Stories

“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 for, and consider what education I have as a legitimate fruit of freedom.

The private life of Thomas Jefferson, from my earliest remembrance, 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, ran 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.  Frequently gentlemen would call upon him on business of great importance, whom I used to usher into his presence, and sometimes I would be employed in burnishing or doing some other work in the room where they were.  On such occasions I used to remain; otherwise I retired and left the gentlemen to confer together alone.  In those times I minded but little concerning the conversations which took place between Mr. Jefferson and his visitors.  But 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 the colored people—the slaves.  Lafayette spoke English 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 rightfully 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 unusually 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, Pike County Republican, 25 Dec. 1873)

“When I came to Cincinnati, I was employed as a waiter in a private house, at ten dollars a month for the first month.  From that time on I received $20, till I went on board a steamboat, where I got higher wages still.  In time, I found myself in receipt of $50 per month, regularly, and sometimes even more.  I resided in Cincinnati about fourteen years, and from thence came on to the farm I am now on, in Pebble township, on Brushy Fork of Pee Pee creek.  Have been here about sixteen years.

“Since my residence in Ohio I have several times visited Monticello.  My last visit was in the fall of 1866.  Near there I found the same Jefferson Randolph, whose service as administrator I left more than forty years ago, at Monticello.  He had grown old, and was outwardly surrounded by the evidences of former ease and opulence gone to decay.  He was in poverty.  He had lost, he told me, $80,000 in money by joining the South in rebellion against the government.  Except his real estate, the rebellion stripped him of everything, save one old, blind mule.  He said that if he had taken the advice of his sister, Mrs. Cooleridge [Ellen Coolidge], gone to New York, and remained there during the war, he could have saved the bulk of his property.  But he was a rebel at heart, and chose to go with his people.  Consequently, he was served as others had been—he had lost all his servants and nearly all his personal property of every kind.  I went back to Virginia to find the proud and haughty Randolph in poverty, at Edge Hill, within four miles of Monticello, where he was bred and born.  Indeed, I then realized, more than ever before, the great changes which time brings about in the affairs and circumstances of life.” (Israel Jefferson, Pike County Republican, 25 Dec. 1873)

I wonder if the music is as good now as it used to be?  I was at the great Charity Ball – as a looker on – given in this city a few weeks ago, where the music was furnished by the celebrated Barracks Band, but somehow or other it didn’t affect me at all like Heming’s used to at the balls we are speaking of.  When he with his violin, Graham Bell with his clarionet and Wambaw with the bass viol cut loose, there was only one thing to do, and that was – dance.  When they struck up ‘Money Musk’, or ‘Wesson’s Slaughter House,’ he was a chump indeed who could sit by and look on without clinching onto a pretty girl and joining the merry throng.  And there was no chance for a mistake in the girl, either, for they were all pretty – at least they looked so then.  Why is it that in the matter of looks the girls of to-day compare so unfavorable with the ones of that day?  Do spectacles make the difference?  Eston Hemings, the Ben Hunter of that day, was a fine looking man, very slightly colored, of large size and said to have been a natural son of Thomas Jefferson, but I never went very much on that story, although I have seen a life of Jefferson in which the name of Hemings is given as one of the household, and I have no doubt that his mother was a slave of Mr. Jefferson’s.  He built, I think, and lived in the brick house on Paint street occupied a few years ago by Mr. William Stanly.  His wife was a fine looking woman and either of them would have had little difficulty in passing as white people, but a nigger was a nigger in those days and that settled it.  He was in demand in all the neighboring towns in the winter season, and Circleville, Lancaster, Portsmouth and Columbus frequently sought his services.  When he left Chillicothe it was for the West, and I recollect hearing that one of his sons was at one time a member of the Legislature of a western state. (Angus Waddle, Chillicothe Leader, 26 Jan. 1887, Beverly Gray Collection)

“We have already introduced to the reader old Wormley, a grey-haired servant of Mr. Jefferson.  We once stood with him before the dilapidated pile of Monticello.  The carriage-houses, three in number, were at the moment under our eye.  Each would hold a four-horse coach.  We inquired-‘Wormley, how often were these filled, in Mr. Jefferson’s time?’  ‘Every night, sir in summer, and we commonly had two or three carriages under that tree,’ said he, pointing to a large tree.  ‘It took all hands to take care of your visitors?’ we suggested.  ‘Yes, sir, and the whole farm to feed them,’ was the concise and significant reply.” (Henry S. Randall, The Life of Thomas Jefferson, 1865, 3: 332)