Hugh Chisholm was a hired white workman, a jack of all trades, employed at Monticello from 1796 to 1797 and from 1801 to 1814.  Jefferson “paid Chisolm for plaistering &c.,” as well as for masonry, carpentry, bricklaying, and “20.D. to pay for digging.”  Sometimes working with his brother, bricklayer John, he “moulded and burnt” clay to make bricks and with “2 apprentices … [could] lay 1600. bricks a day.”  Chisholm worked on Monticello II (1796-1809), the dependencies, cisterns , and the South Pavilion. He may have renovated the workmen’s house on Mulberry Row when it was converted from dwelling to textile workshop. Chisholm owned a slave, Lewis, to whom Jefferson paid small sums for occasional odd jobs, such as “Chisolm's Lewis gratuity for cistern 1.D." in 1821.

Read more about Hugh Chisholm in the Thomas Jefferson Encyclopedia »