User:Tonymartin/Israel Jefferson

Israel Jefferson (December 25, 1797 - …) was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. In his 1873 memoir, recorded by journalist Samuel F. Wetmore and published in the Pike County Republican newspaper, his earliest recollection was of the preparations being made at Monticello for the departure of Mr. Jefferson for Washington in order to begin his first term as President in 1801. He estimated his birth year as 1797 and that he was “upwards of twelve years of age” when Mr. Jefferson completed his second term in 1809. His father was Edward Gillet. The name of his mother is given simply as Jane. She too had been born a slave at Monticello, and worked there until she was sold, about five years after Jefferson’s death. Together, Edward and Jane had thirteen children, all of whom bore their father's surname Gillet, with the one exception of Israel who adopted the surname Jefferson in honor of his eminent former master.

During his years as a slave at the Monticello mansion, Israel served in a number of capacities, starting as waiter at the family table at about the age of eight years. Of his service to Mr. Jefferson he said: “For fourteen years I made the fire in his bedroom and private chamber, cleaned his office, dusted his books, run of errands and attended him about home". He and his older brother Gilly “…were both retained about the person of our master as long as he lived.” He added that "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.” One such noted gentleman who came to call on the former President was the noble patriot soldier Marquis de Lafayette. Of that occasion Israel recalled: “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.” It was during this frank discussion that Lafayette expressed his concerns about the continued existence of slavery in the now liberated United States of America.

In the book Friends of Liberty by Gary B. Nash and Graham Russell Gao Hodges, this conversation is described: "Speaking openly in the presence of Israel, Jefferson’s slave who waited on their tables and stood postilion on his master’s carriage, Lafayette lectured Jefferson about the retired president’s continued ownership of slaves and his unwillingness to speak out as a revered American leader on the subject. 'No man could rightfully hold ownership of his brother man' Lafayette gravely maintained.  He had come from France to fight for American independence because he believed they were fighting for a great and noble principle – the freedom of mankind." The account continues, "Now, decades later, he was grieved that 'instead of all being free, a portion were held in bondage.' Rebuked, Jefferson contended that slavery should be extinguished but that the proper time had not yet arrived."

In 1829, three years after Jefferson's death, Israel was sold to Thomas Walker Gilmer by order of Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson’s oldest grandson and sole executor of the late President’s estate. Gilmer was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates that same year, ultimately being named Speaker. He went on to be elected the 28th Governor of Virginia, and later to the 27th and 28th U.S. Congress. In 1844 Rep. Gilmer was appointed by President John Tyler to be U.S. Secretary of the Navy. Israel recounts that prior to departing for Washington, Gilmer asked that he accompany him there as his servant. Israel demurred, as he put it, not refusing his master, but making it known that he desired his freedom. His master assented. Secretary Gilmer had originally paid the sum of $500.00 to purchase Israel in 1829, and this was the price the two men agreed upon when Israel purchased his own freedom in 1843. He had served his master faithfully for fourteen years.

Secretary Gilmer was accidentally killed onboard the newly commissioned warship U.S.S. Princeton when one of its two large guns “the Peacemaker” exploded during a test firing while on a ceremonial tour on the Potomac River with 400 guests aboard. He had been in his new post for just over one week. President John Tyler was also onboard, though unhurt. Israel believed that he himself would most assuredly have been killed alongside his former master had he accompanied him to Washington because, as he said, "...it would have been my duty to keep very close to his person." It was the unfortunate fate of another fellow slave by the name of Armistead, who was likewise obliged to be aboard ship at the time, to also perish in the explosion.

Israel married twice. His first wife, Mary Ann Colter, a fellow slave with whom he had four children, died, and their children were sold. While still a servant of Thomas Gilmer he met and married Elizabeth Randolph, a widow and free woman of color. Together, they determined to leave the state of Virginia, in which Israel did not feel truly free, even after buying his freedom. They departed for the free state of Ohio, where they settled in the city of Cincinnati. Upon arrival in Ohio, he and his wife renewed their marriage vows, and Israel took the opportunity to learn to read and write. During those years he more than once had occasion to return to Monticello to visit his former plantation home. It was in nearby Edge Hill, around 1866, that he once again encountered the now elderly Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who had administered the estate slave auction in which Israel and others had been sold so many years earlier, and who was now reduced to poverty, having lost all his possessions during the war between the states. Incidentally, Thomas Jefferson Randolph had published the first collection of President Jefferson's writings in 1829.

Israel Jefferson had been a close childhood friend Madison Hemings, a son of Sally Hemings, at Monticello. In the year 1873 they both were interviewed by journalist Samuel F. Wetmore, and their respective memoirs were published in the Pike County Republican newspaper. Isaac Jefferson, a fellow slave and contemporary of both Israel and Madison Hemings at Monticello, related his narrative in an interview with Rev. Charles Campbell, who published it in 1847.

Footnote
In his 1873 memoir, Israel Jefferson added his testimony to the ongoing Jefferson-Hemings paternity controversy, corroborating the statement of his childhood friend Madison Hemings: "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 (sic), (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."

Additional Reading

 * The Memoirs of Israel Jefferson
 * The Memoirs of Madison Hemings