Thomas Jefferson Randolph

Thomas Jefferson Randolph (September 12, 1792 – October 8, 1875) of Albemarle County was a planter and politician who served in the Virginia House of Delegates, was rector of the University of Virginia, and was a colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. He was notable as the oldest grandson of President Thomas Jefferson and executor of his estate, and helped manage it during his grandfather's and mother's lives.

Since the late 20th century, Randolph has been notable for having been shown to give false information in telling the historian Henry Randall that his cousin (Thomas Jefferson's nephew), Peter Carr, was the father of Sally Hemings' children. He was likely trying to deflect attention from his grandfather, Thomas Jefferson. The Carr story was the basis for historians' denials of Jefferson's relationship. Since the late 20th century and a DNA study disproving any Carr genetic connection, most historians have come to accept that Jefferson had a long relationship with Sally Hemings and fathered her six children.

Early life and education

Thomas Jefferson Randolph was the son of Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. and Martha Jefferson Randolph, the oldest son of their eleven children who survived. His mother was the eldest daughter, and he was the eldest grandson of United States President Thomas Jefferson. Part of the time, he grew up at Monticello and was close to his grandfather.

Marriage and family

In 1815 Randolph married Jane Hollins Nicholas, daughter of Wilson Cary Nicholas. They had twelve children:

• Margaret Smith Randolph (1816-1843)
• Mary Randolph (1818-1821)
• Martha Jefferson Randolph (1817-1857)
• Carey Anne Randolph (1820-1859)
• Ellen Wayles Randolph (1823-1896)
• Maria Jefferson Carr Randolph (1826-1902)
• Caroline Ramsey Randolph (1828-1902)
• Thomas Jefferson Randolph (1829-1872)
• Jane Randolph (1831-1868)
• Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph (1834-1907)
• Meriweather Randolph (1837-1871)
• Sarah Randolph (1839- )

Career

A planter, Randolph was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates and served for years.

He had been close to his grandfather and was appointed executor of his estate in his will of 1826. Randolph had begun to manage Monticello for his mother and grandfather for a short period during Jefferson's lifetime. Because the estate was heavily encumbered by debt, Randolph ordered the sale of Monticello goods and property, including most of its 130 slaves. His mother gave Sally Hemings "her time", which informally allowed her to live freely in Charlottesville, Virginia with her two younger sons. Jefferson had formally freed Madison and Eston in his will, after allowing their older brother and sister to "escape" in 1822.

In 1829, Randolph published Memoir, Correspondence And Miscellanies: From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson. It was the first collection of Jefferson's writings.

After Nat Turner's slave rebellion of 1831, Randolph introduced a post nati emancipation plan in the Virginia House of Delegates. This would have provided for gradual emancipation of children born into slavery after they served an apprenticeship and came of age. It was defeated.

From 1857 to 1864 Randolph served as the rector of the University of Virginia, where he succeeded Andrew Stevenson. During the Civil War, he also held a colonel’s commission in the Confederate Army. Most planters were excused from active service.

Continuing to be active in politics after the war, Randolph served as the temporary chairman of the 1872 Democratic National Convention.

Jefferson-Hemings controversy

Main article: Jefferson-Hemings controversy

Randolph noted the strong resemblance of Sally Hemings' children to his grandfather, their master. In relation to rumors that Jefferson had children with Hemings, he is reported to have said:

"she [Hemings] had children which resembled Mr. Jefferson so closely that it was plain that they had his blood in their veins."

But in the 1850s Randolph told the biographer Henry Randall that Jefferson's nephew Peter Carr had been the father of Hemings' children. He also said that Jefferson had been absent when one of the Hemings children was conceived, so could not be the father. Randall passed this on to James Parton, and suggested his own confirmation of the material. The two elements were the basis for Parton's denial of the story in his 1874 biography of Jefferson, as well as by the succeeding 20th-century historians, Merrill Peterson and Douglass Adair. In addition, Randolph's sister Ellen wrote to her husband identifying Samuel Carr, Peter's brother, as the father of Hemings' children. The 20th-century historian Dumas Malone used this letter to refute the issue, and was the first to publish it in his book in the 1970s.

Later 20th-century historians used Malone's timeline of Jefferson's activities to determine that the president was at Monticello for the conception of each of Hemings' children. The Carrs were disproved as possible fathers by the results of the 1998 DNA study. It showed a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Eston Hemings, Sally's youngest son. No genetic link existed to the Carr male line. As the historian Andrew Burstein has said, "[T]he white Jefferson descendants who established the family denial in the mid-nineteenth century cast responsibility for paternity on two Jefferson nephews (children of Jefferson’s sister) whose DNA was not a match. So, as far as can be reconstructed, there are no Jeffersons other than the president who had the degree of physical access to Sally Hemings that he did."

Further reading

• Freehling, William W., The Road to Disunion (1990).
• Randolph, Sarah Nicholas. The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson: Compiled from Family Letters and Reminiscences (1871), discusses the relationship between Thomas J. Randolph and his maternal grandfather Thomas Jefferson.

External Links

• Works by Thomas Jefferson Randolph at Project Gutenberg