Jefferson’s Daughters by Catherine Kerrison

Synopsis:

This is a non-fiction history book about Thomas Jefferson’s two daughters from his wife (Martha), Martha (Patsy) and Maria (Polly) and his daughter Harriet Hemings from his slave, Sally Hemings. It discusses their upbringings, their education or lack their of, and their marriages and children.

After the death of her mother, Martha went with her father to Paris, attended a convent school, and became fluent in French. She married Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., a planter, soldier and politician and they had twelve children. Their marriage was very unhappy and tempestuous due to Thomas’s alcoholism, inability to control his temper and his financial struggles. Martha acted as an informal First Lady and managed Monticello with her father and was always very emotionally bonded with her father. She inherited Monticello and her father’s debts when her father died.

After Martha and Thomas Jefferson left for Paris, Maria stayed with her Aunt Elizabeth Wayles Eppes and her uncle Francis Wayles Eppes at their plantation in Virginia. When she was nine, she traveled to Paris with Sally Hemings, to join her father and sister. She attended the convent school with her sister.

Maria married her childhood friend and cousin, John Wayles Eppes. Unlike her sister, she had multiple miscarriages and one surviving son, Francis Wayles Eppes. She died from childbirth when she was twenty five.

Harriet Hemings was Thomas Jefferson’s only daughter with Sally Hemings. She was a textile worker. Harriet left Monticello when she twenty one as a freed slave and went to Washington DC. to join her brother, Beverly who lived there.

Review:

I enjoyed this book and loved learning more about Thomas Jefferson’s daughters and found it to be very interesting.