The Wayles/Eppes/Jefferson/Hemings Relations...Black & White Cousins

I want to talk about my connection to this group of my cousins.

I remember as a teen in the 1970's when a bombshell book came out written by the historian Fawn M. Brodie  It was called "Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History".  My mother bought this book and it sat in our den on the bookshelf.  At the time I remember it caused a stir(especially since I lived in Virginia)as it included the accusation that Jefferson had children with his slave Sally Hemmings outside of his marriage to his wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson.

Just about everyone at that time who knew anything about Thomas Jefferson knew these rumors were true but people didn't go around talking about it nor had anyone written a book containing this information for public consumption.  I took the book and read it when I went away to college in 1977.  This was right after Alex Haley published "Roots" in 1976 and they came out with the much touted mini-series based on his book.

As for the cousining, let's start with Henry Isham I(1627-1675).  He had two daughters, Anne Fitzhugh Isham and Mary Isham.  Anne married Col. Francis Eppes III(1659-1718).  Anne is my 2nd cousin 12 x removed.  Their son, Francis Eppes IV(1686-1734)married Sarah Kennon(1684-1748).  Their daughter, Martha Eppes(1712-1748), my 4th cousin 10 x removed)married John Wayles(1715-1773)a Welshman who immigrated to America.

Martha Eppes and John Wayles had a daughter, Martha Wayles(1748-1782).  Martha Eppes Wayles died a few days after giving birth to that daughter Martha.

John Wayles also had an older brother, Richard Wayles(1714-1765)who married Martha Cocke Bolling(1726-1758)and they had a son, Francis Eppes(1747-1808).  This Francis Eppes married Elizabeth Wayles(1752-1810).  Elizabeth Wayles was the daughter of John Wayles and his second wife, Mary Tabitha Cocke(1724-bet.1758-1760), making Francis Eppes and Elizabeth Wayles not only husband and wife but also double cousins and making Martha Wayles and Elizabeth Wayles half siblings.  Is everyone following this so far? ;-)

Not only did John Wayles have two wives, he also "took liberties" with one of his slaves, Elizabeth "Betty" Hemmings.  

Betty was the daughter of a sea captain, John Hemmings and an African slave, thus Betty was biracial or as they used the term back in the day "mulatto".  The story goes that John Hemmings plied his trade between England and the port town of Williamsburg and that is where he met and had his way with the African slave who's name is lost to history.  This slave was the property of John Wayles.  Captain Hemmings claimed paternity of the child Betty and tried to buy her from John Wayles but Wayles would not hear of it and took the slave and child into the "great house" to live to keep the child away from Hemmings if he considered kidnapping the child.  Wayles also thought her a novelty, being mulatto, and saw this as "a grand experiment" and wished to see how she would "turn out".  So John Wayles raised Betty and then once his second wife died he turned around and slept with Betty, producing six children with her.  Betty had already had 4 other children with unknown fathers-well one was a carpenter of Irish extraction who worked on building Monticello named Joseph Neilson.  Among these offspring Betty had with John Wayles(the number are still undecided)were Thenia, Cristena "Critta", Robert "Bob", James and Sally Hemings(1773-1835).

This would make Sally Hemings 3/4 European White and 1/4 African American and John Wayles' "white" daughter, Martha Wayles, with his wife Martha Eppes Wayles, Sally's half sister.  This ad mixture back in that day made Sally an "octoroon" or "almost white" in appearance.  There are no images of Sally Hemings from that era but here is one often used to "portray" her....

Compare that to a known portrait of Martha Wayles, Sally's half sister......

And a portraiture of Sally and Thomas Jefferson's only daughter Harriet, who lived to adulthood, until 1863 or 1864 *no  one is sure*.....

So why my interest in these genealogical lines?  I am a 5th cousin 9x removed to Thomas Jefferson through my maternal Great Grandmother and his mother who was a Randolph.  I am also a 5th cousin 9x removed to Jefferson's wife, Martha Wayles Jefferson through the same Great Grandmother and her mother who was an Eppes.  Isham, Eppes, Wayles, Jefferson are all my cousins by blood. (Also my 7th Great Grandmother married as her 4th Husband, Thomas Jefferson's uncle, Fielding Jefferson, though they had no children together.  So my direct ancestor was also for a time the Aunt of Thomas Jefferson and was the part of the first couple in English America to have a legal pre-nuptial agreement.)

So this whole argument that has raged for centuries about Thomas Jefferson having a "shadow family" as it was often referred to in the South with Sally Hemings, his slave and half-sister of his wife, is near to my heart.

Once the Brodie book came out the debate among the direct Jefferson ancestors as to whether to accept the Hemings ancestors "into the family" has taken center stage.  First the Jefferson Society hierarchy refused to provide DNA to confirm or deny the Hemings link and court cases ensued.  Then the sticking point became only the "white" direct ancestors of Jefferson were allowed to be buried at Monticello as is the family members' right.  Even after DNA testing has confirmed centuries of oral history there is still a segment of the "white" Jefferson's who started the ultra-conservative Thomas Jefferson  Heritage Society who still refuse to come around and deny any Jefferson-Hemings ties.  These folks keep pushing against the tide.

My thoughts?  I am all for embracing the Sally Hemings offspring descendants as Jefferson descendants.  

I grew up in the South during the Civil Rights Era.  I saw that struggle first hand from the sidelines as a child.  I have progressive relatives and I have relatives who'd prefer we all go back to the "good old days".  I've seen my share of racism.  (Let me add that having lived up North since 1984 I've seen about as much racism up here as down South where I grew up.) 

All the Hemings descendants are welcomed as my cousins and I have added them(as much information as I can find)to my personal family tree. We are ALL cousins when it comes down to it and any of them are welcomed at my table.

Sluggy

Throwback Thursday

I've been trying to scan and edit some of the photos in my mom's stacks of photo albums this week.
It's slow going since I have to scan them into hubs computer(the printer with the scanner is attached to his machine upstairs), then he has to email me the photos, then after uploading them to OneDrive I have to download them to my machine and then edit them. ugh.  Why won't they download from the email attachments directly to my machine(instead of having to upload them first to OD)I have no clue!
And then Hubs emailed me some scanned photos as pdfs....wtf!?!?
Sigh.
I will Never get this all finished before I die.....ugh!

Anyway, here is a photo I love.  I am not in it since I wasn't born yet when it was taken.
It's of my maternal grandparents(my mom's parents)and my maternal grandmother's mother.

I believe this was taken in the mid 1950's, given the clothing and the car parked next to them.
The building behind them has a store sign which I think says "Leggett's"(You can see the first 5 letters.).
Leggett's was a smaller department store chain that began in 1927 in Lynchburg, VA.
Not sure if this store was the Lynchburg store but by this time in the 1950's they had more stores dotting the map in south central Virginia......Farmville, Roanoke, South Boston all had a Leggett's.
Suffice it to say, they were standing in a mid-sized city somewhere in Southeastern Virginia.

Anyway, this photo is of my great grandmother Lucy Baker Vassar, her daughter Lillian Vassar Harper and Lillian's husband, Wirt Harper.

Yes, my grandfather was named WIRT.
Don't laugh.....it's an old traditional Southern name.
People are naming their kids far worse names today IMHO.

Anyway, once my mother left home and married at the ripe old age of 16, her parents were empty-nesters, free to do as they pleased since she was an only child.
My mom left home in June of 1951 right after she finished 11th grade.

My grandmother worked full time and my grandfather did not at this point in his life.
They did go on vacation every year and I've been told that often, after my mother was living away from their home, that they'd take Lillian's mother with them, as she was a widow.

Can you imagine as an adult married couple, taking your mother along on all your summer vacations?

So I have quite a few photos of the three of them together in various vacation type spots and some not-so vacation type spots.
I love my grandfather in this one.
Let's just say that my grandfather was something of a "character".
He would "mug" for the camera and I am sure he put the bill of his cap up like that just for this photo.

Yep, Wirt was a fun guy......
And I love his two tone "stepping out" shoes. lolz

Sluggy
 

Wednesday's Child is "Lucky" to Be Here

*Sluggy talks about her life.*  These are my thoughts and attempts to work through issues in my life.  I may express personal views I held at certain periods/ages throughout my life in these posts.  How I saw some events that transpired in my life were obviously shaped by my age and mental abilities at that time and the society I was living in.  What I experienced may be very different from how others involved experienced the same events.

In many ways I am "lucky" to be here.  Here meaning both alive and living the life I currently have.  Looking back on the unvarnished facts from my birth until today, I can imagine a much different reality than what came to pass.

I went paging through the family photos I've digitized so far looking for one of my entire nuclear family.
I had to go all the way forward to 1969 to find one with both my parents and my brothers and I in it.
It's a classic.....an Owen Mills portrait which no doubt cost a pretty penny.  This may be the prettiest my family ever was as a group.  Note that at this point both my brothers were sullen non-smiling teenagers.

There was one other taken at Easter with all 5 of us in it, dating from 1959, but this one works.

I have(or had)two brothers.  They were born 13 months apart in the early 1950's.  Not quite twins and very different in personality too.
I came along in 1959, so I am 6 and 7 years younger than them.  Being the opposite sex and basically born at such a great time interval from them, I feel as if I was raised an an only child.  We never "hung out" together as kids unless they were forced to be in the same room with me by the grown-ups in our lives.  Often when the younger of the two was forced to be around me, I was made to know he was not happy about the arrangement and he made me suffer for it.  We have never had a close relationship.

My brothers memories and experiences of my parents and family is very different from mine.
Our family was low income mostly while my brothers were young, but by the time I was at the same stages of growing up as they had been, our family was middle class.  One of my brothers use to joke(I think he was half joking)that I got everything lavished upon me as a kid, while he, at that age, was lucky to have a stick and rusty barbed wire to play with.  But I digress....

My father had always wanted a girl child, or so I was told.  If he had had his druthers, my oldest brother would have been a girl I was told on more than one occasion.
My parents were thrilled when my mother finally gave birth to a baby girl.
Now I don't know if this was the truth or they were just blowing smoke up my fancy drawers in an attempt to raise my fragile girly self-esteem, but it's what was regurgitated to me through my younger years. This was one of the few things said to me by my parents that actually made me feel better about myself when I was growing up.

The day I made my entrance into the world, Cecil B DeMille left it.....

And Alfalfa was murdered in an armed fight in Hollywood, California.....

I use to watch the Little Rascals on tv a lot(back in the 1960's before there were many "new" children's programming on daytime local network channels).  I remember someone told me that Alfalfa was dead back then.   He was among my most favorite of the Our Gang so it made me sad every time I watched an Our Gang short.  Being a little kid I didn't know he had died as a grown man.  I imagined him the way pictured having died.  So something that should have given me pleasure(watching kiddie tv)made me feel sad inside.

My birth was uneventful.  I was born near my due date and was a normal size, except for my ginormous head.  I did have the audacity to be born quite early in the morning which did NOT please my mother.
My mother reminded me of the early hour and never forgave me for waking her up in the morning, as she was not a morning person.  Really.  Not.
I suppose that all those times she said she blamed me for waking her up the day of my birth, she was joking.  But my young child self didn't fully understand that she was joking(if she was).  Intellectually now I realize she was being sarcastic, but I still feel weird about it.

Another thing that was blamed on me by my mother was that my birth was the cause of her taking up cigarette smoking.  Evidently, child #3 and the ensuing responsibilities was enough to drive her to smoke to relieve her stress and anxiety.
Again, these stories were both regurgitated to me often as I grew.

Now my question today is, why would a parent tell their child they were so wanted to the detriment of their oldest sibling and then turn around and blame them for having taken up an addictive habit and losing some sleep one night/early morning the day they gave birth?
Before you say that my parents were obviously joking with me, let me tell you that there was very little levity displayed in our household.


 The day of my birth was a Wednesday.  The "Monday's Child" poem over the years has proved to be prophetic for me.

Monday's child is fair of face

Tuesday's child is full of grace,

Wednesday's child is full of woe,

Thursday's child has far to go,

Friday's child is loving and giving,

Saturday's child works hard for a living,

But the child who is born on the Sabbath Day.

Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

After a week's vacation from cooking and cleaning and taking care of her family, my mother and I were  released from the hospital and my parents took me home.

Back in that time and place, new mothers were encouraged to be modern and take advantage of the "advances" in technology and take care of their babies the new ways and leave old fashioned practices behind.
The modern way was to use disposable diapers if the budget allowed it.  Very few families in the late 1950's/early 1960's could find the extra money for those, including mine.

The other big advancement was feeding your baby with formula and not breastfeeding.  The Modern Woman of the 1960's was told that feeding your infant formula was doing the very best for your baby.
Similac had been reformulated in the early 1950's and Enfamil came onto the market the same year I made my debut.  Manufacturers, besides having magazine and print ads, now had that most powerful marketing tool of Television, to convince the "hip" mothers poised on the cusp of the Space Age that feeding formula was superior to feeding your child as they had been fed for a millennium or two.

My mother so wanted to fit in into the Modern Society and had so little confidence in her abilities as a mother, to know what was the best thing to do for her child, that she stuck a bottle of formula in my gob.
I'm sure her decision also was based on the ease of bottle feeding, as a harried woman of 25 with 2 grade school boys, an infant, 2 guinea pigs, 1 dog and a demanding husband who never lifted a finger around the house to help out.

During the second week of my life, my world turned on it's head.  My mother went to check on me one evening and I was barely breathing.  My face and fingers were blue.  10 days old and I couldn't breath.

A panicked ride to the hospital's emergency room ensued and I underwent days of testing.
The eventual diagnosis was Asthma brought on by severe allergic reactions.

More weeks of allergy skin tests ensued.  My mother never shared with me the whole list of what I was allergic too(and it was long), but I do remember the ones she shared--chocolate, sweet potatoes, animal dander, assorted plants like ragweed, flower pollens, hay, everyday household dust, and the big one......cow's milk.  Back then they didn't know it but it's the protein in the cow's milk that children with this allergy can't tolerate.  It is the most common food intolerance known to man.

I was allergic to the formula keeping me alive.
So the doctors said to feed me goat's milk instead.

The goat milk took a bigger bite out of my family's income and worked.....briefly.
Within months I had built up an intolerance to goat milk too.

The last resort they offered up as a solution was soy milk.
This was not something readily available in that time in the South.
And once my parents located a source it came at a dear price.

So this is how I came to be the most expensive baby on my block.
I had an expensive diet and started taking pricey allergy shots every 2nd week, before I turned 1 year old.
My maternal Grandmother had to pay for my food and my shots as my parents couldn't afford either.
Imagine if my grandma wasn't a great saleswoman with the funds to bankroll my lavish lifestyle!

Even with the shots, I was still at risk of having one of my allergen triggers set off an asthma attack at any moment.
This photo pretty much sums up my life until the age of 2.......

The doctors told my parents that in order to keep me from dying of an asthma attack, our home had to be cleaned thoroughly every 24 hours.  Since that was impossible for my mother to do and take care of everything else and everyone else each day, I was confined to my room every day except for brief periods of time when I could be closely supervised for warning symptoms of an impending attack.
I was a prisoner and my room was my jail cell.

The house was stripped of carpets and pets were banished or made to live outside.  My room was also stripped of curtains(blinds attract less dust) and furnishings.  I was allowed only a few toys and my bedding was washed every day and my room was wet mopped and wiped down every day.
I had few interactions with other children except my much older brothers those first years and this was my view of the world.

My mother entitled this photo in the scrapbook, "Happy Baby".  I had just passed my first Birthday.  I suppose since this is the only life I had known, I was a happy baby.  It goes a long way to explain why I have always felt comfortable being by myself.  I crave alone time.   I was groomed for the solitary life as a baby.  A happy baby alone in her room.

Happy except for the gastrointestinal distress I felt every day of my life while being fed soy milk.  I couldn't articulate to the grown ups around me that the soy milk was causing me pain and I was always hungry as it ran right through me.  I suppose they either didn't notice the distress I was going through or they just chalked my discomfort up to some of the foods I was eventually introduced to that may have caused a mild allergic reaction but did not triggered an asthma attack.

Turns out that fairly recently scientists discovered that while the protein in cow milk is ranked the most common cause of food intolerance, number 2 on that hit parade is.....soy protein!

This goes a long way to explain why a baby allergic to soy who is fed a diet of soy milk as an infant grows up to have eating and weight issues.  Being constantly hungry as an infant and toddler must have had a psychological effect on me in regard to my relationship with food.
The body image issues came later thanks to family members, the media and society.

Sluggy

Sluggy's Historic Time Machine

Finding my childhood home got me nostalgic, so I decided to Google around and see if I could find some other homes I remember.

Here is the last home my Great Grandmother lived in.  Her 12 kids moved her there from the old Homestead ROXABEL Plantation about 10 yrs. after Great Grandfather died. Roxabel was 5 miles out and this way she was right 'in town' in case she needed anything or her kids as she was well into her '70s.  She was born in 1888 and died in 1973 so I was 14 the last time I was in that house.  Both my Great Grandmother and my Grandmother died in that house.
I hope that doesn't creep anyone out....lol

Here's photo of my Great Grandparents, circa 1950-something....

They sure look like a fun couple, don't they?  Well they were fun with each other because they had TWELVE kids!

And here is a photo of my Great Grandmother with her 6 adult daughter's from the early 1960's.  You can see the old homestead house Roxabel, behind them.  My Grandmother is the one in the bright blue dress, 3rd from the left.  From right to left in birth order are Louise Frances, Virginia Elizabeth(Ginny), Rosa Bell, Lillian Grace, Doris Lee(Dot), Lula Mae.

Ok, here's the house....

I remember this house well as we use to visit 2 weekends a month plus spend more time in the summer.
The main part of the house was built in the 1700's of VA clay brick.  There was an addition on the back that you can't see, that held both bathrooms, the kitchen, den and the stairway to the 2nd floor.  I remember there were only 2 bedrooms upstairs but they were HUGE!  I guess everybody use to sleep together.

There was a brick outbuilding out back as well....it was either the original kitchen or a root cellar or something.  There was an old abandoned wooden outhouse in the backyard at that time too.
See the 2 flagpoles and the Civil War era cannon on the left in the yard?  Those weren't there then....

Next door, to the west, were 2  abandoned schools with a playground that we use to hang out in.  That was located where that newer building on the right in the photo stands.....

To the east of Grandmama's house was and still is a Church.  It hasn't changed....

That massive tree on the other side of the church is in Grandmama's yard.
Two lots east of that church is this.....

That building with the Texaco sign was an old Gas Station.  In the 1960's it was no longer a gas station but some kind of  'store. There was a scary old lady who sold penny candy out of that building back then. There were never any lights on inside that store.  And yes, the penny candy cost a penny back then!  I am old...lol
We also picked up soda bottles and could turn them in for candy there.

And 2 doors down on the east from that building is this....

Here's another shot.....

This is the smack dab center of the town....the crossroads of Rte. 40 & 47.  The building on the right side in the photo was a drug store back in the 1960's.  That building was originally lawyer's offices built around 1825.  You can see the very old brick on the side where the siding isn't covering it up.

See that big tree in front of it?  That tree is historically significant...there use to be a Historical Marker next to it in the 60's.
You've heard of Patrick Henry?
You've heard of his "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" Speech?
He gave that speech for the 1st time under that tree.
I know, I know......all the history books say he gave the speech in Richmond at the Virginia Convention in 1775.
Well here is something they don't tell you....he originally gave that speech here, standing under that tree in the summer/fall of 1774...the historic recitation of it came later.
This is also where the Henry-Randolph Debate took place....that's the event that the Historical Marker identifies.  Go look that up since I'm sure nobody today knows what the Henry/Randolph Debate was all about.lol
And to think that just around the bend in that photo is the house my Great Grandmother lived in....

But why did this stuff happen under that tree?
Because it's right across the street from this building.....

The Charlotte County Virginia Court House.
Well back in 1775 when Mr. Henry was lawyer-ing & making speeches, this building didn't exist yet.  There was a wooden framed building.  In the hot weather they conducted legal business outside.  Yes, Patrick Henry was one of those dreaded lawyer people when he wasn't revolting against the Red Coats....either revolting against some one or being a revolting lawyer....poor Mr. Henry can't win.lol

The original courthouse had a tavern in it.
George Washington was a regular there when he was in town on revolutionary business.  I've read that he was thrown out for being drunk more than a few times.  Seems George was a party animal when he was traveling!

This courthouse was built in 1823.
You may have heard of the guy who designed it?--Thomas Jefferson.  He lived a mite north of here.
Too bad old Patrick Henry didn't live to see this grand courthouse.   Patrick Henry lived a couple of towns west of here near Brookneal, VA.  Brookneal is where my Grandfather's family was from.

The 'courthouse' stands in....wait for it......Charlotte Courthouse, VA.
Original name for the town, huh?lol

This place wasn't always called Charlotte Courthouse.
It was originally called The Magazine(now that's weird!),and then a few other things like Marysville,  but it's always been CCH since I was born.  They did change the spelling since I've left from Charlotte Courthouse to Charlotte Court House.
Big improvement....

Alot of historic buildings still exist in this town due to the fact that the Yankees didn't rape and pillage here.  Some troops did come through town during the 'War Between The States' but they didn't hang around and torch anything, just pinched some livestock and food from the locals.  Not much going on there then or now except the growing and fire-smoking of tobacco.

I would show you photos of the Plantation House but Google Maps/Street View doesn't have that road in their system.  I remember staying there as well.  It's still standing.  Some descendants of my Great Grandparents pitched in and bought it to keep it in the family.  It would be cool to go back there and see it again.

But I did find a photo of this house.....

This one is across the street and 2 lots down from Grandmama's house.
And it's for sale!
And it's pretty darn cheap too.
If it only had a bigger lot I might consider buying it....

I hope you've enjoyed your time travel voyage.  Please return your seats to the upright position and thank you for flying Sluggy Air.  ;-)

Sluggy