Isaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger (1775 - ca. 1850) was a valued, enslaved artisan of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson; he crafted and repaired products as a tinsmith, blacksmith, and nailer at Monticello.
Although Thomas Jefferson gave Isaac and his family to his daughter Maria and her husband John Wayles Eppes in 1797 as a wedding gift, Isaac Jefferson/Granger appeared to gain his freedom by 1822, according to his memoir. In the 1840 census he was recorded as Isaac Granger, a free man working in Petersburg, Virginia. The Rev. Charles Campbell interviewed him there and published his memoir under the name of Isaac Jefferson in 1847. Granger/Jefferson describes Thomas Jefferson as a master, and his part in the lives of his slaves.
Read more about Isaac Jefferson: Early Life, Service At Monticello, Marriage and Family, Moving From Monticello, Freedom and Memoir
Famous quotes containing the words isaac and/or jefferson:
“Behold, Esau my brother is a hairy man, and I am a smooth man.”
—Bible: Hebrew Jacob, in Genesis, 27:11.
To his mother Rebekah, explaining how the blind Isaac might discover the ploy of his pretending to be Esau. “Esau was a cunning hunter, a man of the field; and Jacob was a plain man, dwelling in tents.” (25:27)
“The legislative powers of government reach actions only, and not opinions, ... thus building a wall of separation between Church and State.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)