Harriet Nicoll For the marriage settlement, see bulk.resource.org/courts.gov/c/US/49/49.US.10.html.
Other records show Obituary, Thomas Shields, congressionalcemetery.org; on McKean, see Alfred Hunt, compiler, The Washington and Georgetown Directory, ed. Wesley E. Pippenger (1853; rev. ed., Lewes, Del.: Colonial Roots, 2004), 68.
District’s probate records GRC: Record of Wills, vol. 4 (1799–1837), as recorded in the Office of Register of Wills, Municipal Court, Washington, D.C., 297–99; dated 10 August 1835; probated 29 September 1835.
Harriet Bohrer National Archives: Record Group 21, Entry 115: Old Series Case files, 1801–1878, Acc. 4581.
“My wife, Harriet Steel” Daily National Intelligencer, 4 January 1827.
“filled with honor” Evening Star, 9 December 1871. The “Oldest Inhabitants” was a Washington men’s society.
nineteenth-century male identity On definition of masculinity and its connection with work in this period, see Jeanne Boydston, Home and Work: Housework, Wages, and the Ideology of Labor in the Early Republic (New York: Oxford University Press, 1990); and for laboring men, see Sean Wilentz, Chants Democratic: New York City and the Rise of the American Working Class, 1788–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984).
visit Congressional Cemetery Congressional Cemetery, Range and Interment records, “Blue Book,” begun in 1858, unpaginated, Range 72; gravestone, Charles Bell, “Died Aug 15, 1845, Aged 80 years.”
Brent’s father Chester Horton Brent, The Descendants of Hugh Brent, Immigrant to Isle of Wight County, Virginia, 1642 (Rutland: Tuttle Publishing Company, 1936), 133–35.
“for she has passed” Charles Francis Adams, 26 December 1823, Adams Family Papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.
baptized in St. Mary’s Records of the American Catholic Historical Society of Philadelphia, 18:73–75, at DAR.
the case of Harriet Walker Baptism: GRC vol. 038:40 at St. John’s Roman Catholic Church, Forest Glen, Md.; Walker-Martin marriage: GRC marriage records, vol. 22:351.
Family Search Family Search is the website of the Church of Latter Day Saints.
Pumphrey was a laborer S. A. Elliot, The Washington Directory (Washington, D.C.: S. A. Elliot, 1827); 1860 census.
appears in the Washington newspapers Daily National Intelligencer, 14 January 1853; Evening Star, 24 February 1858.
Not even the names On Pumphrey family genealogy, see Edythe Maxey Clark, William Pumphrey of Prince George’s County Maryland and His Descendants (Decorah, Ia.: Anundsen, 1992); L. N. Pumphrey, The Pumphrey Pedigree (Baltimore: Gateway Press, 2003).
wedding announcement Ralph D. Smith, The Simpson Families of Southern Maryland, Western Maryland, and the District of Columbia to 1820 (Daytona Beach, Fl.: R. D. Smith, 1998); Dennis William Simpson, compiler, Simpson and Allied Families (Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1985); John Worth Simpson, Simpson: A Family of the American Frontier (Baltimore: Gateway Press, 1983); Henry C. Peden, Jr., compiler, Marriages and Deaths from Baltimore Newspapers, 1817–1824 (Lewes, Del.: Colonial Roots, 2010), 205, pumphreyfuneralhome.com, accessed 3 June 2015.
Williamson was a Scottish immigrant Obituary, congressionalcemetery.org.
several examples of Scotsmen See, for example, Allyson Hobbs, A Chosen Exile: A History of Racial Passing in American Life (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2014), 84.
“In the ’30’s,” James Croggon, Historical Sketch, Second Part, “The Blocks between I and M, 10th and 11th Streets—Once an Enormous Gravel Bank,” Evening Star, 16 February 1908.
“a handsome interest” John Wayles Eppes to TJ, 11 May 1802, PTJDE.
Just a quick sampling NARA Deed books, Record Group 351, Entry 112; see, for example, WB 89 (1841) 302/239; WB 98, 1842–1843; WB 130, 1846, 1847, Lot 2, Square 414.
“erecting some frame houses” Croggon, Historical Sketch.
By 1860 1860 Census, Washington, D.C.
widow hired thirty carriages NARA, Probate Records. Record Group 21, Entry 115: Old Series Case files, 1801–1878, Acc. 5011.
Williamson joined the Society Joseph B. Williamson application to the Association of the Oldest Inhabitants, 4 June 1898, MSS 422, Series V: Membership Applications, Container 2, Folder 53, Historical Society of Washington.
even his death certificate I am grateful to the archivist Ali Ramaan from the District of Columbia Archives for finding the death certificate, which had initially proved elusive.
meet with a descendant Interview with Elisabeth Williamson, 22 March 2014.
Charles migrated to Missouri 28 December 1863 Charles B. Williamson married Fanny B. Brady, Marion County, Missouri Marriage Records, 1805–2002; Ralls County Death Certificate, 4 August 1910.
presented themselves for marriage Washington Gazette, 16 July 1822.
“Laurie was conducting a service” Elaine Morrison Foster, “Founding a Church in a City on a Hill: Joseph Nourse, James Laurie, and the F Street Church,” in Capital Witness: A History of the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church in Washington, D.C., eds. Dewey D. Wallace, Jr., Wilson Golden, and Edith Holmes Snyder (Franklin, Tenn.: Plumbline Media, 2011), 40. It must also be noted, however, that on 15 January 1805, Jefferson contributed fifty dollars to the new church Laurie was building. Ibid.
“having applied for admission” Fourth Presbyterian Church Records, First Session Book: 1828–Sept 1878, May 1835, 44. I am grateful to Ruth Williams at Fourth Presbyterian Church for access to its archives. Baptism and marriage records from Laurie’s F Street Church do not begin until the 1880s, and the 1824 session minutes do not list the Williamsons in their membership roll. Email communication with Daniel Stokes, New York Avenue Presbyterian Church historian, 9 July 2013.
Joseph was elected Board of Trustees: Evening Star, 10 April 1897, 23; new church: Evening Star, 11 March 1898.
member for sixty-five years Obituary, Washington Post, 9 January 1917.
“Harriet Williamson, her mark” Benjamin Williamson Deed to John T. Towers, NARA Deeds, Record Group 351, Entry 112, WB 136, 26 June 1847, 307/250.
a signed promissory note Note, 11 June 1864, NARA, Record Group 21, Entry 115: Old Series Case files, 1801–1878, Acc. 5011.
“prominent in the affairs” Evening Star, May 12, 1914.
builder who supported Interview with descendant, 22 March 2014. Joseph Boteler Williamson is often referred to as Joseph B. Williamson, Jr., although his middle name was different from his father’s.
Charles Williamson Probate records, Charles J. Williamson, Acc. 61737, D.C. Superior Court Probate Division; “Anniversary Is Celebrated by Pendexters,” Washington Post, 23 March 1946.
“two copper candle sticks” 6 June 1821, Washington Gazette, 3.
So her birthday became Harriet Williamson death certificate, 4 November 1883, District of Columbia Public Records Office; tombstone, Congressional Cemetery.
not been able to find Harriet Williamson death certificate. The only Joseph Garner who appears in the District is a black man who was advertised as a runaway slave in National Intelligencer, 8 December 1821.
“opening a grave” Daily Interments, July 1839–July 1849, vol. 2, unpaginated. Congressional Cemetery Archive.
“so obscure that the spot” Elizabeth Keckley, Behind the Scenes, or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House (New York: Oxford, 1988), 240–41.
story of a French imposter Natalie Zemon Davis, The Return of Martin Guerre (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1983).
“that astonishing things” Ibid., 125.
difficulties for unskilled laborers Green, Washington, 96.
worsening predicament of blacks Abbott, Political Terrain, 49.
“our enemy at home” Quoted in Green, Washington, 58.
But just seven years later Abbott, Political Terrain.
In 1828 blacks were even forbidden Green, Washington, 99.
energetically erecting churches Ibid., 100.
blacks founded schools Ibid.
Firs
t Freed Elizabeth Clark-Lewis, First Freed: Washington, D.C. in the Emancipation Era (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 2002), passim.
“This thing is not done” “Mrs. Madison’s Slaves Again,” Liberator, 31 March 1848, quoted in Holly Cowan Shulman, “History, Memory, and Dolley Madison,” in The Queen of America: Mary Cutts’s Life of Dolley Madison, ed. Catherine Allgor (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012), 65.
One of the fugitives Shulman, “History, Memory, and Dolley Madison,” 65–66.
Blacks who could not prove Green, Washington, 97.
Visitors observed with disgust Jesse Torrey, A Portraiture of Domestic Slavery, in the United States (Philadelphia: John Bioren, 1817), 33–34.
object of the crowd’s wrath Morley, Snow-Storm in August, 21.
Blacks remaining behind Kathleen M. Lesko, Black Georgetown Remembered: A History of Its Black Community from the Founding of “The Town of George” in 1751 to the Present Day (Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 1991), 12; Abbott, Political Terrain, 49.
died a social one Orlando Patterson, Slavery and Social Death: A Comparative Study (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1982).
of questionable skin color Frank W. Sweet, Legal History of the Color Line: The Notion of Invisible Blackness (Palm Coast, Fl.: Backintyme, 2005).
“Silence was the only” Hartman, Lose Your Mother, 71.
“tainted with African blood” Hemings, “Memoirs,” 246.
“the creation and establishment” Linda Schlossberg and María Carla Sánchez, eds., Passing: Identity and Interpretation in Sexuality, Race, and Religion (New York: New York University Press, 2001), 4.
“Poor creature” MJR to TJ, 15 January 1795, in Betts and Bear, Family Letters, 131; MJR to Septimia Randolph Meikleham, 27 March 1833, Acc. 4726b, ViU.
would have detached herself Linda Schlossberg, “Rites of Passing,” in Sánchez and Schlossberg, Passing: Identity and Interpretation, 4. The different stories the Randolph grandchildren invented to explain the “yellow” children at Monticello show that they, too, needed to make sense of their complicated past. EWRC to Joseph Coolidge, 24 October 1858, Acc. 9090, ViU; Thomas Jefferson Randolph on Thomas Jefferson, n.d., Acc. 8937, ViU.
“Passing never feels natural” Brooke Kroeger, Passing: When People Can’t Be Who They Are (New York: PublicAffairs, 2003), 8.
CHAPTER 12: LEGACIES
“There was no knowing” VJRT to Nicholas P. Trist, 17–20 April 1835, Acc. 2104, SHC.
“April 18th [1835]” Will of Martha Jefferson Randolph, 18 April [1835], Acc. 1397, ViU.
“often filled with tears” MJR to TJR, 8 February 1833; and Joseph Coolidge to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 23 July 1830, Papers of the Randolph Family of Edgehill and Wilson Cary Nicholas, Acc. 5533, ViU.
She disposed of two Martha Jefferson Randolph named and devised these slaves in her 1836 will.
“The happiness of so many” VJRT to Nicholas P. Trist, 17–20 April 1835, Acc. 2104, SHC.
Emily and Martha Ann Colbert Because MJR did not die after she dictated this will, these women remained enslaved. Indeed, Martha Ann Colbert would later be given to Lewis Randolph, who took her to Arkansas. Colbert does not appear in the records again, so presumably she died there.
She divided the family silver Joseph Coolidge to TJR, 18 December 1826, Edgehill Randolph Papers, ViU.
To Virginia’s husband Jane Blair Cary Smith, “Carysbrook Memoir,” n.d., 5, Acc. 1378, ViU.
“It’s done” VJRT to NPT, 17–20 April 1835, Acc. 2104, SHC.
“the first American” Chastellux, Travels in North America, 2:42.
“Her husband has gone on” Jane Margaret Carr to Dabney Carr, 27 February 1826, Carr Cary Papers, Acc. 1231, ViU.
Jefferson blanched Hetty Carr to Dabney Carr, 13 March 1826, Acc. 1231, ViU; Malone, Jefferson, 6:479.
“cheerfully committed his soul” TJR to Dabney Carr, 11 July 1826, Acc. 1231, ViU.
He never knew Francis D. Cogliano, “Preservation and Education: Monticello and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation,” in A Companion to Thomas Jefferson, ed. Francis D. Cogliano (West Sussex, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2012), 510.
the very last letter TJ to George Stephenson, 25 June 1826 (transcription), Page Papers, Virginia Historical Society.
“You will be obliged” EWRC to VJRT, 10 January 1830, FLDA.
took up residence Thomas Mann Randolph to Nicholas P. Trist, 10–11 March 1828, FLDA.
he died there MJR to EWRC, [30] June 1828, and CJR to EWRC, 6–8 July 1828, FLDA.
“Supporting a large family” MJR to Ann Cary Randolph Morris, 6 September 1829. Copy at ICJS.
“at which I am quite” MJR to Thomas Jefferson Randolph, 16 March 1830, Acc. 1397, ViU.
“without the possibility” Mary Jefferson Randolph to EWRC, 25 September 1831, and MJR and VJRT to EWRC, [ca. March 1832], FLDA.
“the mortification of neglect” TJR to Jane Nicholas Randolph, 7 December 1826, Acc. 1397, ViU.
“a comfortless winter residence” “Monticello is a very expensive and comfortless winter residence.” MJR to EWRC, 21 June 1831. FLDA.
“ ‘all the Kingdoms of the world” Mary Jefferson Randolph Commonplace Book. Jefferson, Randolph, and Trist Papers, Acc. 5385-ac, ViU.
“There is pleasure” Ibid.
“deep indigo & bold” CRJ to EWRC, 11 September 1826, FLDA.
“I do not feel at home” CJR to EWRC, 28 August 1831, FLDA.
“I never find myself” EWRC to VJRT, 13 May 1828, FLDA.
“every thing is so strongly” CJR to EWRC, 6 July 1828, FLDA.
“I was brought up” EWRC, “Two Autobiographical Papers,” 15 June 1828, FLDA.
“In former years” EWR to NPT, 30 March 1824, FLDA.
“praise of method” EWRC to VJRT, 3 May 1829, FLDA.
“astute enough to be” Allgor, Parlor Politics, 31.
roles the Scottish Enlightenment On the influence of the Scottish Enlightenment on gender roles see Rosemarie Zagarri, “Morals, Manners, and the Republican Mother,” American Quarterly 4 (June 1992): 192–215, and Ruth H. Bloch, “The Gendered Meanings of Virtue in Revolutionary America,” Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society 13 (Autumn 1987): 37–58. By 1820, the South may even have been more Scottish than English. Michael O’Brien, Rethinking the South: Essays in Intellectual History (Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1988), 49.
women’s tentative claims Zagarri, Revolutionary Backlash.
“I really want a big table” Quoted in Goodman, Becoming a Woman in the Age of Letters, 235.
“regular siege” MJR to Virginia Jefferson Randolph, 10 January 1822, FLDA.
“Ellen would be greatly” Dr. Horace Holley to his brother, 6 September 1824, quoted in Cripe, Thomas Jefferson and Music, 36.
“full of slanders” Harriet Randolph to Jane Hollins Randolph, 1 February 1822, Acc. 1397, ViU.
“I don’t think” Jane Nicholas Randolph to Sarah Nicholas, [n.d. but after August 1831], Acc. 1397, ViU.
“prophane” people CJR to EWRC, 6 July 1828, FLDA.
“Girls should be brought” VJRT to Mary Jefferson Randolph, 5 November 1878, Burke and Trist Family Papers, Acc. 5385f, ViU.
today’s highly educated women Judith Warner, “The Opt-Out Generation Wants Back In,” New York Times, 7 August 2013, revisiting Lisa Belkin’s “The Opt-Out Revolution,” New York Times, 26 October 2003.
Jefferson had borrowed TJMB, 5 June 1784, 1:551.
The year before she died “Memories of Ellen Wayles Harrison, Daughter of Thomas Jefferson Randolph,” transcribed by Martha Jefferson Trist Burke, 1888. Copy at ICJS.
“When alone with you” Bayard Smith, 26 December 1802, Hunt, First Forty Years of Washington Society, 34.
once chiding her brother-in-law MJE to JWE, 10 December 1803, Eppes Family Papers, Acc. 7109, ViU.
fathered a shadow family Edna Bolling Jacques, “The Hemmings Family in Buckingham County Vir
ginia,” buckinghamhemmings.com, accessed 15 May 2012. Jacques is Betsy Hemmings’s great-great-granddaughter. Hemmings is buried in a well-marked grave next to Jack Eppes; Martha Burke Jones Eppes is buried at a different plantation.
“the sound-board split” EWR to MJR, 13 September 1820, FLDA.
“We found the name” Ibid.
girls in the early republic Davidson, Revolution and the Word, 75–79.
“Had she lived” EWR to MJR, 13 September 1820, FLDA.
a pattern of family planning Nancy Woloch, Women and the American Experience, 4th ed. (New York: McGraw-Hill, 2006), Appendix A-2; citing, Statistical Abstract of the United States, Bureau of the Census, U.S. Department of Commerce, 1983, 1992, 1998; Ansley J. Coale and Melvin Zelnik, New Estimates of Fertility and Population in the United States (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963).
those who did Susan E. Klepp, Revolutionary Conceptions: Women, Fertility, and Family Limitation in America, 1760–1820 (Chapel Hill: Published for OIEAHC by University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
There is little evidence Ibid., 206–13.
Eighteenth-century physicians Ibid., 179–85.
“Slaves did not possess” Hartman, Lose Your Mother, 77.
Back home in Charlottesville Stanton, “Free Some Day,” in “Those Who Labor,” 200–201; Lucia Stanton and Dianne Swann-Wright, “Bonds of Memory: Identity and the Hemings Family,” in Stanton, “Those Who Labor,” 248–49.
“A master of the violin” “A Sprig of Jefferson Was Eston Hemings,” Daily Scioto Gazette, Chillicothe, Ohio, 1 August 1902.
“whose word” Stanton, “Bonds of Memory,” in “Those Who Labor,” 236–37.
“made almost constant war ” Stanton, “Fulfilling the Declaration,” in “Those Who Labor,” 284.
“He begged me” Stanton, “Bonds of Memory,” in “Those Who Labor,” 239.
“They tended to cross” Ibid., 238.
“go to Sea” Quoted in Hobbs, Chosen Exile, 34.
from “passing as free” Ibid., 35.
landmark case Hudgins v. Wright Sweet, Legal History of the Color Line, 164–65.
The federal government Hobbs, Chosen Exile, 41–43.
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