Thomas Jefferson and Skeletons in the Closet

When the boys were young, we usually tried to douse them with a little education on our vacations. One year we went to Virginia. I remember the Natural Bridge that George Washington surveyed as a surveyor. And Charlottesville. Charlottesville was the home of Thomas Jefferson. The postcard is Monticello, Jefferson’s home, near Charlottesville. I always admired Thomas Jefferson. He was an inventor, amateur scientist, experimenter, and helped with the wording of the most powerful legal document we have, The United States Constitution.. Did you know he got The Library of Congress started by donating his own books? Another thing, up until he became president people bowed to Presidents and elected officials, but Jefferson replaced bowing to firm handshakes. I admire he and Benjamin Franklin for all the scientific stuff they did. However, it appears that the old slogan, “Do as I say, not as I do.” might apply to him: He owned slaves. I think it is a fact that one lady slave, Sally Hemings, was Jefferson’s mistress. She was also a travel companion for his oversea trips. She also gave birth to some of his kids. In Charlottesville we visited the University of Virginia campus. We did because Jefferson created it and designed the buildings. As usual, his craftsmanship was perfect. Between Charlottesville and Monticello is a Thomas Jefferson Museum. visited it. A lady docent, all prim and proper, asked us in a humble polite way could she help us. I asked her about Sally Hemings, Jefferson’s slave mistress. Her face seemed to harden, her smile frozen, as she something go effect, “We do not recognize Sally Hemings as Thomas Jefferson’s love, we recognized what she really was: ,”Just another slaver.”” And then it seemed that she glared at us, maybe not. Maybe I just felt she did. I do believe she was jealous of Sally Hemings. We left. I read someplace, probably in a UNCLE JOHN’S BATHROOM READER, in the past year of so that Thomas Jefferson’s two grown grandsons killed a lady slave because she broke a fine China dish. The two grandsons, of course, be descended from Thomas Jefferson. I think I read that the children that Thomas Jefferson sired from Sally Hemings were raised Sally Hemings, in other words they were slaves, like their mother, so they were also Thomas Jefferson’s descendants. If all that is true, about the slaves’ punishment by death, and descended from Thomas Jefferson, it is possible the two grandsons killed their own cousin killed their own cousin for breaking a China dish.