| Episodes |
1) Sally Hemings' mother Betty was a bright mulatto woman & Sally mighty near white: She was the youngest child. Folks said that these Hemings'es was old Mr Wayles' children. Sally was very handsome: long straight hair down her back. She was about eleven years old when Mr Jefferson took her to France to wait on Miss Polly. She & Sally went out to France a year after Mr Jefferson went. Patsy went with him at first, but she carried no maid with her. Harriet one of Sally's daughters was very hand-some. Sally had a son named Madison, who learned to be a great fiddler. He has been in Petersburg twice: was here when the balloon went up -- the balloon that Beverly sent off.
Isaac Jefferson, qtd. in Campbell 567-68
2) Of my father, Thomas Jefferson, I knew more of his domestic than his public life during his life time. It is only since his death that I have learned much of the latter, except that he was considered as a foremost man in the land, and held many important trusts, including that of President. I learned to read by inducing the white children to teach me the letters and something more; what else I know of books I have picked up here and there till now I can read and write. I was almost 21 1/2 years of age when my father died on the 4th of July, 1826.
Madison Hemings
3) He calls his house Monticello (in Italian, Little Mountain), a very modest title, for it is situated upon a very lofty one, but which announces the owner's attachment to the language of Italy; and above all, to the fine arts, of which that country was the cradle, and is still the asylum.
Sarah N. Randolph 58
4) The private life of Thomas Jefferson, from my earliest remembrances, in 1804, till the day of his death, was very familiar to me. For fourteen years I made the fire in his bedroom and private chamber, cleaned his office, dusted his books, run of errands and attended him about home. He used to ride out to his plantations almost every fair day, when at home, but unlike most other Southern gentlemen in similar circumstances, unaccompanied by any servant. . . . I well recollect a conversation he had with the great and good Lafayette, when he visited this country in 1824 and 1825, as it was of personal interest to me and mine. General Lafayette and his son George Washington, remained with Mr. Jefferson six weeks, and almost every day I took them out to a drive. On the occasion I am now about to speak of, Gen. Lafayette and George were seated in the carriage with him. The conversation turned upon the condition of colored people--the slaves. Lafayette spoke indifferently; sometimes I could scarcely understand him. But on this occasion my ears were eagerly taking in every sound that proceeded from the venerable patriot's mouth. Lafayette remarked that he thought that the slaves ought to be free; that no man could rightly hold ownership in his brother man; that he gave his best services to and spent his money in behalf of the Americans freely because he felt that they were fighting for a great and noble principle--(the freedom of mankind) that instead of all being free a portion were held in bondage (which seemed to grieve his noble heart); that it would be mutually beneficial to masters and slaves if the latter were educated, and so on. Mr. Jefferson replied that he thought the time would come when the slaves would be free, but did not indicate when or in what manner they would get their freedom. He seemed to think that the time had not then arrived. To the latter proposition of Gen. Lafayette, Mr. Jefferson in part assented. He was in favor of teaching the slaves to learn to read print; that to teach them to write would enable them to forge papers, when they could no longer be kept in subjugation. This conversation was very gratifying to me, and I treasured it up in my heart.
Israel Jefferson
5) Israel [Jefferson] is made to revive and confirm of his own knowledge a calumny generated in the hot bed of party malice. Mr. Jefferson and his daughter with her large family occupied the same wing of the building: the private access to their apartments ever contiguous; every member of this family repelled with indignation this calumny. Mr. J did not liberate this woman and her family as Israel is made to state. To my knowledge and the statements other gentlemen made to me 60 years ago the paternity of these persons was admitted by two other persons.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph
6) Sorrow came not only to the homes of two great men who had been such fast friends in life as Jefferson and Adams, but to the slaves of Thomas Jefferson. The story of my own life is like a fairy tale, and you would not believe me if I told to you the scenes enacted during my life of slavery. It passes through my mind like a dream. Born and reared as free, not knowing that I was a slave, then suddenly, at the death of Jefferson, put upon an auction block and sold to strangers. I then commenced an eventful life.
Peter Fossett
7) It is difficult to prove a negative. It is impossible to prove that Mr. Jefferson never had a coloured mistress or coloured children and that these children were never sold as slaves. The latter part of the charge however is disproved by it atrocity, and its utter disagreement with the general character and conduct of Mr. Jefferson, acknowledged to be a humane man and eminently a kind master. Would he who was always most considerate of the feelings and the well-being of his slaves, treat them barbarously only when they happened to be his own children, and leave them to be sold in a distant market when he might have left them free--as you know he did several of his slaves, directing his executor to petition the Legislature of Virginia for leave for them to remain in the State after they were free. Some of them are here to this day.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
8) [Jefferson's response to the man who was accused and later found guilty of stealing nails] "‘Ah, sir, we can't punish him. He has suffered enough already.' He then talked to him, gave him a heap of good advice, and sent him to the shop. Grady had waited, expecting to be sent for to whip him. And he was astonished to see him come back and go to work after such a crime.
Edmund Bacon
9) I do not in this volume write of Jefferson either as of the great man or as of the statesman. My object is only to give a faithful picture of him as he was in private life -- to show that he was, as I have been taught to think of him by those who knew and loved him best, a beautiful domestic character. . . . No man's private character has been more foully assailed than Jefferson's, and none so wantonly exposed to the public gaze, nor more fully vindicated. I shall be more than rewarded for my labors should I succeed in imparting to my readers a tithe of that esteem and veneration which I have been taught to feel for him by the person with whom he was most intimate during life -- the grandson who, as a boy, played upon his knee, and, as a man, was, he himself spoke of him, the "staff" of his old age.
Sarah N. Randolph vii-viii
10) At the close, therefore, of the ensuing month of September; I shall beg leave to retire to scenes of greater tranquillity from those which I am everyday more and more convinced that neither my talents, tone of mind, nor time of life fit me. I have thought it my duty to mention the matter thus early, that there may be time for the arrival of a successor from any part of the Union from which you may think proper to call one. That you may find one more able to lighten the burthen of your labors, I most sincerely wish; for no man living more sincerely wished that your administration could be rendered as pleasant to yourself as it is useful and necessary to our country, nor feels for you a more rational or cordial attachment and respect than, dear Sir, your most obedient and most humble servant.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Washington, qtd in Randolph 218
11) All Batchelors, or a large majority at least, keep as a substitute for a wife some individual of the[ir] own Slaves. In Virginia this damnable practice prevails as much as any where, and probably more, as Mr. Jefferson's example can be pleaded for its defense.
John Hartwell Cocke
12) While he never experienced many of the cruelties of slavery, we must say that the system was cruel, at best. To keep such a man as Madison Hemings, in the condition of a slave, however well treated in other respects, was a sin of very deep dye. He is an intelligent man, and understands himself well. If he had been educated and given a chance in the world he would have shone out as a star of the first magnitude. But he was kept under, by his own father, an ex-President of the United States, and a man who penned the immortal Declaration of Independence which fully acknowledges the rights and equality of the human race!
S. L. Wetmore, qtd. in Malone and Hochman 526
13) For four month's that [Martha Jefferson] lingered he was never out of calling . . . [t]he scene that followed [her death] I did not witness, but the violence of his emotion, when, almost by stealth, I entered his room by night, to this day I dare not describe to myself.
Sarah N. Randolph 63
14) He had sons born to him, but they died in early infancy, so he then had but two children--Martha and Maria. The latter was left home, but afterwards was ordered to follow him to France. She was three years or so younger than Martha. My mother accompanied her as a body servant. When Mr. Jefferson went to France Martha was just budding into womanhood. Their stay (my mother's and Maria's) was about eighteen months. But during that time my mother became Mr. Jefferson's concubine, and when he was called back home she was enciente by him. He desired to bring my mother back to Virginia with him but she demurred. She was just beginning to understand the French language well, and in France she was free, while if she returned to Virginia she would be re-enslaved. So she refused to return with him. To induce her to do so he promised her extraordinary privileges, and made a solemn pledge that her children should be freed at the age of twenty-one years. In consequence of his promise, on which she implicitly relied, she returned with him to Virginia. Soon after their arrival, she gave birth to a child, of whom Thomas Jefferson was the father. It lived but a short time. She gave birth to four others, and Jefferson was the father of all of them. Their names were Beverly, Harriet, Madison (myself), and Eston--three sons and one daughter. We all became free agreeably to the treaty entered into by our parents before we were born. We all married and have raised families.
Madison Hemings
15) [Madison] Hemings, or rather [the interviewer, S. L.] Wetmore, gives a very truthful account of the public and private life of the Jefferson family; but this no doubt, was condensed from one of the numerous lives of Jefferson which can be found in any well-regulated family library.
John A. Jones
16) After Mr. Jefferson has left his home to assume the duties of the office of President, all became quiet again in Monticello. But as he was esteemed by both whites and blacks as a very great man, his return home, for a brief period, was a great event. His visits were frequent, and attended with considerable ceremony. It was a time looked forward to with great interest by his servants, for when he came home many of them, especially the leading ones, were sure to receive presents from his hands.
Israel Jefferson
17) Col. Jones had by this time become very fond of me, and would not arrange any terms by which I could gain my freedom. He respected me, and would not let me see him take his "bitters." He was surprised and pleased to find that I did not touch liquor. Being with and coming from such a family as Mr. Jefferson's, I knew more than they did about many things. This also raised me in their esteem. My sister Isabel was also left a slave in Virginia. I wrote her a free pass, sent her to Boston, and made [an?] attempt to gain my own freedom. The first time [I fai?]led and had to return. My parents were here in Ohio and I wanted to be with them and be free, so I resolved to get free or die in the attempt. I started the second time, was caught, handcuffed, and taken back and carried to Richmond and put in jail. For the second time I was put up on the auction block and sold like a horse. But friends from among my master's best friends bought me in and sent me to my father in Cincinnati, and I am here to-day.
Peter Fossett
18) One woman known to Mr. J. Q. Adams and others as "dusky Sally" was pretty notoriously the mistress of a married man, a near relation of Mr. Jefferson's, and there can be small question that her children were his. They were all fair and all set free at my grandfather's death, or had been suffered to absent themselves permanently before he died. The mother, Sally Hemmings, had accompanied Mr. Jefferson's younger daughter to Paris and was lady's maid to both sisters. Again I ask is it likely that so fond, so anxious a father, whose letters to his daughters are replete with tenderness and with good counsels for their conduct, should (when there were so many other objects upon whom to fix his illicit attentions) have selected the female attendant of his own pure children to become his paramour? The thing will not bear telling. There are such things, after all, as moral impossibilities.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
19) Mr. Jefferson freed a number of his servants in his will. I think he would have freed all of them, if his affairs had not been so much involved that he could not do it. He freed one girl some years before he died, and there was a great deal of talk about it. She was nearly as white as anybody, and very beautiful. People said he freed her because she was his own daughter. She was not his daughter; she was ......'s daughter. I know that. I have seen him come out of her mother's room many a morning, when I went up to Monticello very early. When she was nearly grown, by Mr. Jefferson's direction I paid her stage fare to Philadelphia, and gave her fifty dollars. I have never seen her since, and don't know what became of her. From the time she was large enough, she always worked in the cotton factory. She never did any hard work.
Edmund Bacon
20) But it is on himself alone I ought to bestow my time. Let me describe to you a man, not yet forty, tall and with a mild and pleasing countenance, but whose mind and understanding are ample substitutes for every exterior grace. An American, who, without ever having quitted his own country, is at once a musician, skilled in drawing, a geometrician, an astronomer, a natural philosopher, legislator, and statesman. A Senator of America, who sat for two years in that body which brought about the Revolution; and which is never mentioned without respect, though unhappily not without regret, a Governor of Virginia, who filled this difficult station during the invasions of Arnold, of Phillips, and of Cornwallis; a philosopher, in voluntary retirement from the world and public business because he loves the world, in as much only as he can flatter himself with being useful to mankind, and the minds of his countrymen are not yet in a condition either to bear the light or suffer contradiction. A mild and amiable wife, charming children, of whose education he himself takes charge, a house to embellish, great provisions to improve, and the arts and sciences to cultivate; these are what remain to Mr. Jefferson, after having played a principal character on the theatre of the New World, and which he preferred to the honorable commission of the Minister Plenipotentiary in Europe.
Sarah N. Randolph 59
21) By which I have the happiness to learn you are all well, and my Poll [his daughter Polly] also. Every information of this kind is like gaining another step, and seems to say we "have got so far safe." Would to God the great step was taken and taken safely: I mean that which is to place her on this side of the Atlantic. No event of your life has put it into your power to conceive how I feel when I reflect that such a child, and so dear to me, is to cross the ocean, is to be exposed to all the sufferings and risks, great and small, to which a situation on board a ship exposes every one. I drop my pen at the thought--but she must come.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Mrs. Eppes, qtd in Randolph 104-5
22) The visit which I made him was not unexpected for he had long since invited me to come and pass a few days with him in the centre of the mountains; notwithstanding which, I found his appearance serious -- nay, even cold, but before I had been two hours with him, we were as intimate as if we had passed our whole lives together; walking, books, but above all, a conversation always varied and interesting, always supported by the sweet satisfaction experienced by two persons, who, in communicating their sentiments and opinions, are invariably in unison, and who understand each other at the first hint, made four days pass away like so many minutes.
Chastellux's description of Jefferson, qtd. in Randolph 60
23) In the school of such a life, however, were reared and developed the characters of the men who rose to such eminence in the struggles of the Revolution, and who, as giants in intellect and virtue, must ever be a prominent group among the great historical characters of the world.
Sarah N. Randolph 24
24) About his own home he was the quietest of men. He was hardly ever known to get angry, though sometimes he was irritated when matters went wrong, but even then he hardly ever allowed himself to be made unhappy any great length of time. Unlike Washington he had but little taste or care for agricultural pursuits. He left matters pertaining to his plantations mostly with his stewards and overseers. He always had mechanics at work for him, such as carpenters, blacksmiths, shoemakers, coopers, &c. It was his mechanics he seemed mostly to direct, and in their operations he took great interest. Almost every day of his later years he might have been seen among them. He occupied much of the time in his office engaged in correspondence and reading and writing. His general temperament was smooth and even; he was very undemonstrative. He was uniformly kind to all about him. He was not in the habit of showing partiality or fatherly affection to us children. We were the only children of his by a slave woman. He was affectionate toward his white grandchildren, of whom he had fourteen, twelve of whom lived to manhood and womanhood.
Madison Hemings
25) A perusal of Hemings' autobiography reminds us of the pedigree printed on the numerous stud- horse bills that can be seen posted around during the Spring season No matter how scrubby the stock or whether the horse has any known pedigree, the "Horse Owner" furnishes a full and complete pedigree of every celebrated horse in the country. One of these is copied, and the scrawniest "plug" rejoices in a descent that would put Sir Archy to shame. The horse is not expected to know what is claimed for him. But we have often thought if one of them could read and would happen to come across his pedigree, tacked conspicuously at a prominent cross-road, he would blush to the tips of his ears at the mendacity of his owner.
John A. Jones
26) Since I have been in Ohio I have learned to read and write, but my duties as a laborer would not permit me to acquire much of an education. But such as I possess I am truly thankful, and consider what education I have as a legitimate fruit of freedom.
Israel Jefferson
27) His personal, household, and farm accounts were kept with the precision of the most rigid accountant, and he was a rare instance of a man of enlarged views and wide range of thought, being fond of details. The price of his horses, the fee paid to a ferryman, his little gifts to servants, his charities -- whether great or small -- from the penny dropped into the church-box to the handsome donation given for the erection of a church -- all found a place in his account-book.
Sarah N. Randolph 49
28) His apartments had no private entrance not perfectly accessible and visible to all the household. No female domestic ever entered his chambers except at hours when he was known not to be in the public gaze. But again I put it to any fair mind to decide if a man so admirable to his domestic character as Mr. Jefferson, so devoted to his daughters and their children, so fond of their society, so tender, considerate, refined in his intercourse with them, so watchful over them in all respects, would be likely to rear a race of half-breeds under their eyes and carry on his low amours in the circle of his family.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
29) Following the course which I have laid down for myself, I shall give but a passing notice of the political events of Jefferson's life, and only dwell on such incidents as may throw out in bold relief the beauties and charms of his domestic character.
Sarah N. Randolph 48
30) In private life Mr. Jefferson displays a mild, easy, and obliging temper, though he is somewhat cold and reserved. His conversation is of the most agreeable kind, and he possesses a stock of information not inferior to that of any other man. In Europe he would hold a distinguished rank among men of letters, and as such he has already appeared there. At present he is employed with activity and perseverance in the management of his farms and buildings; and he orders, directs, and pursues in the minutest details every branch of business relative to them. I found him in the midst of the harvest, from which the scorching heat of the sun does not present his attendance. His negroes are nourished, clothed, and treated as well as the white servants could be. As he can not expect any assistance from the two small neighboring towns, every article is made on his farm: his negroes are cabinetmakers, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, etc. The children he employs in a nail factory, which yields already a considerable profit. The young and old negresses spin the clothing for the rest. He animates them by rewards and distinctions; in fine, his superior mind directs the management of his domestic concerns with the same abilities, activity, and regularity which he evinced in the conduct of public affairs, and which he is calculated to display in every situation of life. In the superintendence of his household he assisted by his two daughters, Mrs. Randolph and Miss Maria, who are handsome, modest, and amiable women. They have been educated in France.
Description of Jefferson's private life by the Duc de la Rochefoucauld Liancourt, qtd in Randolph 238
31) Mr. Jefferson's discharge of his diplomatic duties was marked by great ability, diligence, and patriotism; and while he resided at Paris, in one of the most interesting periods, his character for intelligence, his love of knowledge and of the society of learned men, distinguished him in the highest circles of the French capital.
Sarah N. Randolph 150
32) Mr. Jefferson was always very kind and indulgent to his servants. He would not allow them to be at all overworked, and he would hardly ever allow one of them to be whipped. His orders to me were constant, that if there was any servant that could not be got along with without the chastising that was customary, to dispose of him. He could not bear to have a servant whipped, no odds how much he deserved it.
Edmund Bacon
33) In 1834 I married Mary McCoy. Her grandmother was a slave, and lived with her master, Stephen Hughes, near Charlottesville, as his wife. She was manumitted by him, which made their children free born. Mary McCoy's mother was his daughter. I was about 28 and she 22 years of age when we married. We lived and labored together in Virginia till 1836, when we voluntarily left and came to Ohio. We settled in Pebble township, Pike County. We lived there four or five years and during my stay in the county I worked at my trade on and off for about four years. Joseph Sewell was my first employer. I built for him what is now known as Rizzleport No. 2 in Waverly. I afterwards worked for George Wolf Senior. and I did the carpenter work for the brick building now owned by John J. Kellison in which the Pike County Republican is printed. I worked for and with Micajab Hinson. I found him to be a very clever man. I also reconstructed the building on the corner of Market and Water Streets from a store to a hotel for the late Judge Jacob Row.
Madison Hemings
34) The fact that Hemings claims to be the natural son of Jefferson does not convince the world of its truthfulness. He is not supposed to be a competent witness in his own behalf. He was no doubt present at the time of accouch[e]ment, but his extreme youth would prevent him from knowing all the facts connected with that important event.--Jefferson was over 62 years of age when Hemings appeared upon the sacred soil of Virginia, if we are to believe his biographer. The extreme age of Jefferson, coupled with his natural frigidity of constitution causes a doubt in our mind whether or not Hemings has been correctly informed about the author of his being. Solomon, (if we have been correctly informed) said, when he took his two hundredth wife, "it's a wise child that knows its own father."--The same is as true to-day as it was in days of Solomon. At all events, Jefferson is not here to put in a disclaimer, and we think it rather mean to take this advantage of the author of the Declaration of Independence.
John A. Jones
35) I know that it was a general statement among the older servants at Monticello, that Mr. Jefferson promised his wife, on her death bed, that he would not again marry. I also know that his servant, Sally Hemmings, (mother to my old friend and former companion at Monticello, Madison Hemmings,) was employed as his chamber-maid, and that Mr. Jefferson was on the most intimate terms with her; that, in fact, she was his concubine. This I know from my intimacy with both parties, and when Madison Hemmings declares that he is a natural son of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and that his brothers Beverly and Eston and sister Harriet are of the same parentage, I can as conscientiously confirm his statement as any other fact which I believe from circumstances but do not positively know.
Israel Jefferson
36) If this charge was true why revive it, for what purpose. Similar charges have been recently published against Mr. Jefferson's younger grandson upon somewhat similar evidence. Men who lived and died without reproach. What is the motive of such calamnies? It cannot be personal hostility, because these writers never know these persons. Can it be that they felt the necessity of pondering to a ferocious hate of the southern white man-- which devours with depraved appetite every invention of calumny, and every circulation of malignity that can blacken or degrade his character.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph
37) The habit that the Southern slaves have of adopting their master's names is another cause of misrepresentation and misapprehension. There is no doubt that such of Mr. Jefferson's slaves as were sold after his death would call themselves by his name. One very notorious villain who never had been the property of Mr. Jefferson, took his name and proclaimed himself his son. He was as black as a crow, and born either during Mr. Jefferson's absence abroad, or under some other circumstances which rendered the truth of his assertion simply impossible.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
38) He [Jefferson] studied fifteen hours a day. During the most closely occupied days of his college life it was his habit to study until two o'clock at night, and rise at dawn, the day he spent in close application -- the only recreation being a run at twilight to a certain stone which stood at a point a mile beyond the limits of the town. His habits of study were kept up during his vacations, which were spent at Shadwell ; and though he did not cut himself off from the pleasures of social intercourse with his friends and family, yet he still devote nearly three-fourths of his time to his books.
Sarah N. Randolph 31
39) Now I will tell you in confidence what Jefferson told me under the like condition. Mr. Southall and himself young men together, heard Mr. Peter Carr say, with a laugh, that "the old gentlemen had to bear the blame of his and Sam's (Col. Carr) misdeeds. There is a general impression that the four children of Sally Hemmings were all the children of Col. Carr, the most notorious good-natured Turk that ever was master of a black seraglio kept at other men's expense. His deeds are as well known as his name.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
40) The public papers, my dear friend, announce the fatal event of which your letter of October the 20th had given me ominous foreboding. Tried myself in the school of affliction, by the loss of every form of connection which can rive the human heart, I know well, and feel what you have lost, what you have suffered, are suffering, and have yet to endure. The same trials have taught me that for ills so immeasurable time and silence are the only medicine. I will not, therefore, by useless condolences, open afresh the sluices of your grief, nor, although mingling sincerely my tears with yours, will I say a word more where words are vain, but that it is of some comfort to us both that the term is not very distant at which we are able to deposit in the same cerement our sorrows and suffering bodies, and to ascent in essence to an ecstatic meeting with the friends we have loved and lost, and whom we shall still love and never lose again. God bless you and support you under your heavy affliction.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Adams, qtd in Randolph 370
41) Sometimes natural philosophy, at others politics, or the arts, were the topics of our conversation, for no object had escaped Mr. Jefferson; and it seemed as if from his youth he had placed in his mind, as he has done his house, on an elevated situation, from which he might contemplate the universe.
Sarah N. Randolph 60
42) [Beverly] married a white woman in Maryland, and their only child, a daughter, was not known by the white folks to have any colored blood coursing in her veins. . . . [Harriet] 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.
Madison Hemings
43) Some of the children currently reported to be Mr. Jefferson's were about the age of his own grandchildren. Of course he must have been carrying on his intrigues in the midst of his daughters family and insulting the sanctity of the home by his profligacy. But he had a large family of grandchildren of all ages, older & younger. Young men and young girls. He lived, whenever he was at Monticello, and entirely for the last seventeen years of his life, in the midst of these young people, surrounded by them, his intercourse with them of the freest and most affectionate kind. How comes it that his immoralities were never suspected by his own family--that his daughter and her children rejected with horror and contempt the charges brought against him. That my brother, then a young man certain to know all that was going on behind the scenes, positively declares his indignant belief in the imputations and solemnly affirms that he never saw or heard the smallest thing which could lead him to suspect that his grandfather's life was other than perfectly pure.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
44) Mrs. Jefferson left three children, Martha, Mary, and Lucy Elizabeth, the last an infant. As far as it was possible, their father, by his watchful care and tender love, supplied the place of the mother they had lost.
Sarah N. Randolph 63
45) Teach her [Polly] above all things to be good, because without that we can neither be valued by others nor set any value on ourselves. Teach her to be always true; no vice is so mean as the want of truth, and at the same time so useless. Teach her never to be angry; anger only serves to torment ourselves, to divert others, and alienate their esteem. And teach her industry, and application to useful pursuits. I will venture to assure you that, if you inculcate this in her mind, you will make her a happy being in herself, a most inestimable friend to you, and precious to all the world.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Martha Jefferson, qtd in Randolph 119
46) And in continuing this series of articles we shall allow the narrators to tell their own tales in their simple ways, without any attempt on our part to garnish their revelations. Some were well treated in slavery, others were badly used. The condition of a majority of those who emigrated to this region was that of nominal freedom, though a portion were slaves. As soon as we can we will give their humble stories to the public, in our columns, who must judge whether they are less entertaining and instructing than the information contained in a book written by Harriet Beecher Stowe of which our heading is a part of the title to "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
S. L. Wetmore, qtd. in Malone and Hochman 527
47) It was his principle (I know that of my own knowledge) to allow such of his slaves as were sufficiently white to pass for white men, to withdraw quietly from the plantation; it was called running away, but they were never reclaimed, I remember four instances of this, three young men and one girl, who walked away and staid away. Their whereabouts was perfectly known but they were left to themselves--for they were white enough to pass for white.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
48) The house servants were Betty Brown, Sally, Critta, and Betty Hemings, Nance, and Ursula They were old family servants, and great favorites. They were in the room when Mrs. Jefferson died. She died before I went to live with him, and left four little children. He never married again. They have often told my wife, that when Mrs. Jefferson died, they stood around the bed. Mr. Jefferson sat by her, and she gave him directions about a good many things that she wanted done. When she came to the children, she wept, and could not speak for some time. Finally she held up her hand, and spreading out her four fingers, she told him she could not die happy if she thought her four children were ever to have a step-mother brought in over them. Holding her other hand in his, Mr. Jefferson promised her solemnly that he would never marry again. And he never did. He was then quite a young man, and very handsome, and I suppose he could have married well; but he always kept that promise.
Edmund Bacon
49) We [the Hemingses] were permitted to stay about the "great house," and only required to do such light work as going on errands. . . . We [the Hemings children] were free from the dread of having to be slaves all our lives long, and were measurably happy.
Madison Hemings
50) Now many causes existed which might have given rise to suspicions, setting aside the inveterate rage and malice of Mr. Jefferson's traducers. The house at Monticello was a long time in building and was principally built by Irish workmen. These men where known to have had children of whom the mothers were black women. But these women were much better pleased to have it supposed that such children were their master's. "Le Czar m'a fait l'honneur de me faire cet enfant." There were dissipated young men in the neighborhood who sought the society of the mulatresses and they in like manner were not anxious to establish any claim of paternity in the results of such associations.
Ellen Randolph Coolidge
51) Jefferson's father died, as we have seen, when he was only fourteen years old. The perils and wants of his situation, deprived as he was so early in life of the guidance and influence of such a father, were very touchingly described by him years afterwards, in a letter written to his eldest grandson, when the latter was sent from home to school for the first time. He writes: "When I recollect that at fourteen years of age the whole care and direction of myself was thrown on myself entirely, without a relative or friend qualified to advise or guide me, and recollect the various sorts of bad company with which I associated from time to time, I am astonished that I did not turn off with some of them, and become as worthless to society as they were . . . ."
Sarah N. Randolph 25-26
52) Mr. Bankhead, I suppose, is seeking a merry Christmas in all the wit and merriments of Coke upon Littleton. God send him a good deliverance! Such is the usual prayer for those standing at the bar. Deliver to Mary my kisses, and tell her I have a present from one of her acquaintances, Miss Thomas, for her -- the minutest gourd ever seen, of which I send her a draught in the margin. What is to become of our flowers? I left them so entirely to yourself, that I never knew anything about them. You must really make out a book of instructions for Ellen, who has fewer cares in her head than I have. Every thing shall be furnished on my part at her call. Present my friendly respects to Dr. and Mrs. Bankhead. My affectionate attachment to Mr. Bankhead and yourself, not forgetting Mary.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to his oldest grandchild Mrs. Anne C. Bankhead, qtd in Randolph 331
53) I was bought in the name of my wife. We remained in Virginia several years on sufferance. At last we made up our minds to leave the confines of slavery and emigrate to a free State. We went to Charlottesville Court House, in Albemarle county, for my free papers. When there, the clerk, Mr. Garret, asked me what surname I would take, I hesitated, and he suggested that it should be Jefferson, because I was born at Monticello and had been a good and faithful servant to Thomas Jefferson. Besides, he said, it would give me more dignity to be called after so eminent a man. So I consented to adopt the surname Jefferson, and have been known by it ever since.
Israel Jefferson
54) Mr. Jefferson allowed his grandson to teach any of his slaves who desired to learn, and Lewis Randolph first taught me how to read. When I was sold to Col. Jones I took my books along with me. One day I was kneeling before the fireplace spelling the word "baker," when Col. Jones opened the door, and I shall never forget the scene as long as I live. "What have you got there, sir?" were his words. I told him. "If I ever catch you with a book in your hands, thirty-and-nine lashes on your bare back." He took the book and threw it into the fire, then called up his sons and told them that if they ever taught me they would receive the same punishment. But they helped me all they could, as did his daughter Ariadne. Among my things was a copy-book that my father gave me, and which I kept hid in the bottom of my trunk. I used to get permission to take a bath, and by the dying embers I learned to write. The first copy was this sentence, "Art improves nature."
Peter Fossett
55) A great lover of nature, he [Jefferson] found his favorite recreations in out-of-door enjoyments, and it was his habit to the day of his death, no matter what he occupation, nor what office he held, to spend the hours between one and three in the afternoon on horseback. Noted for his bold and graceful horsemanship, he kept as riding-horses only those of the best blood of the old Virginia stock. In the days of his youth he was very exacting of his groom in having his horses always beautifully kept; and it is said that it was his habit, when his riding-horse was brought up for him to mount, to brush his white cambric handkerchief across the animal's shoulders and send it back to the stable if any dust was left on the handkerchief.
Sarah N. Randolph 48-49
56) No servants ever had a kinder master than Mr. Jefferson's. He did not like slavery. I have heard him talk a great deal about it. He thought it a bad system. I have heard him prophesy that we should have just such trouble with it [Civil War] as we are having now.
Edmund Bacon
57) His death was an affair of great moment and uncertainty to us slaves, for Mr. Jefferson provided for the freedom of 7 servants only: Sally, his chambermaid, who took the name of Hemings, her four children-- Beverly, Harriet, Madison, and Eston-- John Hemings, brother to Sally, and Burrell Colburn [Burwell Colbert], an old and faithful body servant.
Israel Jefferson
58) My object in this short description [of Monticello] is only to show the difference between this and the other houses of the country; for we may safely aver that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the fine arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather.
Sarah N. Randolph 59
59) The Almighty has never made known to any body at what time he created it; nor will he tell any body when he will put an end to it, if he means to do it. As to preparations for that event, the best way is for you always to be prepared for it. The only way to be so is, never to say or do a bad thing. If ever you are about to say any thing amiss, or to do any thing wrong, consider beforehand you will feel something within you which will tell you it is wrong, and ought not to be said or done. This is your conscience, and be sure and obey it.
Thomas Jefferson, Letter to Martha Jefferson, qtd in Randolph 70-71
60) The talents of great men are frequently said to be derived from the mother. If they are inheritable, Jefferson was entitled to them on both the paternal and maternal side. His father was a man of most extraordinary vigor, both of mind and body. His son never wearied of dwelling with all the pride of filial devotion and admiration on the noble traits of his character.
Sarah N. Randolph 19
61) Hemings, or rather Wetmore, gives a very truthful account of the public and private life of the Jefferson family; but this no doubt, was condensed from one of the numerous lives of Jefferson which can be found in any well-regulated family library. We have no doubt but there are at least fifty negroes in this county who lay claim to illustrious parentage. This is a well known peculiarity of the colored race. The children of Jefferson and Madison, Calhoun and Clay far out-number Washington's body servants when Barnum was in the height of his prosperity. They are not to be blamed for making these assertions. It sounds much better for the mother to tell her offspring that "master" is their father than to acknowledge to them that some field hand, without a name, had raised her to the dignity of a mother. They want the world to think they are particular in their liasons with the sterner sex, whether the truth will bear them out or not. This is a well-known fact to those who have been reared in those States where slavery existed, and with them, no attention whatever, is paid to these rumors.--If they were, the "master" would have to bear the odium of all the licentious practices that are developed on the plantation.
John A. Jones
62) Mr. Jefferson was a tall strait-bodied man as ever you see, right square-shouldered: nary man in this town walked so straight as my old master: neat a built man as ever was seen in Vaginny, I reckon or any place --a straight-up man: long face, high nose.
Isaac Jefferson, qtd. in Campbell 572
63) As a master Jefferson was kind and indulgent. Under his management his slaves were seldom punished, except for stealing and fighting. They were tried for any offense as at court and allowed to make their own defense. The slave children were nursed until they were three years old, and left with their parents until thirteen. They were then sent to the overseers' wives to learn trades. Every male child's father received $5 at its birth. Jefferson was a man of sober habits, although his cellars were stocked with wines. No one ever saw him under the influence of liquor. His servants about the house were tasked. If you did your task well you were rewarded; if not, punished. Mrs. Randolph would not let any of the young ladies go anywhere with gentlemen with the exception of their brothers, unless a colored servant accompanied them.
Peter Fossett
