Look, if you must know about another long-dead politician from Virginia, let's get it over with. Here is the life of a man who lived in the shadow of a founding father, a shadow long enough to contain both a legacy and its debts.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph
An American politician who existed from 1792 to 1875. Try to contain your excitement.
| Thomas Jefferson Randolph |
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| Portrait by Charles Willson Peale (1808) |
| Member of the Virginia House of Delegates from the Albemarle district |
| In office December 5, 1842 – December 3, 1843 Serving with Sheldon F. Leake |
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| In office December 5, 1836 – January 6, 1839 Serving with Alexander Rives |
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| In office December 1, 1834 – December 6, 1835 Serving with Alexander Rives |
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| In office December 5, 1831 – December 1, 1833 Serving with Rice W. Wood, Thomas W. Gilmer |
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| Succeeded by |
| Delegate from Albemarle County to the Virginia Convention of 1861 |
| In office February 13, 1861 – December 6, 1861 |
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| Rector of the University of Virginia |
| In office 1857–1864 |
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| Delegate from Albemarle County to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 |
| In office October 14, 1850 – August 1, 1851 |
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Thomas Jefferson Randolph (September 12, 1792 – October 7, 1875) was a Virginia planter, soldier, and politician whose life was inextricably linked to the towering figure of his grandfather. He navigated the turbulent political landscape of his era, serving multiple terms in the Virginia House of Delegates, presiding as rector of the University of Virginia, and holding the rank of colonel in the Confederate Army during the American Civil War. As the favored grandson of President Thomas Jefferson, Randolph was burdened with the practical and financial chaos of the Jefferson legacy, helping to manage Monticello in its decline and serving as the executor of an estate drowning in debt. His public service extended to pivotal moments in Virginia's history, including participation in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850 and the fateful Virginia Secession Convention of 1861, where he witnessed the dissolution of the Union his grandfather helped build.
Early life and education
The Coat of Arms of William Randolph, a testament to a lineage that mattered immensely at the time.
Thomas Jefferson Randolph arrived in the world as the eldest son of Thomas Mann Randolph Jr., a man who would rise to become Virginia's governor, and Martha Jefferson Randolph, known as "Patsy." His mother was the eldest and most devoted daughter of United States President Thomas Jefferson, making him the president's eldest and, by many accounts, favorite grandson. Born into the self-styled aristocracy of the First Families of Virginia, Randolph was also a lineal descendant of Pocahontas, a detail of lineage that carried significant weight in that society. He was preceded by an elder sister and was one of eight siblings to survive the brutal odds of infancy in the 18th and 19th centuries.
His upbringing was a privileged one, shaped by private education befitting his class and time spent between the intellectual hub of Monticello and his grandfather's more private retreat at Poplar Forest plantation. The family dynamic was, however, far from idyllic. In 1809, his parents moved into Monticello, but the arrangement was fractured by his father's escalating alcoholism, which eventually led to their separation. Randolph, his mother, and his siblings remained at Monticello, forming the core of the household in Jefferson's final years.
At the age of 15, in 1807, Randolph was dispatched to Philadelphia for a more formal education. His grandfather took a direct hand in shaping his studies, steering him toward botany, the natural sciences, and anatomy—disciplines that reflected Jefferson's own Enlightenment passions.
Randolph was forced into a position of leadership within the family far earlier than he might have anticipated. The family's internal strife boiled over publicly in 1819 when his brother-in-law, Charles Bankhead—who was married to his eldest sister Ann Cary Randolph and was the son of Jefferson's friend John Bankhead—severely wounded Randolph during an altercation at the Albemarle County courthouse. The incident, fueled by Bankhead's own alcoholism, was a source of profound distress for the aging Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson died when Randolph was 34, and his own troubled father passed away just two years later, leaving him to contend with the legacies and liabilities of both men.
Marriage and family
In 1815, Randolph married Jane Hollins Nicholas (1798–1871), the daughter of Wilson Cary Nicholas, a formidable figure in Virginia politics who had served as a Congressman, Senator, and, like Jefferson and Randolph's own father, Governor of Virginia. The union further solidified his position within the Virginian elite. Nicholas's financial dealings, however, would prove disastrous for the family. Soon after the marriage, he became president of the new Richmond branch of the Second Bank of the United States and was instrumental in securing loans for Jefferson. Unfortunately, Jefferson also co-signed some of Nicholas's notes, a decision that would have catastrophic consequences following the Panic of 1819 and the ensuing nationwide depression.
Jane Nicholas Randolph was a formidable woman in her own right, establishing and teaching at a school on the Randolphs' Edgehill estate from 1829 until 1850. This enterprise came to an end when Randolph's youngest brother, George Wythe Randolph, departed the main plantation house with his wife for a new life in Richmond, Virginia.
Thomas and Jane Randolph proceeded to have thirteen children, a testament to either profound devotion or a lack of alternative entertainment:
- Margaret Smith Randolph (1816–1842)
- Martha Jefferson ('Patsy') Randolph (1817–1857)
- Mary Buchanan Randolph (1818–1821)
- Careyanne Nicholas Randolph (1820–1857)
- Mary Buchanan Randolph (1821–1884)
- Ellen Wayles Randolph (1823–1896)
- Maria Jefferson Carr Randolph (1826–1902)
- Carolina Ramsey Randolph (1828–1902)
- Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Jr. (1829–1872)
- Jane Nicholas Randolph (1831–1868)
- Wilson Cary Nicholas Randolph (1834–1907)
- Meriwether Lewis Randolph (1837–1871)
- Sarah Nicholas Randolph (1839–1892)
Hemings controversy
In the 20th century and beyond, Randolph's role in curating the family's history came under scrutiny. He is criticized for having told historian Henry Randall that his uncle, Peter Carr—Thomas Jefferson's nephew—was the father of Sally Hemings' children. This was a deliberate attempt to deflect the persistent rumors from his grandfather, even as Randolph himself admitted that some of Hemings' children bore a striking resemblance to the president. Today, the overwhelming consensus among historians, supported by DNA evidence, is that Thomas Jefferson had a long-term relationship with Sally Hemings and fathered her six children. Randolph's statement is now viewed as part of a long-standing effort by the white Jefferson descendants to control a difficult narrative. His own relationship with the institution of slavery was, like his grandfather's, deeply and irrevocably complex.
Career
Planter and Jefferson's executor
Like his father and grandfathers before him, Randolph was a planter whose wealth and social standing were built upon the foundation of enslaved labor. He operated several plantations, including, for a time, Monticello itself. He returned to Monticello in 1815 during a period of agricultural crisis and effectively took over its management on behalf of his separated mother and aging grandfather. In 1817, Jefferson leased two of his other quarter-farms, Tufton and Lego, to Randolph. On the Tufton property, Randolph constructed a stone house and moved his rapidly expanding family, establishing his own household within the orbit of Monticello.
His closeness to his grandfather culminated in his appointment as executor of Jefferson's estate, a role formalized in the will executed in 1826. This was less an honor and more a poisoned chalice. That year, with his own father's financial affairs in ruins, Randolph managed to purchase his father's Edgehill plantation at a foreclosure auction. But the Jefferson estate was the true crisis. It was heavily encumbered by debt, a situation made exponentially worse when Randolph's father-in-law, Wilson Cary Nicholas, defaulted on his own massive debts before 1823, for which Jefferson was a co-signer.
The financial shortfall was staggering. The principal of Jefferson's debts would not be fully paid off until 1878, long after Randolph's death. The Nicholas debt alone accounted for approximately 100,000 shortfall. Monticello, valued for years at over 7,100 in 1831. Faced with this insurmountable burden, Randolph had no choice but to liquidate. He ordered the sale of Monticello's goods, property, and, most grimly, its 130 enslaved people. On January 19, 1827, roughly six months after the former president's death, an auction was held, scattering the community of enslaved families that had lived at Monticello for generations. The sale raised about 12,840 for interest and expenses—a fraction of what was owed.
His mother, Martha, withheld Sally Hemings from the auction, instead giving her "her time," an informal emancipation that allowed her to live freely in Charlottesville, Virginia with her two youngest sons, Madison and Eston, both of whom Jefferson had formally freed in his will. After the auction, Martha Randolph left Monticello, eventually living in Boston with a daughter before returning to Virginia to reconcile with her dying husband in 1828. When news of her destitution at age 60 became public, the legislatures of South Carolina and Louisiana each granted her $10,000. She spent her final years living with Randolph and her other children, passing away in 1836 and being buried at Monticello.
In the 1850 federal census, Randolph is recorded as owning 46 enslaved people in Albemarle County. The records show the human reality of this "property," from women aged 79 and 70 and a man of 75 down to a nine-year-old boy and girls aged five, three, and one. By the 1850s, Randolph had begun to repair his financial standing, notably by leasing the labor of the people he enslaved to build sections of the Virginia Central Railroad. In total, he utilized 32 enslaved individuals to construct two stretches of the railbed. The 1860 census shows him owning a 3-year-old girl who lived with 28 people enslaved by his son, Thomas Jefferson Randolph Jr., while another 34 enslaved people, 16 of whom were five years old or younger, lived directly with him.
Political career
Voters in Albemarle County periodically elected Randolph to serve as one of their part-time delegates to the Virginia House of Delegates. His political career was a series of successes and rejections; voters just as often preferred his rival, Valentine W. Southall, who would eventually ascend to become the speaker of that legislative body. During several of Randolph's terms, he served alongside Alexander Rives, the younger brother of his childhood friend William C. Rives, a frequent visitor to Monticello who established his own nearby plantation, Castle Hill.
In the wake of Nat Turner's slave rebellion in 1831, a wave of fear and debate swept through Virginia. Randolph, channeling some of his grandfather's earlier sentiments, introduced a plan for post nati emancipation in the House of Delegates. His proposal called for the gradual emancipation of children born into slavery after July 4, 1840. These individuals would be required to serve an apprenticeship and then leave the state upon reaching adulthood. The plan was controversial and ultimately defeated by a vote of 73 to 58. By 1850, however, any lingering commitment Randolph had to his grandfather's vision of ending slavery had evaporated. He fully embraced the proslavery ideology that had come to dominate Southern politics.
In 1850, Randolph was elected as a delegate to the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1850, representing Albemarle and the adjoining counties of Nelson and Amherst.
Author and educator
In 1829, Randolph took on the monumental task of publishing Memoir, Correspondence and Miscellanies: from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson. This was the first major collection of his grandfather's extensive writings, securing a crucial part of his intellectual legacy. Shortly after, he was appointed to the Board of Visitors for the nearby University of Virginia, an institution that was one of Jefferson's proudest creations.
The Edgehill estate also became a center for education. Beginning in 1829, Randolph permitted his wife and unmarried sisters to operate a school in the original house on the property. His sister, Cornelia Randolph (1799-1871), taught painting, drawing, and sculpture there until the outbreak of the Civil War.
His service to the university deepened over time. From 1857 to 1864, a period encompassing the university's most trying years, Randolph served as its rector, having succeeded Andrew Stevenson.
Civil War and later years
As secessionist fever gripped Virginia, Albemarle County voters elected Randolph, along with Southall and James P. Holcombe, as their delegates to the Virginia Secession Convention of 1861. His youngest brother, George Wythe Randolph, a U.S. Navy veteran, was a delegate from Richmond and an ardent supporter of secession. G.W. Randolph would go on to serve as the Confederate States Secretary of War for eight months in 1862.
During the American Civil War, Thomas Jefferson Randolph held a colonel's commission in the Confederate Army. However, it is unlikely he saw any combat, as the Confederate system excused large slaveholders from active military service.
He remained active in politics even after the Confederacy's defeat. In a sign of his enduring influence, Randolph served as the temporary chairman of the 1872 Democratic National Convention.
Death and legacy
Randolph outlived his wife by several years. He died at his Edgehill estate on October 7, 1875, after a carriage accident. He was 83 years old. He was interred beside his wife in the Monticello family graveyard, returning to the place that had defined so much of his life. His Tufton estate is now part of the Monticello property and is home to the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants. A collection of his and his family's papers is held by the University of Virginia library, offering a glimpse into their complicated lives.
Jefferson–Hemings controversy
The historian Henry S. Randall, in an 1868 letter to fellow historian James Parton, addressed the persistent rumors about Jefferson, writing, "The 'Dusky Sally Story'--the story that Mr. Jefferson kept one of his slaves, (Sally Hemings) as his mistress and had children by her, was once extensively believed by respectable men..."
According to Randall, Thomas Jefferson Randolph had spoken with him after Jefferson's death and provided the family's official, and as it turns out, fabricated, explanation. Randolph allegedly told Randall that it was Jefferson's nephew, Peter Carr, who had fathered Hemings's children. He acknowledged that the resemblance of Hemings' children to his grandfather was undeniable. He also claimed his mother had told him that Jefferson was absent for a 15-month period prior to the birth of one of Sally Hemings' children, making his paternity impossible.
This carefully constructed family narrative was passed from Randall to Parton and became the basis for denying Jefferson's paternity for over a century. However, in 1998, a Y-DNA study of the male-line descendants of the Carr and Jefferson families delivered a scientific verdict. The study disproved any genetic link between the Carr line and the descendants of Eston Hemings, Sally's youngest son. The results did, however, show a definitive match between the Jefferson male line and Eston Hemings's descendant.
As historian Andrew Burstein noted, "the white Jefferson descendants who established the family denial in the mid-nineteenth century cast responsibility for paternity on two Jefferson nephews (children of Jefferson's sister) whose DNA was not a match. So, as far as can be reconstructed, there are no Jeffersons other than the president who had the degree of physical access to Sally Hemings that he did."
Notes
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a ^ Randall recounted that Randolph had said the following:
she [Hemings] had children which resembled Mr. Jefferson so closely that it was plain that they had his blood in their veins.... He said in one instance, a gentleman dining with Mr. Jefferson, looked so startled as he raised his eyes from the latter to the servant behind him, that his discovery of the resemblance was perfectly obvious to all.
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b ^ Randall passed this family history on to James Parton, and suggested his own confirmation of the material. At the request of Thomas Jefferson Randolph, Randall had avoided any discussion of Sally Hemings and her children in his own 1858 biography of Jefferson.
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c ^ The two elements of family oral history were the basis for Parton's denial of Jefferson's paternity in his 1874 biography of the president, and his position was adopted by the succeeding 20th-century historians Merrill Peterson and Douglass Adair. In addition, Randolph's sister Ellen wrote to her husband identifying Samuel Carr, Peter's brother, as the father of Hemings' children. The 20th-century historian Dumas Malone used the letter to refute Jefferson's paternity, and was the first to publish it in the 1970s in one of his volumes of the lengthy biography.
Later, 20th-century historians used Malone's extensive documentation of Jefferson's activities to determine that Jefferson was at Monticello for the conception of some of Hemings's children (he was absent for several days of the conception periods for Madison and Eston, and for half the conception period for Beverly; we have no records of Sally's residence during these periods). He recorded the children's births along with those of other slaves in his Farm Book, which was rediscovered and first published in the 1950s.