page_title: Madison Hemings
section_title: Adulthood
hierarchical_section_title: Madison Hemings / Adulthood
caption_attribution_description: English: An article on page 2 of an 1845 edition of The Liberator which mentions one of Jefferson's sons (either Eston Hemings Jefferson or Madison Hemings) being denied the right to vote in Ohio. Originally in the Cleveland American
context_page_description: James Madison Hemings was the son of the mixed-race enslaved woman Sally Hemings. He was the third of her four children—fathered by her enslaver, President Thomas Jefferson—to survive to adulthood. Madison Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation. Born into slavery by his mother's status, he was freed by the will of Jefferson in 1826. Based on historical and DNA evidence, historians widely agree that Jefferson was probably the father of all Hemings' children. At the age of 68, Madison Hemings claimed the connection in an 1873 Ohio newspaper interview, titled, "Life Among the Lowly," which attracted national and international attention. 1998 DNA tests demonstrate a match between the Y-chromosome of a descendant of his brother, Eston Hemings Jefferson, and that of the male Jefferson line.
  After Madison and his younger brother Eston were freed, they each worked and married free women of color; they lived with their families and mother Sally in Charlottesville until her death in 1835. Both brothers moved with their young families to Chillicothe, Ohio to live in a free state.
context_section_description: Twenty-one-year-old Madison Hemings was emancipated almost immediately after Jefferson died; Eston soon after. The brothers rented a house in nearby Charlottesville, where their mother Sally joined them for the rest of her life. (She was not formally freed but was "given her time" by Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha Randolph, who was also Hemings' niece). In the 1830 Albemarle County census, Madison, Eston and Sally Hemings were all classified as free whites.
  According to Madison's 1873 memoir, his older brother Beverley and his older sister Harriet moved to Washington D.C. in 1822 when they "ran away" from Monticello. Jefferson ensured that Harriet was given money for her journey. Because of their light skin and appearance (they were 7/8 European or octoroon), both identified with the white community after their moves and probably changed their names. Hemings said they had married white spouses of good circumstances, and moved into white society. They apparently kept their paternity a secret, as it would have revealed their origins as slaves, and disappeared into history.
  In September 1831, in his mid-twenties, Madison Hemings was described in a special census of the State of Virginia as being: 5"7 3/8 Inches high light complexion no scars or marks perceivable". Forty-two years later at the time of his interview, a journalist described him as "five feet ten inches in height, sparely made, with sandy complexion and a mild gray eye."
  In 1834 Madison wed Mary Hughes McCoy, a free woman of mixed-race ancestry (her grandfather Samuel Hughes, a white planter, freed her grandmother Chana from slavery and had children with her.) They had two children born in Virginia.
  In 1836 Madison, Mary and their infant daughter Sarah left Charlottesville for Pike County, Ohio, probably to join his brother Eston, who had already moved there with his own family. They lived in Chillicothe, which had a thriving free black community, abolitionists among both races, and a station of the Underground Railroad. Surviving records in Pike County state that Hemings purchased 25 acres (100,000 m²) for $150 on July 22, 1856, sold the same area for $250 on December 30, 1859, and purchased 66 acres (270,000 m²) for $10 per acre on September 25, 1865. The Hemings had more children born in Ohio.
  In 1852, Madison's brother, Eston, moved with his family away from Ohio (and his brother) to Madison, Wisconsin, to get further from possible danger from slave catchers following passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Slave catchers were known to kidnap free black people and sell them into slavery, as demand and prices were high in the Deep South. In Wisconsin, Eston and his family all took the surname Jefferson and entered the white community. They lived according to their appearance and mostly white ancestry. Their oldest son John Wayles Jefferson served as a regular Union officer in the American Civil War, and was promoted to colonel. Their son Beverly also served in the Union Army and married a white woman. Their daughter Anna married a white man. All of Eston's descendants identified as white.
  In 1873, Madison used an Ohio newspaper interview about his life, titled, "Life Among the Lowly," to address the Jefferson/Hemings controversy, stating that Jefferson was his father. In this interview, Madison also said, "I was named Madison by the wife of James Madison, who was afterwards President of the United States. Mrs. Madison happened to be at Monticello at the time of my birth, and begged privilege of naming me, promising my mother a fine present for the honor. She consented, and Mrs. Madison dubbed me by the name I now acknowledge, but like many promises of white folks to the slaves she never gave my mother anything."
caption: 1845 article in The Liberator about the Hemings family in Ohio
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