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“During the interval of Mr. Jefferson’s death and the sale to Mr. Gilmer, I married Mary Ann Colter, a slave, by whom I had four children—Taliola, (a daughter) Banebo, (a son) Susan and John.  As they were born slaves they took the usual course of most others in the same condition in life.  I do not know where they now are, if living; but the last I heard of them they were in Florida and Virginia.  My wife died, and while a servant of Mr. Gilmer, I married my present wife, widow Elizabeth Randolph, who was then mother to ten children.  Her maiden name was Elizabeth Farrow.  Her mother was a white woman named Martha Thacker.  Consequently, Elizabeth, (my present wife) was free-born.  She supposes that she was born about 1793 or ‘94.  Of her ten children, only two are living—Julia, her first born, and wife of Charles Barnett, who lives on an adjoining farm, and Elizabeth, wife of Henry Lewis, who reside within one mile of us.

My wife and I have lived together about thirty-five years.  We came to Cincinnati, Ohio, where we were again married in conformity to the laws of this State.  At the time we were first married I was in bondage; my wife was free.  When my first wife died I made up my mind I would never live with another slave woman.  When Governor Gilmer was elected a representative in Congress, he desired to have me go on to Washington with him.  But I demurred.  I did not refuse, of course, but I laid before him my objections with such earnestness that he looked me in the face with his piercing eye, as if balancing in his mind whether to be soft or severed, and said,

            ‘Israel, you have served me well; you are a faithful servant; now what will you give me for your freedom?’

            ‘I reckon I give you what you paid years ago—$500,’ I replied.

            ‘How much will you give to bind the bargain?’ he asked.

            ‘Three hundred dollars,’ was my ready answer.

            ‘When will you pay the remainder?’

            ‘In one and two years.’

And on these terms the bargain concluded and I was, for the first time, my own man, and almost free, but not quite, for it was against the laws of Virginia for a freed slave to reside in the State beyond a year and a day.  Nor were the colored people not in slavery free; they were nominally so.  When I came to Ohio I considered myself wholly free, and not till then.

And here let me say, that my good master, Governor Gilmer, was killed by the explosion of the gun Peacemaker, on board the Princeton, in 1842 or 1843, and had I gone to Washington with him it would have been my duty to keep very close to his person, and probably I would have been killed also, as others were.

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 Albermarle county, for my free papers.  When there, the clerk, Mr. Garrett, 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 of Jefferson, and have been known by it ever since.” (Israel Jefferson, Pike County Republican, 25 Dec. 1873)

“Yes, I knew he was a bell ringer, and I knew that he carried these, oh that’s coming back to me now. I remember Daddy talking about these buckets of coal that he carried to fire, whatever he had to fire. He was very good at ringing the bells without a time piece. I remember Daddy saying that. And I remember him saying he was always there, you know like he wasn’t, he was on time and he wasn’t absent, that sort of thing. And I know my Grandmother Patsy Martin, great‑grandmother, was a very religious person. The two of them seemed to have been religious people from what I recall. And my Grandmother Patsy would not allow anybody to come in her house with a hat on. My father told me about a man who came to her door, I don’t know whether it was insurance or what he was, but she invited him to take his hat off and the way she invited him was like, this was the impression I got, no nonsense kind of thing.”

“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.

I think that Mr. Jefferson was 84 years of age when he died.  He was hardly ever sick, and till within two weeks of his death he walked erect without a staff or cane.  He moved with the seeming alertness and sprightliness of youth.” (Israel Jefferson, Pike County Republican, 25 Dec. 1873)

“On a beautiful day in the latter part of February (the opening of the Virginia spring), 1851- the author rode up Monticello, having for his cicerone an old manumitted slave, who had for forty-five years belonged to Mr. Jefferson.  Wormley had been first a door-yard servant, and subsequently a gardener.  He had dug the grave of his master and others of his household, and now was the oldest living chronicler of Monticello.  Like most of his color, he had a strong attachment for horses.  After a few minutes’ inquiries, his taciturnity gave way to animation on this favorite theme.  He could distinctly remember, and described the points, height, color, pace, temper, etc., of every horse as far back as Arcturus, which Mr. Jefferson brought home from Washington.  A crag of serpentine jutting into the narrow road, built high on the sides of a steep ravine, was selected by the fiery stranger horse as a shying butt-as if conscious that his rider would feel it dangerous to administer correction in such a spot.  Mr. Jefferson tolerated this once or twice, but on its being repeated, punished the rearing and plunging animal with whip and spur until he was ‘glad to put his fore feet on the rock and stand still.’  Higher up, Wormley pointed out the path, or rather the rough untrodden course on the side of Carter’s Mountain, where Mr. Jefferson rode away when a detachment of Tarleton’s dragoons were sent to capture him, ‘but not till the white coats were climbing the mountain.’  An inspection of the deserted and dilapidated stables, called forth other incidents; and finally we returned so as to pass Moore’s Creek at the ford, where Mr. Jefferson was thrown over his horse’s head into the stream, as there will be subsequent occasion to relate.” (Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1865, 1: 69-70)