,” in Robert Eyler Coates, ed., The Jefferson and Hemings Myth (Jefferson Editions, 2001) 140.

40.      Andrew Lipscomb and Albert Bergh, eds., The Writings of Thomas Jefferson (Washington, D.C.: Thomas Jefferson Memorial Association, 1903) 14:267; in Woodson, op cit, 70.

41.      Frances Trollope, Domestic Manners of the Americans (London: Whittaker, Treacher and Co., 1832) 97 to 98; in Woodson, op cit, 110.

42.      Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Liancourt, Travels through the United States of North America (London, 1799) 2:69, 77; in Merrill D. Peterson, ed., Visitors to Monticello (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1989) 30.

43.      Original images, www.lib.virginia.edu/speccol/collections/tj/jhc.html.

44.      Ibid.

45.      Madison Hemings household, 1870 U.S. Census, Ross County, Ohio, Population Schedule, Huntington Twp., Chilicothe post office; p. 699, dwelling 49, family 49; National Archives Microfilm Publication M593, roll 1262.

46.      “Jefferson’s Blood,” www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jefferson.

47.      Betts, op cit, 130.

48.      James A. Bear, ed., Jefferson at Monticello (Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1981) 102.

49.      Pike County Republican, 1873.

50.      Pearl M. Graham, “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings,” Journal of Negro History, 46, no. 2 (April 1961): 89, 103.

51.      Betts, op cit, 30, 31.

52.      1873, op cit.

53.      Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Valley of Fear, from www.yoak.com/sherlock/stories /valley_fear/valley_of_fear.txt.

• Author Biographies of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings Article

Jeanette Daniels, B.S., AG, CGRS, has volunteered at the FHL, Salt Lake City, as a reference consultant in the Scandinavian section. She has been associated, since 1989, with Know Your Heritage, a non-profit organization. Currently she is involved in free-lance client research. She lectures at genealogical seminars and teaches genealogy research through the Heritage Genealogy College, at Salt Lake Community College.

Marietta Glauser put her education on hold to raise her children, returning to college in 2000 as a student of genealogy through Heritage Genealogical College/Salt Lake Community College. AS (magna cum laude) from Salt Lake Community College 2004. HGCC (certificate) from Heritage Genealogical College 2003. Member of the Alpha Chi Eta Chapter of Phi Theta Kappa International Scholastic Order. Marietta has volunteered at the Family History Library (international records) in Salt Lake since 1966. Volunteer at her local Family History Center 1966-2000. She loved hearing stories about her ancestors but got passionately interested in genealogy through her volunteer work. Areas of interest include Greece, Germany, France, and the United States.

Diana Harvey, B.S., M.ED., has been researching family history since 1989. She completed the NGS home study course and several seminars on research methodologies and her HGCC (certificate) from Heritage Genealogical College in 2003. She has presented genealogy workshops for the DAR and has had an article published in The Report of the Ohio Genealogical Society. She is currently researching records from Ireland and Poland, and has been a Heritage Genealogy College student, since 2001, at Salt Lake Community College and now at Heritage Genealogical College in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Carol Hubbell Ouellette graduated from the University of Colorado, later developing an interest in genealogy, enrolling in the Heritage Genealogy College/Salt Lake Community College in 2001. Her interest and desire to pursue a genealogy career is best expressed by Donald Sidney Hubbell, a distant cousin: "Let each man tell his tale before retiring into oblivion in order that all men may know the direction he took and ponder the reason why he did so . . . we will all be “if not wiser, at least better informed."