We have as well in Randolph’s letters to his brother suggestions that he may have had a drinking problem. For example, in a letter written on Thomas Jefferson’s sixty-ninth birthday (although Randolph does not mention it) in 1812, Randolph adds “I have not put a drop of any kind of spirits in My Mouth since I saw you.”137 In a footnote to this sentence, editor Bernard Mayo observes that it might indicate that Randolph “may have had a drinking problem.”138
Isaac Jefferson’s Memoirs of a Monticello Slave
So it would seem at least “more likely than not” that Randolph Jefferson (and quite likely his sons, since this would be a family social visit) were present at Monticello in August 1807. What would he have done there? We have good reason to believe that he had little interest in science or world affairs,139 and thus he probably would not have found great pleasure in sitting around the big house after dinner listening to his brilliant brother entertain other visitors with accounts of travels, government affairs, or new theories of science. Perhaps he would take his leave after dinner and seek pleasure elsewhere on the mountain?
Fortunately, we need not speculate on this point, as we have reliable eyewitness testimony. In 1847, Charles W. Campbell recorded a lengthy narrative from former Monticello blacksmith Isaac Jefferson. Later published under the title Memoirs of a Monticello Slave, this important document provides the following explanation of Randolph Jefferson’s after-dinner behavior while visiting Monticello: “Old Master’s brother, Mass Randall [sic], was a mighty simple man: used to come out among black people, play the fiddle and dance half the night; hadn’t much more sense than Isaac.”
Isaac Jefferson clearly thought very highly of Thomas Jefferson and had no apparent reason to fabricate this account. He confirms the prevailing wisdom that Randolph was a man of limited intellectual capacity, and his account is not that he once witnessed Randolph playing his fiddle for the slaves, but that this was apparently a common occurrence. Add to this the likelihood that Randolph was at Monticello when Sally Hemings conceived Eston; consider too the reports attributed to descendants of Harriet Hemings that Randolph had “colored children” of his own; and keep in mind as well that Randolph was a dozen years younger than the sixty-four-year-old President (who was presumably entertaining guests at the mansion while brother Randolph “fiddled” with the slaves); and the case for Randolph’s paternity of Eston would seem to strongly outweigh that for the President’s. This certainly does not prove that Randolph Jefferson was Eston Hemings’ father. But when you add in the fact that Eston’s descendants for generations passed down the story that Eston was the son of an “uncle” rather than Thomas Jefferson himself, the case that “Uncle Randolph” was Eston’s father gets even stronger.
Given the outlandish speculation (discussed previously) that Sally’s boys must have been fathered by Thomas Jefferson because some of them played the fiddle, it might be noted that Randolph Jefferson “took violin lessons from Francis Alberti, who had also instructed Thomas.”140 But, unlike President Jefferson’s passion in his adult years for the violin, Randolph was apparently fond of the kind of “folk” fiddle music that was popular among Monticello slaves. Furthermore, as noted in Chapter Nine, Thomas Jefferson’s ability to play the violin was seriously impaired by his 1786 wrist injury in Paris and subsequent rheumatism, and by the time Madison and Eston were old enough to learn to play, Jefferson seldom played.141 Thus, all of these rather frivolous arguments about fiddle playing would apply with at least equal if not greater force to place paternity on brother Randolph. In reality, however, there were enough fiddle-playing slaves at Monticello that the fact that some of Sally’s children developed similar skills is evidence of nothing remarkable.
How does the Monticello Report deal with the eyewitness account by former slave Isaac Jefferson that Randolph Jefferson was fond of socializing at night with Monticello slaves? With but a single sentence: “Since Isaac Jefferson left Monticello in 1797, his reference probably predates that year, and most likely refers to the 1780s, the period that is the subject of the majority of his recollections.”142 From this, we are told, “Isaac Jefferson’s observation most likely relates to the period of Randolph Jefferson’s youth.”143
Randolph’s youth? Even if one accepts the Monticello Report’s assumptions, by the end of the 1780s Randolph Jefferson was a thirty-four year old married man. When Isaac left in 1797, Randolph would have been at least forty-six (and still married). The surviving records are so incomplete that we do not know when his first wife, Anne Jefferson Lewis, died; but it was between 1789 and 1808, and thus most probably before Eston Hemings was conceived in late 1807.144 (To its credit, the Monticello Report acknowledges that “[t]he dates of Randolph’s widowhood also may coincide with Sally Hemings’s childbearing years. … ”145 ) So even if Randolph’s practice of socializing with Monticello slaves was primarily witnessed by Isaac during his thirties when Randolph was married, by what logic should we assume that as a fifty-two-year-old widower in August 1807 he would behave differently? On the contrary, one might expect that the lack of a spouse might make him feel less constrained about partying with his older brother’s slaves.
Nor is it at all clear that Isaac’s observations were restricted to the 1780s. He clearly remained at Monticello until 1797, when Randolph was forty-two, and the fact that his Memoirs focused heavily upon events from an earlier time does not suggest that his observations of Uncle Randolph’s behavior somehow ceased years before he left Monticello. One would normally assume the contrary.
Furthermore, there were several “Isaacs” at Monticello, and tracking them individually is not always a simple matter. Former Monticello Resident Director James A. Bear asserts that the Isaac whose Memoirs were later published was deeded to Jefferson’s daughter Maria (Polly) in 1797, “but was soon returned to the Monticello family.”146 Add to this that Isaac himself claimed that he “left Monticello four years before Mr. Jefferson died,”147 and it is quite possible that his observations of Randolph Jefferson’s behavior extended through the birth of all of Sally’s children.
It is not necessary to resolve this issue, because it strains credulity, in the absence of the slightest bit of evidence, to assume that a Randolph Jefferson who would frequently socialize with Monticello slaves “half the night” while a married man in his thirties and forties would cease doing so as a widower in his early fifties. And anyone attempting to argue that age might be a factor must address the reality that Thomas Jefferson, one of the alternative suspects, was a dozen years older and the record is totally devoid of the slightest hint from eyewitnesses that he enjoyed socializing at night with Monticello slaves.
The Eston Hemings Family Oral History
This issue has been addressed in Chapter Eight, but may warrant a brief mention here. Until Professor Brodie convinced them they were descendants of Thomas Jefferson, the descendants of Eston Hemings had been told by their parents and grandparents that they were descendant from an “uncle” of Thomas Jefferson. Professor Brodie notes that neither Madison nor Eston Hemings would have recalled any year at Monticello “without Martha Randolph in total charge.”148 While Thomas Jefferson’s paternal uncles had been dead for decades before Eston was conceived, to Martha Randolph and her children the President’s younger brother was “Uncle Randolph.” Thus, the case for Randolph as opposed to Thomas Jefferson being the father of Eston Hemings is the most reasonable interpretation of Eston’s own family oral history.
Randolph Jefferson’s Sons
Finally, we also know that Randolph Jefferson had five sons living with him, at least four of whom were between the ages of nineteen and twenty-six when Eston Hemings was conceived,149 and each of whom would have carried the same DNA Y-chromosome found in the descendants of Eston Hemings. According to the data in the Monticello Report, the fifth brother (James) was at least seventeen and probably eighteen at the time as well,150 but other information suggests that Randolph’s son James may have been younger than that151 and thus I exclude
him as a likely candidate for Eston’s paternity (although the odds of a fifteen- or even fourteen-year-old boy fathering a child are probably greater than those of a man of sixty-four, especially in an era during which the average man did not even live to see forty).
Given their father’s documented propensity for socializing with Monticello slaves, and other evidence we have that young men who visited Monticello were sometimes “intimate with the Negro women,”152 Randolph’s sons would also seem to be obvious candidates for the possible paternity of Eston. Yet none of the advocates of Thomas Jefferson’s paternity of Eston have dealt seriously with the possibility that Randolph or one of his sons was Eston’s father.
One might think that, given Thomas Jefferson’s advanced age, the much younger Randolph or his sons might be thought more likely to father a child. But, while noting that “Randolph Jefferson’s sons Thomas, in 1800 [age 17], and Robert Lewis, in 1807 [age 20], may well have been at Monticello during the conception periods of Harriet and Eston Hemings,”153 the Monticello Report simply dismisses them as possible candidates “because of their youth. … ”154 Apparently, the Monticello Committee members believed that a sixty-four-year-old was physically more likely to father a child than a twenty-year-old.
Far more importantly, since Thomas Jefferson did not normally bother to record visits by Randolph or his family in the absence of some special purpose, there is no evidence that Randolph and his sons were not present when any or all of Sally’s children (save perhaps “Tom”155) were conceived. We know Thomas Jefferson and his brother Randolph were close. We know that the primary reason Randolph would visit Monticello would be to see his brother (although there is one documented case of his going there briefly in Jefferson’s absence156). Randolph would presumably be most likely to visit shortly after his brother returned from being away. Sally Hemings got pregnant—on those Jefferson visits when we know she did get pregnant—shortly after Thomas Jefferson arrived home. The distinguishing feature between those visits by Thomas Jefferson when Sally did not become pregnant, and those when she did so within a few weeks of his arrival, might well have been the presence of brother Randolph, who lived but twenty miles away—about a half day’s ride by horseback.157
The Issue of the Timing of Sally’s Conceptions
Much has been made of the fact that Thomas Jefferson may158 have been at Monticello every time Sally Hemings conceived a child. But there are some other issues of timing we might want to consider:
During the first decade of his first marriage, Randolph Jefferson managed to father a child by his wife approximately every second year. Assuming that she was pregnant for the normal nine months, and assuming a reasonable period during which she was lactating and thus unlikely to conceive, it appears that Randolph was very successful at quickly fathering children.
A recent study reported in Human Reproduction159 shows a statistically significant correlation between an increase in a man’s chronological age and a decrease in his fecundity, or ability to father children within a given period of time. While this study dealt with younger men, there is no reason to believe the correlation does not continue—and indeed perhaps become more significant—with age. Thus, all other things being equal, a younger man like Randolph Jefferson would likely be able to more quickly impregnate a woman than his sixty-four-year-old brother. Give or take some number of days because of statistical variations in the length of the human gestation period, Sally conceived four out of five children within less than a month160 after Thomas Jefferson returned home (an event that presumably triggered a flood of visits from friends and relatives).
We do not know when Randolph’s first wife died, but it could easily have been a year or two before Sally had her first child.161 We do know that he remarried in 1808 or 1809,162 and that his second wife was by most accounts a controlling, abusive, “shrew”163—quite possibly the kind of woman who would not tolerate having her husband wander down to the slave quarters for a night of socializing during family visits to Monticello.
The year 1809 is particularly important as a transition year:
Thomas Jefferson retired from government and returned to Monticello full time, where he could presumably have access to Sally Hemings every single night if he so desired;
Randolph Jefferson had recently remarried, and thus may have been either forced to adjust his social behavior or simply found less urge to seek companionship elsewhere now that he had a wife at home;
Randolph’s twenty-seven-year-old son, Thomas Jefferson, Jr.,164 also married in 1808; and
Sally Hemings had no more known children, even though she was only in her mid-thirties.
Is all of this a coincidence? Perhaps. But then again, perhaps not. As the Monticello Report acknowledges, “The dates of Randolph’s widowhood also may coincide with Sally Hemings’s childbearing years. … ”165
What about the Numerous Times When Thomas Jefferson Returned Home and Sally Hemings Did Not Become Pregnant?
There has been a great deal of speculation about the fact that Sally Hemings became pregnant four times within roughly a month of Thomas Jefferson’s return to Monticello. But Thomas Jefferson made more than twenty trips to Monticello during the years 1794–1808, and there is information that Sally became pregnant within weeks four times and possibly a total of six times. (If one includes Thomas Woodson or another child born in 1790, then all of Jefferson’s visits between 1790 and 1795 without Sally becoming pregnant must also be considered.)
Some of the non-productive visits can be explained by the fact that Sally was already pregnant or had recently given birth. But many cannot. This suggests that there may have been two variables involved in determining when Sally Hemings became pregnant. First, Thomas Jefferson had to come home, because that was the occasion when his friends and relatives were most likely to visit Monticello. (During his presidency, Monticello was kept shut up during his absence.) But that is not enough. And one very logical explanation for the fact that Sally became pregnant within weeks during some of Thomas Jefferson’s visits, but on other occasions did not become pregnant even when he remained at Monticello for many months, is that the other variable—her actual lover166—was someone who visited Monticello often, but not every time that Thomas Jefferson returned home.
There is no proof that this is in fact what happened. But it has the virtue both of explaining Sally’s pattern of pregnancies, while at the same time being fully consistent with the eyewitness testimony of Edmund Bacon that he often saw a man other than Thomas Jefferson leaving Sally Hemings’ room early in the mornings.
Where Was Sally?
Finally, it should be noted that the revisionists simply assume that Sally Hemings must have been at Monticello every day between her return from Paris in 1789 and Thomas Jefferson’s death in 1826. They do this because there is no clear evidence she was elsewhere at any given time. And they may be right. Certainly the safest assumption, given what little we know, is that she was at Monticello on any given day. But we have no clear evidence she was always there, and indeed there are years in which there are no references to her even existing.
This is an area where further research may well be warranted, although I am not at all optimistic that records exist to resolve the issue. We know that during periods of construction at Monticello, Jefferson’s family members occasionally went elsewhere to live, taking slaves with them.167 We know that Thomas Jefferson kept slaves at various different properties. And we know that historian Henry Randall claims to have independently confirmed the statement attributed to Martha Randolph that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings could not have seen each other for fifteen months prior to the birth of one of her children. After his return from Paris, we have reliable information that Thomas Jefferson was never away from Monticello for fifteen straight months. Ergo, the most likely explanation—if the “fifteen months” statement was in fact made, and if it was true—is that during at least part of that period Sally Hemings had to have been elsewhere.
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p; If someone could confirm Randall’s alleged “finding,” that would presumably make it clear that Thomas Jefferson could not have fathered all of Sally’s children. Once the assumption of monogamy is disposed of, the case against Thomas Jefferson pretty much collapses to the very suspect allegations of James Callender, the problematic 1873 hearsay attributed to Madison Hemings, and the even more dubious account attributed to Israel Jefferson.
Candidly, I had tentatively concluded that the simplest explanation for this apparent discrepancy was that Henry Randall was simply not telling the truth. He wrote a quite good three-volume Life of Jefferson, but if he honestly believed that the Callender charges were false, one might envision him deciding to “recall” a nonexistent document to try to put the story to rest. But I no more like to assume that Henry Randall was intentionally misrepresenting the truth than I do Madison Hemings, Israel Jefferson, or anyone else. And there are some reasons to believe that Randall was telling the truth.
To begin with, the fact that Randall did not include the story allegedly told to him by Jeff Randolph in his own book (assuming, of course, that Randall did not simply fabricate the story years later for his letter to Parton) suggests that he could have made a far stronger defense of Jefferson than he did were that his goal. The story told to Parton is in turn supported by Ellen Coolidge’s earlier letter asserting that her brother (Jeff) had told her the Carr boys had admitted paternity and also asked her to keep it confidential. I was not comfortable with merely assuming that Henry Randall was not truthful, so I looked a little more carefully at some of the dates.
The Jefferson-Hemings Controversy Page 41