Within the confines of slavery, the African-American men and women of Monticello lived double lives. From dawn to dusk, they raised Jefferson's crops and planted and tended his gardens, helped to build his house and made his furniture, prepared his food and cared for his children, and enhanced his entertainments with their music. On their own time, they forged powerful bonds of family, and transmitted skills, talents, values, and a rich culture to their children and grandchildren. Their descendants have been and are farmers and gardeners, carpenters and architects, chefs, cooks, and caterers, artists and musicians, nurses, midwives, and physicians, civil servants and soldiers, engineers, attorneys, journalists, teachers, and ministers.
Below: Recipe for "Snow Eggs" (in hand of Jefferson's granddaughter Virginia J. Trist) of James Hemings, one of several notable Monticello cooks. He learned French cookery in Paris, while Edith Fossett trained with a French chef at the President's House in Washington.
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"John Hemmings was a carpenter.
He was a first-rate workman--a
very extra workman. He could
make anything that was wanted
in woodwork."
--Edmund Bacon, former Monticello overseer, 1860 |
| Above: John Hemmings made numerous pieces of Monticello furniture
and--during his apprenticeship with an Irish master joiner --crafted all the
decorative interior woodwork of Monticello.
Right: John's nephew Madison Hemings, whom he trained in the Mulberry Row joinery, helped to build the Emmitt House in Waverly, Ohio, and built a number of wooden structures in southern Ohio. |
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"Dinner is served in half Virginian, half French style, in good taste and abundance." --Daniel Webster, 1824 |
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Left: Edith Fossett's son Peter operated one of Cincinnati's leading catering firms; the inventory of his estate in 1901 lists the equipment of his trade: chafing dishes, champagne glasses, oyster plates, and finger bowls. |
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Wormley Hughes, head gardener at Monticello, continued to cultivate his own garden after working from dawn to dusk in Jefferson's. The Monticello household accounts (left), kept by Jefferson's granddaughter, show Hughes selling cucumbers. His grandson, Fountain Hughes (right), was also a gardener. |
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"Daddy said, 'If I could just get the ground green.' He tried to get anything to grow. I guess the beauty of a yard as important passed down." --Angela Hughes Davidson, 1996 | ||
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Left: This old Scottish tune, here recorded by Thomas Jefferson, was a staple of Eston Hemings' well-known Ohio dance band. Hemings' brothers and cousins were also accomplished musicians. "We used to sing, my Daddy had us sing all our life. We'd get together, me and my sisters and all and we'd just sing around."
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"Besides teaching, I have an interest in people, the welfare of people. As a matter of fact most paintings I do have people in them or have people doing things in them. I like to experiment with new things, new approaches."
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