The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family (111 page)

27.
TJ to William Short, Dec. 14, 1789,
Papers
, 16:26.

28.
TJ to Elizabeth Eppes, July 25, 1790,
Papers
, 17:266.

29.
Stephanie M. H. Camp,
Closer to Freedom
, 36–37; Morgan,
Slave Counterpoint
, 542.

30.
Camp,
Closer to Freedom
, 37.

1.
TJ to George Washington, Dec. 15, 1789,
Papers
, 16:34–35; TJ to James Madison, Jan. 9, 1790, ibid., 92–93; George Washington to TJ, Jan. 21, 1790, ibid., 116–18; TJ to George Washington, Feb. 14, 1790, ibid., 16:184.

2.
Thomas Mann Randolph Sr. to TJ, Jan. 30, 1790,
Papers
, 16:135 (TJ received the letter on Feb. 4); TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, Feb. 4, 1790, ibid., 16:154–55.

3.
See Malone,
Jefferson
, 1:19–20, on the early relations between the Jeffersons and Thomas Mann Randolph Sr., and 2:250–53, on the marriage of Martha Jefferson and Randolph Jr.

4.
See, e.g., Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. to TJ, Aug. 16, 1786,
Papers
, 10:260–61; TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., Aug. 27, 1786, ibid., 205–9.

5.
Randall,
Life,
1:558.

6.
Randolph,
Domestic Life,
138–39.

7.
TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, Feb. 28, 1788,
Papers
, 14:367–68 n. Julian Boyd effectively sorted out the question whether the couple met in Paris in 1788. His conclusion that they did not is persuasive. Additional evidence that the couple did not meet and fall in love in France is that after her father announced that he was taking a leave of absence, Patsy Jefferson spoke to friends about her wish to stay in France during her father’s leave of absence.
MB
, 730 n. 47.

8.
Jack McLaughlin,
Jefferson and Monticello
(New York, 1988), 241–42.

9.
Dolley Payne Todd Madison to Anna Payne Cutts, Aug. 28, [1808], University of Virginia Press, 2004, http://rotunda.upress.virginia.edu/dmde/DPMO178. See, e.g., Martha Jefferson Randolph to Ann Cary Randolph Morris, Jan. 24, 1828, Family Letters Project, stating "that poor Jefferson [her son] is about to have another addition to his family is merely the usual annual occurrence."

10.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph to Dabney S. Carr, July 11, 1826, Carr-Cary Papers, quoted in Lewis, "The White Jeffersons,"
Sally Hemings and Thomas Jefferson: History, Memory, and Civic Culture
, ed. Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf (Charlottesville, 1999), 134. Jefferson’s overseer Edmund Bacon remembered the incident when Randolph hit his son-in-law in the head with an iron poker after he mistook him for a slave in the failing light of dusk one evening. Pierson,
Jefferson at Monticello
, 99.

11.
Pierson,
Jefferson at Monticello
, 99.

12.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, "The Last Days of Jefferson," Special Collections, ViU.

13.
William H. Gaines,
Thomas Mann Randolph, Jefferson’s Son-In-Law
(Baton Rouge 1966), 32–34.

14.
Cynthia A. Kierner,
Scandal at Bizarre
, 38–39.

15.
Pierson,
Jefferson at Monticello
, 99–100.

16.
Gaines,
Thomas Mann Randolph
, 106–7.

17.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph, "Last Days of Jefferson," Special Collections, ViU.

18.
Elizabeth Trist to Nicholas Trist, Feb. 13, 1819, Family Letters Project.

19.
Ellen Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, March 13, 1856, Coolidge Letter Book, Special Collections, University of Virginia.

20.
TJ to Wilson Cary Nicholas, March 8, 1819, LOC, 38312.

21.
Gaines,
Thomas Mann Randolph
, 39; Malone,
Jefferson
, 3:175.

22.
TJ to Martha Randolph, April 4, 1790,
Papers
, 16:300.

23.
Kierner,
Scandal at Bizarre
, 22.

24.
Thomas Mann Randolph to TJ, May 25, 1790,
Papers
, 16:441. Randolph describes the bad state of affairs at Varina. "We have 2 small houses with 2 rooms in each, which might have been rendered very commodious, had they not been situated at a distance from each other." He makes clear that the home was unsuitable and the couple wished to move elsewhere as soon as possible. The excessive heat was making him ill.

25.
Susan Kern, "The Material World of the Jeffersons at Shadwell,"
WMQ
, 3d ser., 62, no. 2 (2005), at http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/wm/62.2/kern.html; Kierner,
Scandal at Bizarre
, 19–20. See also Philip Hamilton,
The Making and Unmaking of a Revolutionary Family: The Tuckers of Virginia, 1752–1830
(Charlottesville, 2003), 100, discussing how Thomas Mann Randolph’s daughter took the cue from her parents about the importance of a "glittering lifestyle…to their reputation." See Martha Jefferson Carr to TJ, Dec. 3, 1787,
Papers
, 15:640, noting the death of Archibald Cary and the dire financial straits in which he had left his family.

26.
Stanton,
Free Some Day
, 124.

27.
Marriage settlement for Martha Jefferson,
Papers
, 15:189–91.

28.
TJ to Elizabeth Wayles, July 25, 1790,
Papers
, 17:266; Thomas Mann Randolph to TJ, May 25, 1790, ibid., l6:441, in which Randolph tells his father-in-law that his Martha was staying at Eppington while he prepared "for her coming to Varina."

29.
TJ to Elizabeth Wayles, July 25, 1790,
Papers
, 17:266. The SJL notes that TJ received Martha’s letter on July 2. He did not get the letter from his sister-in-law until July 8, as he notes in the body of his reply to her.

30.
See Stanton,
Slavery at Monticello
, at 16, reproducing a copy of a missing page from Jefferson’s Farm Book.

31.
See Martha Jefferson Randolph to Anne Cary Randolph Morris, Jan. 22, 1826, referring to Molly Warren as one of her long time house servants. Family Letters Project.

32.
TJ to William Short, July 1, 1790,
Papers
, 16:588–90.

33.
TJ to Elizabeth Eppes, July 25, 1790,
Papers
, 17:266; Elizabeth Eppes to TJ, Aug. 11, 1790, ibid., 331; TJ to Elizabeth Wayles Eppes, Oct. 31, 1790, ibid., 658. Jefferson was unable to realize his plan to have his younger daughter join him in Philadelphia during the summer of 1791, and Maria did not make it to the city until the fall of that year.
MB
, 836–37.

34.
Marriage settlement for Mary Jefferson,
Papers
, 29:549–50.

35.
Ibid., 550.

36.
Thomas Mann Randolph to TJ, April 23, 1790,
Papers
, 16:370; Martha Randolph to TJ, April 25, 1790, ibid., 384.

37.
Elizabeth Eppes to TJ, May 23, 1790,
Papers
, 6:209 n.

38.
Mary Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Oct. 1790 [?], LOC, 11992. Mary Jefferson’s letter to Randolph is undated. The estimated date appended to the top appears to be incorrect. Jefferson indicated that his family had arrived at Monticello on Sept. 22, 1790. TJ to James Madison, Sept. 23, 1790,
Papers
, 17:512 n. There would have been no reason to write to her brother-in-law in Oct., because they were together at Monticello. On Anne Skipwith’s illness, see Mary Jefferson to TJ, July 20, 1790,
Papers
, 17:239; Elizabeth Eppes to TJ, Aug. 11, 1790, ibid., 331.

39.
TJ wrote to Thomas Mann Randolph Sr. in July about the situation at Varina, hoping that they could "arrange together a matter which our children have at heart. I find it is the strong wish of both to settle in Albemarle. They both consider Varina too unhealthy, a consideration too important, nor to overbear every other." TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, July 25, 1790,
Papers
, 17:274.

40.
TJ to Martha Randolph, Aug. 8, 1790,
Papers
, 17:327.

41.
TJ to Martha Randolph, July 17, 1790; TJ to Mary Jefferson, July 25, 1790; TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, July 25, 1790,
Papers
, 17:327, 214, 275.

42.
Malone,
Jefferson
, 2:252–53. See also TJ to Martha Jefferson Randolph, April 26, 1790,
Papers
, 16:386–87. He did speak with Randolph about the property. Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. to TJ, Nov. 11, 1790, ibid., 18:43.

43.
Gaines,
Thomas Mann Randolph
, 32. In a letter dated July 17, 1790, TJ makes clear that Martha and Gabriella Randolph knew each other: "Former acquaintance, and equality of age, will render it easier for you to cultivate and gain the love of the lady."
Papers
, 17:215. TJ’s completely tone deaf comment provides a very telling insight into his worldview and, probably, that of other men of his time. He seemed to believe that because Martha and Gabriella were the same age and knew each other, it would make it easier for them to get along, when in fact the whole situation was always very likely to do the opposite. He could not have been looking at the matter from his daughter’s perspective. By Jefferson’s logic, Harvie and the sisters of Martha’s husband should have gotten along famously. Instead, from the very beginning, they entered into a female version of a metaphorical duel to the death, which Harvie ultimately won. Many years after her victory, when Nancy Randolph, whom she had driven away from Tuckahoe, fell on hard times and scandal, a then remarried Harvie teamed up with Nancy’s longtime tormenter, John Randolph, to try to completely destroy her former "step daughter’s" reputation. Kierner,
Scandal at Bizarre
, 114–15. What TJ evidently did not see (or chose to ignore) was that Gabriella’s marriage to Martha’s father-in-law confused expectations among these young people (Thomas and his sisters included), both economically and psychologically. It put Gabriella in control of this age cohort’s fortunes and patrimony. The quickness of the courtship and marriage after the death of the Randolph children’s mother, and the two family’s physical proximity to one another, no doubt raised uncomfortable questions about just when the elder Randolph first started thinking about Gabriella.

44.
Kierner,
Scandal at Bizarre
, 29.

45.
TJ to Martha Jefferson Randolph, July 17, 1790,
Papers
, 17:215.

46.
George Green Shackelford, "Mr. Jefferson’s Grandchildren,"
Magazine of Albemarle County History
33/34 (1975–76): 163–72, at 171.

47.
Kierner,
Scandal at Bizarre
, 29.

48.
Ibid., 29–30.

49.
Gordon-Reed,
TJ and SH
, 198–99, on Harriet Randolph.

50.
Pierson,
Jefferson at Monticello
, 110. Edmund Bacon described Harriet Hemings as having been "very beautiful."

51.
Malone,
Jefferson
, 2:320; TJ to Nicholas Lewis, [ca. Nov. 7, 1790],
Papers
, 18:29.