John Wayles Jefferson

John Wayles Jefferson, born John Wayles Hemings (May 8, 1835 – July 12, 1892), was a successful businessman before and after the American Civil War, in which he served in the Union Army and was promoted to the rank of colonel. The son of a former slave and his wife, he was of predominately white ancestry, and his family had been accepted in the white community of Madison, Wisconsin after moving there in 1852. A businessman who owned a hotel in Madison, Wisconsin in the 1850s, after the war Jefferson achieved wealth as a cotton broker in Memphis, Tennessee. Jefferson is believed to have been the grandson of Sarah (Sally) Hemings, a mixed-race slave, and her master Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States.

He was the eldest son of Eston Hemings (1808–56), a freedman who was seven-eighths European in ancestry and "white" under Virginia law, and Julia Ann (née Isaacs) Hemings (1814–1889), a free woman of color. His family moved from Charlottesville, Virginia to Chillicothe, Ohio in 1836. They moved to Madison, Wisconsin in 1852, where they took the surname Jefferson and entered the white community; both decisions were based on their ancestry.

Y-DNA tests conducted in 1998 confirmed that a male-line descendant of John's brother Beverly had a male ancestor in common with male-line descendants of the Jefferson line. This supported the family's tradition of descent from Thomas Jefferson and disproved the Jefferson family tradition that his Carr nephew(s) had fathered Sally Hemings' children, as the Carr DNA did not match. For most historians, this data, together with the weight of historical evidence, has confirmed the Hemings family's claim of descent from Thomas Jefferson.

Early life and family
John's father, Eston Hemings, was born a slave at Monticello in 1808, the youngest of Sally Hemings’ six mixed-race children, who are widely understood to have been the children of Thomas Jefferson, Hemings' master. As they were seven-eighths European in ancestry, under Virginia law at the time they were legally white. But they were born into slavery under the slave law principle of partus sequitur ventrem, by which children of slave mothers took the status of the mother. Sally Hemings was three-quarters white and a half sister of Jefferson's late wife, Martha Wayles Skelton.

Jefferson informally and formally freed all of Sally's four surviving children. He let the first two "escape" when they came of age; they went North and passed into white society. Jefferson's will freed Madison Hemings and Eston shortly after the president's death in 1826; Eston was "given his time" so that he did not have to wait until age 21. Madison, already 21, had been freed immediately. In 1830 Eston purchased property in Charlottesville, on which he and his brother Madison built a house. Their mother Sally lived with them until her death in 1835.

In Charlottesville, Eston married Julia Ann Isaacs, a mixed-race daughter of a wealthy Jewish merchant, David Isaacs from Germany, and Ann (Nancy) West, a free woman of color, who built an independent business in the town. Their first son John Wayles Hemings was born in Charlottesville in 1835. His first and middle name were after his great-grandfather John Wayles. As a widower Wayles had fathered six children by his enslaved concubine Betty Hemings, of whom the youngest was Sally Hemings. Eston and Julia's second child, Anna Wayles Hemings (later Jefferson) (1836–1866), was also born in Charlottesville.

After his mother Sally died, Eston and Julia Ann Hemings moved their family to Chillicothe in the free state of Ohio, where they settled for more than 15 years. His and Julia Ann's youngest child William Beverley Hemings (1839–1908) was born there. The town had a thriving free black community and strong abolitionist activists, who together helped fugitive slaves along the Underground Railroad. Eston was well known as a musician and entertainer. The children were educated in the public schools. His brother Madison Hemings and his family also moved there.

In 1852, after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act increased the danger to members of the African-American community as slave catchers came to Ohio, the family moved North to Madison, Wisconsin, the state capital. There the entire family took the surname Jefferson to reflect Eston's and the children's ancestry. John was 17, Anna 16, and Beverly 13 at the time of the move. The family lived as part of the white community in Madison and for the rest of their lives. As adults, both Anna and Beverly Jefferson married white spouses; John never married. Anna died young in 1866 at the age of 30.

Career
Before the Civil War, John W. Jefferson operated the American House hotel in Madison, where he brought on his younger brother Beverly to help and learn the business.

Military service
At the age of 26, Jefferson entered the regular United States Army on August 26, 1861, at Madison, Wisconsin. He took command of the Wisconsin 8th Infantry during the American Civil War. On September 28, 1861 he was promoted to Major; to Lieutenant Colonel on April 23, 1863; and to Colonel on June 16, 1864. He fought in significant battles of the war and was wounded at Vicksburg and during the Siege of Corinth. He was mustered out of service on October 11, 1864 at Madison, Wisconsin. His brother, William Beverly Jefferson, also served as a white soldier in the Union Army.

According to service records, John Jefferson had red hair and gray eyes (as did Thomas Jefferson). Photographs show his strong resemblance to Thomas Jefferson. In 1902, a former neighbor from Chillicothe recalled John Jefferson's concerns about his mixed ancestry in the social climate of the times:

"...and I saw and talked with one of the sons, during the Civil War, who was then wearing the silver leaves of a lieutenant colonel, and in command of a fine regiment of white men from a north-western state. He begged me not to tell the fact that he had colored blood in his veins, which he said was not suspected by any of his command; and of course I did not."

Post-war career
Jefferson wrote as a newspaper correspondent during and after the war, publishing articles about his experiences. He moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he became a cotton broker and founded the Continental Cotton Company. "He raised cotton in Arkansas and bred blooded trotting horses on his plantation near Memphis. Articles under his name in the Memphis Daily Avalanche cover such matters as improving streets, enlarging the city’s boundaries, and preventing cotton-warehouse fires."

Jefferson never married. He died on June 12, 1892. He was interred in Madison, Wisconsin, in the Jefferson family plot at Forest Hill Cemetery. He left a sizeable estate.