John Wayles Jefferson
John Wayles Jefferson | |
---|---|
Born | John Wayles Hemings May 8, 1835 |
Died | June 12, 1892 | (aged 57)
Resting place | Forest Hill Cemetery, Madison, Wisconsin |
Occupation(s) | Hotelier, cotton broker, journalist |
Parents |
|
Relatives | Sally Hemings (grandmother) |
Military career | |
Allegiance | United States |
Service/ | U.S. Army (Union Army) |
Years of service | 1861–1864 |
Rank | Colonel (USV) |
Commands held | 8th Reg. Wis. Vol. Infantry |
Battles/wars | American Civil War |
John Wayles Jefferson (born John Wayles Hemings; May 8, 1835 – June 12, 1892), was an American businessman and Union Army officer in the American Civil War. He is believed to be a grandson of Thomas Jefferson; his paternal grandmother is Sarah (Sally) Hemings, Thomas Jefferson's mixed-race slave and half-sister to his late wife.
Early life and family
John's father,
Thomas Jefferson informally and formally freed all of Sally's four surviving children. He let the first two "escape" when they came of age; they went North to Washington, DC and passed into white society, both marrying white spouses. Jefferson's will freed Madison and Eston Hemings shortly after the president's death in 1826; Eston was "given his time" so that he did not have to wait until the age of 21 for freedom. Madison, already 21, had been freed immediately. In 1830 Eston purchased property in Charlottesville, on which he and his brother Madison built a house. Their mother Sally lived with them until her death in 1835.
In Charlottesville, Eston married Julia Ann Isaacs, a
After his mother Sally died, Eston and Julia Ann Hemings moved their family to
In 1852, after passage of the
Career
Before the Civil War, John W. Jefferson operated the American House hotel in Madison, Wisconsin, where he brought on his younger brother Beverly to help and learn the business.
Military service
At the age of 26, Jefferson entered the
According to service records, John Jefferson had red hair and gray eyes (as did Thomas Jefferson).[2] Photographs show his strong resemblance to Thomas Jefferson.
In 1902, a former neighbor from Chillicothe recalled John Jefferson's concerns about his mixed ancestry in the social climate of the times:
... and I saw and talked with one of the sons, during the Civil War, who was then wearing the silver leaves of a lieutenant colonel, and in command of a fine regiment of white men from a north-western state. He begged me not to tell the fact that he had colored blood in his veins, which he said was not suspected by any of his command; and of course I did not.[3]
Post-war career
Jefferson wrote as a newspaper correspondent during and after the war, publishing articles about his experiences. After the war, he moved to Memphis, Tennessee,[1] where he became a highly successful cotton broker, founding the Continental Cotton Company.
He raised cotton in Arkansas and bred blooded trotting horses on his plantation near Memphis. Articles under his name in the Memphis Daily Avalanche cover such matters as improving streets, enlarging the city's boundaries, and preventing cotton-warehouse fires.[4]
Jefferson never married. He died on June 12, 1892.[1] He was interred in Madison, Wisconsin, in the Jefferson family plot at Forest Hill Cemetery. He left a sizeable estate.
Ancestry controversy
Historians disputed as to whether Thomas Jefferson had children with his slave Sally Hemings.
References
- ^
- ^ Justus, Judith, Down from the Mountain: The Oral History of the Hemings Family, Lesher Printers, Inc., 1999, p. 91.
- ^ "A Sprig of Jefferson was Eston Hemings", Scioto Gazette, 1902, republished at Jefferson's Blood, PBS Frontline.
- ^ Fawn M. Brodie, "Thomas Jefferson's Unknown Grandchildren: A Study in Historical Silences", American Heritage, October 1976, Vol. 27, Issue 6, accessed 13 November 2013.
- S2CID 4424562. Archived from the original(PDF) on 2016-04-15. Retrieved 2013-01-19.
- ^ Dinitia Smith and Nicholas Wade, "DNA Test Finds Evidence of Jefferson Child by Slave", New York Times, 1 November 1998, accessed 8 September 2011.
External links
- Jefferson Family Papers, UCLA Library, Department of Special Collections
- "Thomas Jefferson's Madison Descendants?" Archived 2013-11-12 at the Wayback Machine, Wisconsin Historical Society
- Thomas Jefferson, PBS Frontline
- John Wayles Jefferson at Find a Grave