Isaac Jefferson - Freedom and Memoir

Freedom and Memoir

How Isaac gained his freedom is unknown. His memoir recounts that he left Albemarle County about four years before Jefferson's death, or around 1822. He met and talked to the French general, the Marquis de Lafayette, in Richmond in 1824.

Twenty-first century research by the staff at Monticello discovered that Isaac Jefferson may have taken the name Isaac Granger in freedom, or used it before that in the slave community. Someone else may have later mistakenly assigned him the name of Jefferson. The 1840 census of Petersburg, Virginia includes a free black man, Isaac Granger, whose family members and age match what is known of Isaac Jefferson.

In 1847, Granger was working as a free man in Petersburg as a blacksmith, at the age of seventy-two, when he was interviewed by the Rev. Charles Campbell; he published the account that year as the memoir of Isaac Jefferson. Granger did not say whether he took the surname Jefferson by choice or whether a white man imposed it, as was the case with his fellow Monticello slave Israel Jefferson. His memoir was rediscovered and published again in 1951 by the historian Rayford Logan. In the interview, Granger recounted details about the relationship of Thomas Jefferson and the Hemings (or Hemmings) family. He said that Sally Hemings and at least some of her siblings "was old Mr. Wayles’ children”, referring to Jefferson's father-in-law John Wayles. This adds weight to other historic testimony that Sally Hemings and her five full siblings were half-siblings of the president's wife Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. The memoir describes the integral role which the Betty Hemings family played at Monticello as domestic servants, skilled artisans and craftsmen, and staff who ran the president's mansion.

The fate of Isaac's wife Iris and their two sons is unknown. In 1847 at the time of his memoir, Isaac was married to his second wife. Rev. Charles Campbell wrote that Isaac Jefferson died "a few years after these his recollections were taken down. He bore a good character." Campbell may have imposed the name Jefferson to attract more attention to his published memoir.

The Monticello staff have found another reference to the Granger surname in Monticello and related records: in the 1870 census of Albemarle County, an Archy Granger and his family were living at Edgehill Plantation, then owned by Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Thomas Jefferson's grandson. They worked for Randolph's sister Septimia Randolph Meikleham. Thomas J. Randolph had purchased Archy from Monticello after his grandfather Jefferson's death in 1826, when 130 slaves were sold to pay off debts of the estate. Archy Granger matches in age the plantation records of Archy, the son of the slaves Bagwell and Minerva of Monticello. (He was the grandson of Great George and Ursula.) In addition, Randolph family letters document an Archy Granger and his family at their plantation of Edgehill. He appears to have been the nephew of Isaac (Jefferson) Granger, and his use of the Granger name is another indication that it was originally adopted within the family.