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Record of Madison Hemings and Family, United States Federal Census for 1850, 15 Nov. 1850

Schedule I.—Free Inhabitants in District 117 Peble Township in the County of Pike State of Ohio enumerated by me, on the 15th day of Nov 1850. William Odell Ass’t Marshal.

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s Comments on Henry S. Randall’s Manuscript Chapters for “Life of Thomas Jefferson,” ca. 1853 [Quote]

With regard to Mr Jefferson’s skill on the violin ... Mr Randall’s idea that he became “one of the best violinists of his day” is a little extreme. My grandfather would I believe have disclaimed it ... we see at once that the time given to music by Mr Jefferson could never have accomplished more...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge’s Comments on Henry S. Randall’s Manuscript Chapters for “Life of Thomas Jefferson,” ca. 1853 [Quote]

Mr Jefferson had a most decided taste for music and great natural dispositions for it. His ear was singularly correct and his voice, though he never sang except in the retirement of his own rooms, was sweet and clear and continued unbroken to a very late period of his life. My chamber at...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 10 July 1853

I am very sorry, my dear Mr. Randall, that I can give you no information on the subject of the chasms in Mr. Jefferson’s Correspondence.—I have no copy of Tucker’s Biography at hand to see what mention he makes of them. He wrote whilst my mother was yet living. She, of all persons would have...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, [ca. 1856–1858] [Quote]

Books were at all times his chosen companions.

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, [ca. 1856–1858] [Quote]

I remember the planting of the first hyacinths and tulips, and their subsequent growth. The roots arrived, labelled each one with a fancy name. There was Marcus Aurelius and the King of the Gold Mine, the Roman Empress, and the Queen of the Amazons ... Then, when spring returned, how eagerly we...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, [ca. 1856–1858] [Quote]

Our grandfather seemed to read our hearts, to see our invisible wishes, to be our good genius, to wave the fairy wand, to brighten our young lives by his goodness and his gifts.

Thomas Jefferson Randolph to Charles Wirtenbaker, [ca. 30 June 1858]

Your note inclosing that of Gov. Wise is before me. I most fully appreciate his Excellency’s feelings and views, but as the nearest relative and sole Executor of Mr Jefferson I cannot disregard what I know to have been his cherished domestic feeling, fostered while he lived with a warmth and...

Thomas Jefferson Randolph’s Account of Thomas Jefferson’s Death, [before 31 Dec. 1858]

… Mr. Jefferson had suffered for several years before his death, from a diarrhœa, which he concealed from his family, lest it might give them uneasiness. Not aware of it, I was surprised, in conversation with him, in March, 1826, to hear him in speaking of an event likely to occur about midsummer...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 26 Jan. 1856

Few things could give me more pleasure than to contribute in the smallest degree to the successful termination of the work which at present occupies your time and thoughts. I feel the deepest interest in it.— I will not take up your questions in order, but write what I can, when I can, and as the...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 13 Feb. 1856

No. 3. I have found it impossible to resume my pen until now when I have an hour or so of leisure before turning my attention to the daily cares & duties which admit of no postponement. The decay of my grandfather’s fortune was owing, as you know, to various causes, but to none more than the...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 18 Feb. 1856

… The house at Poplar Forest was very pretty and pleasant. It was of brick, one story in front, and, owing to the falling of the ground, two in the rear. It was an exact octagon, with a centre-hall twenty feet square, lighted from above. This was a beautiful room, and served as a dining-room....

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, “parts omitted,” 18 Feb. 1856

No. 4.Life at Poplar Forest. Randall’s Life of Jefferson. vol. 3d P. 342. “Mr Jefferson had once owned I believe something like ten thousand acres of fertile land, (to which the name of Poplar Forest was given,) in the county of Bedford near Lynchburg in Campbell Co. I do not know when he began...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 22 Feb. 1856

Sent to Mr Randall with alterations or additions which I no longer remember, but the whole letter omitted in Mr Randall’s book No. 5. This letter is a continuation of the one of the 18h and I begin by correcting several small, unimportant inaccuracies. My grandfather’s visits to Bedford were...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 22 Feb. 1856 [Quote]

What you say in one of your letters of my grandfather’s being considered by a great many persons as a theorist, a man of projects, an innovator, set me to thinking how far there might be truth in these views of his character. He certainly had a good deal of ingenuity in contrivance—a good deal of...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 22 Feb. 1856 [Quote]

Some of his innovations, his theoretical novelties, so absurd in practice were mere anticipations of other men’s ideas. He built a light open carriage after a plan of his own with leather tops which closed at will, and he used it for all purposes of driving & travelling. This carriage was...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 22 Feb. 1856 [Quote]

My grandfather taught me to play chess, liked to play with me, and after our dinner, in summer time, he would have the chess board under the trees before the door, and we would have our game together. He had made, by his own carpenter and cabinet maker, John Hemmings, and painted by his own...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 22 Feb. 1856 [Quote]

Then he had lived abroad and he had introduced into his own household many of what were called foreign ways. He ate with a silver fork when other people used steel. He would have his plate changed several times during dinner, a habit not observed, in those days, by country gentlemen generally ......

George Wythe Randolph to James L. Cabell, 27 Feb. 1856

I have received your letter of the 25th, and but being confined to the house by an attack of measles from which I am not entirely recovered, some little time may elapse before I can comply with your request in reference to the Publisher. It will give me very great pleasure to aid you in any way...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 2 Mar. 1856

I have been prevented from writing, my dear Mr Randall, by the illness of one of my sons, and the absence of a confidential domestic who has for years been a sort of right hand on all household matters. I resume my pen uncertain how soon I may be compelled to lay it down. You ask for the...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 13 Mar. 1856

I know not where to begin in reply to your enquiries, my dear Mr Randall, for many subjects press upon me at once. I will therefore take up the one to which I have already alluded. You say in one of your letters “From some remark that dropped from Wormeley, a former slave in your family, as in...

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 27 Mar. 1856

Enclosed you have part of a letter, which I began a week ago. Sudden and severe cold which confined me some days to my bed, prevented me from going on with it: I send it in it’s unfinished state. Yours of the 22nd with it’s enclosures, reached me yesterday. I am not strong enough to write much to...

Extract from Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, with “omissions” Noted by Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge, 31 Mar. 1856

In my last short letter I told you &c &c. I should not forget to tell you or remind you that after my marriage, just a year before my Grandfather’s death, I was separated from my family, never saw my grandfather again, and my father but once. (After the anecdote of my grandmother’s...

Extract from Robley Dunglison to Henry S. Randall, 1 June 1856 [Quote]

Mr. Jefferson was not a man who could be regarded as an eminent conversationalist. He was rather reserved; and did not often enter into great questions—political or moral—in my presence.

Ellen W. Randolph Coolidge to Henry S. Randall, 31 July 1856

I cannot myself give you any information as to what became of my grandfather’s letters to my mother. She died at Edgehill, October. 1836. I was in Boston at the time of her death and never saw the papers which she left behind. Her father’s letters were no doubt among those papers, and must be in...

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