Thomas Mann Randolph

During Jefferson’s absences, his son-in-law Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr. often managed plantation operations.  Jefferson “directed the managers [overseers and stewards] … to apply to you for your counsel when at a loss.”¹  Randolph supervised work on Mulberry Row, from the construction of slave dwellings r, s, and t  to the sawyers at the saw pit.  Jefferson asked Randolph to monitor the treatment of enslaved individuals, once having him “speak to Lilly [an overseer] as to the treatment of the nailers.”² When the Randolph family moved to Monticello after Jefferson’s retirement from the presidency, a few of Randolph’s own slaves, including Priscilla Hemmings, John Hemmings’s wife, likely lived on Mulberry Row.  Randolph stopped oversight of plantation affairs after his estrangement from his family after the War of 1812, although he did return to Monticello briefly before his death in 1828.

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1. Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jan. 25, 1798.
2. Thomas Jefferson to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jan. 23, 1801.