The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (96 page)

John Hemings, the youngest living child of Elizabeth Hemings, suffered the devastating blow of the loss of his beloved wife, Priscilla, in 1830. He lived three years after her, apparently experiencing extreme depression. He began to drink heavily, which he had not done before, and he stopped working altogether. Martha Randolph claimed that “liberty…was no blessing to him.” But like his ill-fated older half brother James, who had lived five years as a free man, John Hemings was more than just an enslaved person. He was a devoted husband who had lost his wife. He was a talented artisan whose eyesight had been failing for a number of years to the point that he could no longer perform at the level of perfection to which he aspired. His family had been torn apart. And, it must be said, he had lost Jefferson, who, as Lucia Stanton eloquently put it, “had called forth his talent.” All these things contributed to his sense of alienation. There is no reason to suppose that slavery would have salved these deep wounds and given him a renewed sense of meaning in his life.
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Although both Joseph Fossett and Wormley Hughes had children who were sold at auction, what happened to Hughes’s family shows that he was much closer to Jefferson and his white family than one might gather from the fact that he was only informally freed. It also indicates that the memory of George and Ursula Granger, the former overseer at Monticello and Martha Randolph’s wet nurse, still resonated within Jefferson’s family. Hughes’s wife, Ursula, was their granddaughter. She and seven of their children had been sold to local members of the Charlottesville community. Just a few days after this event, Jeff Randolph bought all of them back and reunited them at his Edgehill home, about four miles from Monticello. Within the next two years Jeff bought eighteen members of Wormley and Ursula Hughes’s extended family. Jeff’s mother-in-law was at first perplexed and then aghast at his actions. She flatly accused her son-in-law of putting the interests of the Hughes family ahead of those of his own children. Hughes himself continued to work for two more generations of the Jefferson-Randolph family until his death in 1858.
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Joseph Fossett’s family situation was the most personally devastating. Though his half sister and brother-in-law Sally and Jesse Scott had bought his wife and their two youngest children for him, his daughters Maria and Isabella, ages twenty and eight, were sold to purchasers unknown. His daughter Patsy ran away from the man who bought her, and there is no record of her life after that. After his manumission, through his diligence and hard work, Fossett was able to gain ownership of five of his children and four of his grandchildren. To avoid application of the 1806 law, he kept them in legal bondage until he decided in 1837 that it was time for a change. In September of that year, he formally emancipated his own family members. Then around 1840, he, like many other African Americans, his nephews Madison and Eston Hemings included, left Virginia’s slave society behind to make a new life in Ohio. The Fossetts’ departure was not without heartache, for the couple’s older daughters were not with them, and their son Peter was still owned by John Jones, who continued to refuse to sell him to his parents. So they went to Ohio without him. A miraculous reunion would eventually take place, but only after decades of struggle, heroics, and faith. One can merely imagine what Elizabeth Hemings, the African and English enslaved woman, would have made of the way her many descendants acquitted themselves as they journeyed through the harshness of American life.
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This project could not have been completed without the help of numerous friends, colleagues, and individuals who were unknown to me when I first started. I am touched beyond words by the generosity of those who spent time reading and commenting upon my work. They should not suffer for being kind. While I owe them for all the ways they enriched my effort, I am responsible of any errors that appear in this book.

There have been two constants from the beginning of my time writing about Monticello: Peter S. Onuf, the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Professor of History at the University of Virginia, and Lucia (Cinder) Stanton, Shannon Senior Research Historian at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. I met one within days of meeting the other, without knowing that they were friends, back when I was writing my first book about Tom and Sally. From that time forward, I have relied on them, above anyone else, as sounding boards and sources of information about Jefferson, the Hemingses, and Monticello. Peter read an early, uncompleted version of this manuscript and then reread the whole thing at the end, employing his sharp eye, luminous humanity, and wide-ranging knowledge. Cinder also read and critiqued sections of the manuscript. She has always been a model of patience and reliability in responding to my near-endless and, often, bizarre queries, bringing me back to earth when needed.

Ronald Hoffman and Sally Mason of the Omohundro Institute of Early American History and Culture went beyond the call of duty reading the first section of the manuscript. Sally provided a wonderful line edit, and Ron suggested additional pertinent scholarship to consult. Their dual (and sometimes dueling) comments were frank, insightful, and always given with great wit and sensitivity—an unbeatable combination.

The same can be said of Edmund S. Morgan, Professor of History Emeritus at Yale, who read the first two sections of the manuscript. Like any great teacher, Ed asked questions that made me think more deeply about what I had written and immediately identified areas that needed further consideration. His encouraging words, and those of his wife, Marie, came at just the right time to spur me on to complete the last section of the book.

The late Winthrop Jordan read and commented upon the first section of the manuscript until he became too ill to continue. Gentleman that he was, he actually apologized to me for being unable to continue. What an honor it was to have as a supporter and friend the man who made me know, as a twelve year old, that I wanted to write history.
White over Black
helped set the course of my life. So I am eternally indebted to Win for much, in addition to his help with this work.

Jan Lewis, my friend and now colleague at Rutgers, brainstormed with me for hours about life at Monticello and continued her habit of bringing good things to my life by suggesting that Kenneth A. Lockridge of the University of Montana might be able to answer a question I had posed. From that one inquiry grew a voluminous correspondence that could fill a small book itself, in which Ken and I discussed (and argued gently) about Jefferson and Hemings. Ken also gave invaluable critiques of large swaths of the manuscript. Confirming the smallness of the world, before I contacted Ken, his longtime friend, the ever delightful Rhys Isaac of Latrobe University, read chapters, peppering me with questions and comments that helped refine my presentation.

For getting me quickly up to speed on blacks in France in the eighteenth century, I thank Sue Peabody of Washington State University Vancouver and Pierre Boulle of McGill University. Sue and Pierre read my chapters on France with extreme care and seriousness. Their observations, writings, and the source material they introduced me to gave me new ways to think about the Hemingses, race, and the workings of law in society.

I was especially fortunate to receive the very considered thoughts of Martha Hodes of New York University and Stephanie M. H. Camp of the University of Washington. Both women do work on race, women, and American slavery that I admire enormously. Barbara Heath of the University of Tennessee read my first chapter and gave me several critical reminders about the geography of early Virginia, and answered queries about the lives of enslaved people at Poplar Forest. I thank William Nelson of New York University for allowing me to present an early chapter before the NYU’s Legal Colloquium and Francis D. Cogliano at the University of Edinburgh for his comments.

As always, my colleagues at New York Law School have been supportive of all my scholarly endeavors. My library assistant, Grace Lee, was enormously creative and helpful in finding anything I asked for. Associate Dean Stephen Ellmann asked me to present a chapter at one of our weekly Faculty Scholarship Luncheons, where I received helpful feedback from our dean, Richard Matasar, Leni Bensen, Carlin Meyer, Arthur Leonard, and the late Denise Morgan. Denise’s premature death was a devastating blow to all who knew her as well as to the legal academy and profession. The world lost a truly wonderful person and a dynamic scholar. William LaPiana, Seth Harris, and Edward Purcell read more of the manuscript and gave me valuable critiques. Gemma Jacobs, my faculty assistant at NYLS, was, as always, a cheerful and efficient aid to my professional life. Her counterpart at Rutgers, Christina Strasburger, is in the same mold, and has been indispensable to me as I have settled in there.

Barbara B. Oberg and J. Jefferson Looney, the editors of
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson
at Princeton and
The Papers of Thomas Jefferson (Retirement Series)
at Monticello, respectively, made documents readily available to me and were always eager to answer questions. Members of their staff, Linda Monaco at Princeton and Lisa Francavilla at Monticello, endured comments like “Didn’t I read a letter where someone said to TJ on some day that…” and would immediately find exactly what I was talking about. Now that this book is finished, Jeff Looney and I can move on to our own special Jefferson project.

I thank Jeanne Niccolls of the Fairfax County Park Authority, which runs the Sully Historic Site, for helping me find information about John Wayles. I also thank Elizabeth Nuxoll of
The Papers of John Jay
and Kate Ohno of
The Papers of Benjamin Franklin
for giving me access to unpublished material from their archives, and for all that I learned from them about Jay and Franklin and their dealings with enslaved people in Paris.

I am grateful for the support and help of others at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and those associated with it. Dan Jordan, the foundation’s president, and Andrew O’ Shaughnessy, the director of the International Center for Jefferson Studies, deserve special mention for fostering, in the spirit of Jefferson, a climate of intellectual inquiry and engagement. Susan Stein, Fraser Neiman, and Leni Sorenson made helpful suggestions about ways to think about the project. Jack Robertson and Anna Berkes of the Jefferson Library assisted me whenever asked. Liesal Nowak was of incalculable help as I gathered images for the book. Beverly Gray and Dianne Swann-Wright, who work with Cinder Stanton on the foundation’s Getting Word project, gave me information and much to think about over the years. I also thank Octavia Starbuck and Gale Pond at Monticello’s sister site, Poplar Forest, for their help.

I spent a great deal of time in archives and benefited enormously from the suggestions and efforts of the people who worked in them. The staff at the Special Collections division of the University of Virginia Library was a great resource whenever I visited, helping me find what I asked for and pointing out things I would never have found on my own. The staffs at the Virginia Historical Society and the Library of Virginia were similarly outstanding, helping me ferret out documents even when I had incomplete information about what I was searching for. Elaine Grublin of the Massachusetts Historical Society, Cindy Brennan of the American Antiquarian Society, Christopher Linnane of the Fogg Museum at Harvard University, and the staff of the Digital Services department at the University of Virginia provided me with images in an extremely prompt fashion. Elyse Reider ran interference for me with the Europeans.

I give special thanks to the superb genealogist Denise Harman of Lancashire, England, who did research for me on the Wayles family. The ultimate professional, her work was meticulous and creative, smoothing the way for my own trip to Preston, Lancashire, to delve further into the record and to have the privilege of meeting her. I also credit the staff of the Lancashire Records for their great courtesy to me and my son on our visit. They offered me suggestions about sources that I knew nothing of, and gave me valuable insights into the world in which Wayles was born.

Guy Holborn, the librarian at Lincoln’s Inn in London, helped me search for any traces of John Wayles’s legal career in England in the records available to him, including the archives of the other Inns of Court. He also told me what I needed to look at on my own in the National Archives at Kew in order to continue the search. Jo Hutchings, Lincoln Inn’s archivist, helped with this process, as did Theresa Thom, the librarian at Gray’s Inn.

It isn’t often that historians get to spend time with the descendants of the people about whom they write. I have been fortunate to meet many descendants of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, other branches of the Hemings family, and descendants of Jefferson and his wife, Martha. I thank Julia Westerinen; her late husband, Emil; their children, Dorothy, Art, and Marshall; Shay Banks-Young; Shannon Lanier; Edna Jacques; and Lucian Truscott IV for talking with me about their families. Jane Feldman, not a Jefferson or Hemings by blood but the family’s de facto official photographer, also receives my thanks.

I must credit others who have helped me sustain along the way. I owe much to Vernon Jordan. I have no words to express what his friendship and support have meant to me over the years. Loretta Lynch, a friend since law school, has been with me through thick and thin. Natalie S. Bober, who brings Jefferson to life for young people, is an inspiration. Richard Holbrooke has been a constant cheerleader, pulling me out of the eighteenth century to go to lunch occasionally. I thank Paul Golob, of Henry Holt Times Books, for reasons he well knows but that don’t have to be explained here.

I can’t say enough good things about Robert Weil, my one-of-a-kind editor at Norton. Bob actually edits manuscripts and cares deeply about his authors, books, and his craft. With great patience and fortitude, he helped bring this ship to shore. His assistants, Tom Mayer and Lucas Wittmann, were models of efficiency and good humor as we worked. I am deeply grateful to my copyeditor, the incomparable Otto Sonntag, who floored me with his thoroughness, great ear for language, and wide-ranging knowledge. Faith Childs, my agent, believed in me and this project from the beginning and helped shepherd me through the intricacies of trade publishing. She has been both protector and friend.

Finally, a project like this makes one think of one’s own family. My brothers, Alfred Gordon Jr. and Jay Gordon, and I lost our father, Alfred Sr., in 2007. Our mother, Bettye, having died in 1990, we are without the “cover” we’ve known from the beginning of our lives. As life has it, I have now become part of the “cover” of others. I thank with all my being the people to whom this book is dedicated: my husband, Robert; my daughter, Susan; and my son, Gordon. They endured my absences, mental and physical, as I once again gave myself over to total obsession. What they have taught me about the meaning of family is the foundation for this work.