Ursula Granger | |
|---|---|
| Born | c. 1738 |
| Died | 1800 (aged 61–62) |
| Known for | Enslaved cook and household staff of Thomas Jefferson |
| Spouse | George Granger Sr. |
| Children | George Granger Jr. Bagwell Granger Archy Granger Isaac Granger |
Ursula Granger (b. 1738 – 1800) was a woman enslaved by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson for over 27 years, who described her as a person who "unites trust & skill." [1] She worked as a cook, dairymaid, laundress, and wet nurse, and has been referred to as the "Queen of Monticello" [2] [3] and as a pioneer of Black cidermaking in America. [4]
Granger was born around 1738. In January 1773, she was purchased in a bidding war and enslaved by Thomas Jefferson, [5] and she became a highly trusted domestic servant within Jefferson's household. [6] Martha Jefferson had specifically written that she was "very desirious to get a favorite house woman of the name Ursula." [7] Granger was purchased along with her sons and, later, her husband, George Granger Sr. [8] Her husband became referred to as "Great George," and was a farm foreman and Monticello's only African American overseer. [9]
Granger is frequently mentioned in the papers of Thomas Jefferson. [10] [11] [12] She served as a pastry cook (later head cook for a period) [2] and laundress, with duties including meat processing and preservation [13] and supervising the bottling of cider at Monticello. [14] Granger was also the wet nurse for Jefferson's eldest daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, who later served as the Acting First Lady of the United States. [15] After Jefferson was elected Governor of Virginia in 1779, he took Granger and her family with him to Williamsburg and Richmond when he was elected governor. [2]
Granger fell ill [16] in late 1799 and died in the spring of 1800, aged 61 or 62. [17] [18] Granger, her husband, and her son George Granger Jr. all died within months of each other in 1799 and 1800. [7]
Granger's youngest son, Isaac, using the surname Jefferson, survived into the 1840s as a free man in Petersburg, Virginia, and his recollections of life at Monticello were recorded. [19] Her granddaughter, Ursula Granger Hughes, was named after her and briefly served as an enslaved White House chef when Jefferson became president. [3] The last surviving recorded interview of a person enslaved by Thomas Jefferson was in 1949 with Fountain Hughes, a descendant of Granger. [20] [21]
The excavated and restored first kitchen of Monticello, referred to as the "Granger/Hemings Kitchen," is exhibited with details about the life of Ursula Granger, Sally Hemings, and "other enslaved cooks and chefs who helped create early American cuisine." [22]
Monticello was the primary plantation of Thomas Jefferson, a Founding Father and the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 14. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the labor of African slaves for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current nickel, a United States coin, features a depiction of Monticello on its reverse side.
Sarah "Sally" Hemings was an enslaved woman with one-quarter African ancestry owned by president of the United States Thomas Jefferson, one of many he inherited from his father-in-law, John Wayles.
Randolph Jefferson was the younger brother of Thomas Jefferson, the only male sibling to survive infancy. He was a planter and owner of the Snowden plantation that he inherited from his father. He served the local militia for about ten years, making captain of the local militia in 1794. He also served during the Revolutionary War.
Martha "Patsy" Randolph was the eldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, and his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. She was born at Monticello, near Charlottesville, Virginia.
John Wayles Eppes was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1803 to 1811 and again from 1813 to 1815. He also served in the U.S. Senate (1817–1819). His positions in Congress occurred after he served in the Virginia House of Delegates representing Chesterfield County (1801–1803).
Thomas Mann Randolph Jr. was an American planter, soldier, and politician from Virginia. He served as a member of both houses of the Virginia General Assembly, a representative in the United States Congress, and as the 21st governor of Virginia, from 1819 to 1822. He married Martha Jefferson, the oldest daughter of Thomas Jefferson, the third President of the United States. They had eleven children who survived childhood. As an adult, Randolph developed alcoholism, and he and his wife separated for some time before his death.
John Hemmings was an American woodworker. Born into slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello as a member of the large mixed-race Hemings family, he trained in the Monticello Joinery and became a highly skilled carpenter and woodworker, making furniture and crafting the fine woodwork of the interiors at Monticello and Poplar Forest.
The Jefferson–Hemings controversy is a historical debate over whether there was a sexual relationship between the widowed U.S. President Thomas Jefferson and his slave and sister-in-law, Sally Hemings, and whether he fathered some or all of her six recorded children. For more than 150 years, most historians denied rumors that he had a slave concubine, Sally Hemings. Based on his grandson's report, they said that one of his nephews had been the father of Hemings's children. In the 21st century, most historians agree that Jefferson is the father of one or more of Sally's children.
Madison Hemings was the son of the mixed-race enslaved woman Sally Hemings and, according to most Jefferson scholars, her enslaver, President Thomas Jefferson. He was the third of her four children to survive to adulthood. Born into slavery, according to partus sequitur ventrem, Hemings grew up on Jefferson's Monticello plantation, where his mother was also enslaved. After some light duties as a young boy, Hemings became a carpenter and fine woodwork apprentice at around age 14 and worked in the joiner's shop until he was about 21. He learned to play the violin and was able to earn money by growing cabbages. Jefferson died in 1826, after which Sally Hemings was "given her time" by Jefferson's surviving daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph of Albemarle County was a Virginia planter, soldier and politician who served multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, as rector of the University of Virginia, and as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. The favorite grandson of President Thomas Jefferson, he helped manage Monticello near the end of his grandfather's life and was executor of his estate, and later also served in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and at the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861.
Mary Hemings Bell was born into slavery, most likely in Charles City County, Virginia, as the oldest child of Elizabeth Hemings, a mixed-race slave held by John Wayles. After the death of Wayles in 1773, Elizabeth, Mary, and her family were inherited by Thomas Jefferson, the husband of Martha Wayles Skelton, a daughter of Wayles, and all moved to Monticello.
Isaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger was an enslaved artisan of US President Thomas Jefferson who crafted and repaired products as a tinsmith, blacksmith, and nailer at Monticello.
James Hemings (1765–1801) was the first American to train as a chef in France. Three-quarters white in ancestry, he was born into slavery in Virginia in 1765. At eight years old, he was purchased by Thomas Jefferson at his residence of Monticello.
Elizabeth Hemings was an enslaved mixed-race woman in colonial Virginia. With her enslaver, planter John Wayles, she had six children, including Sally Hemings. These children were three-quarters white, and, following the condition of their mother, they were enslaved from birth; they were half-siblings to Wayles's daughter, Martha Jefferson. After Wayles died, the Hemings family and some 120 other enslaved people were inherited, along with 11,000 acres and £4,000 debt, as part of his estate by his daughter Martha and her husband Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, owned more than 600 slaves during his adult life. Jefferson freed two slaves while he lived, and five others were freed after his death, including two of his children from his relationship with his slave Sally Hemings. His other two children with Hemings were allowed to escape without pursuit. After his death, the rest of the slaves were sold to pay off his estate's debts.
Fountain Hughes was an American former slave freed in 1865 after the American Civil War. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, he worked as a laborer for most of his life, moving in 1881 from Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland. He was interviewed in June 1949 about his life by the Library of Congress as part of the Federal Writers' Project of former slaves' oral histories. The recorded interview is online through the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library.
Edith Hern Fossett (1787–1854) was an African American chef who for much of her life was enslaved by Thomas Jefferson before being freed. Three generations of her family, the Herns, worked in Jefferson's fields, performed domestic and leadership duties, and made tools. Like Hern, they also took care of children. She cared for Harriet Hemings, the daughter of Sally Hemings, at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello plantation when she was a girl.
Ursula Granger Hughes (1787-?) was the first woman to have a child in the White House. She was one of 600 people Thomas Jefferson enslaved throughout his lifetime. Ursula spent most of her life on Jefferson's plantation, Monticello, in Charlottesville, Virginia. When she was fourteen, Jefferson ordered her to come to the White House to train under Honoré Julien to be the next head cook in Monticello. Her apprenticeship was short-lived due to her pregnancy with her first child.
The Hemings family lived in Virginia in the 1700s and 1800s. The family consisted of Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings and her children and other descendants. They were enslaved people with at least one ancestor who had lived in Africa and been brought over the Atlantic Ocean in the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Some of them became free later in their lives. For part of their history, they were enslaved to the Eppes family, to the Wayles family, and to Thomas Jefferson. The Hemingses were the largest family to live at Jefferson's house, Monticello.
