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Trusted servant

Worked in the nailery from the age of thirteen.

Helped Thomas Jefferson lay out a majority of the flower beds at the Monticello

Enslaved cook

Married to Ursula Granger Hughes

Lived from (1781-1858)

He worked as a gardener in the Monticello

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1781-1858, and Enslaved Gardener, Coachman, and Hostler

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                                ROANOKE TIMES
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Tuesday, January 14, 1997              TAG: 9701140033
SECTION: VIRGINIA                 PAGE: C4   EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE (AP)
SOURCE: IAN ZACK DAILY PROGRESS

MANY DESCENDANTS of Thomas Jefferson's slaves held great responsibilities and led rich lives, according to stories passed through the generations and now collected by researchers.

A fondness for horticulture runs deep in Karen Hughes White's family, a trait whose roots she can trace to an ancestor who cultivated the flora at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello.

``There's a great love of gardening,'' White said. ``My dad and aunt have worked with flowers for years, and I, too, have a taste for that.''

Researchers working with White at Jefferson's mountaintop home discovered last year that her great, great, great grandfather was Wormley Hughes, identified in Jefferson's slave records as a gardener.

A pair of Monticello historians has spent the past three years tracking down and interviewing descendants of Jefferson's slaves. The oral history project, called ``Getting Word,'' is an attempt, they say, to bring into focus people and families blurred by the institution of slavery.

``It brought back to life the history that had been omitted from us,'' said White, an office associate for the Fauquier County Circuit Court and an amateur genealogist who brought a dozen members of her extended family to Monticello for a private tour in July. ``It was very rewarding.''

``Many African-Americans have been told that they can't find out about their families before slavery,'' said Dianne Swann-Wright, the project historian. ``These families feel pleased and proud that there is evidence of their ancestors' existence before 1865.''

Jefferson owned about 130 slaves at his death in 1826. He freed five in his will. Many others later were sold to pay his debts.

Swann-Wright and Lucia ``Cinder'' Stanton, Monticello's senior research historian, have conducted about 35 taped interviews with about 70 descendants of slaves in Massachusetts, California, Alabama, Ohio, and Virginia.

About two-thirds of them are descendants of Betty Hemings, a house servant and matriarch of one of the largest slave families at Monticello.

While historians are still transcribing interviews and piecing together stories and information passed through six or seven generations, it has become clear Jefferson's slaves and their children valued education, music, religion and public service, as well as family.

``From Jefferson's records we have ideas and understandings about slaves' working lives,'' Swann-Wright said. ``From the descendants and from their own words we've been able to say they were full and living people outside of Monticello, and we also are beginning to understand their values.''

According to research and information culled from interviews of descendants:

* Wormley Hughes' son, Robert, helped found and became the first pastor of the Union Run Baptist Church in Shadwell. His son became a preacher in Fauquier and Loudoun counties.

* The slave Peter Fossett, born in 1815, learned how to read while at Monticello and, after his family bought his freedom much later, became a Baptist minister in Cincinnati. His sister and husband were active in the Underground Railroad, the secret network that helped ferry slaves to freedom in the North and in Canada.

* Madison and Eston Hemings, slaves freed in Jefferson's will, moved to Chillicothe, Ohio, where Madison Hemings was a farmer and carpenter and Eston Hemings was a fiddle player. One of Madison Hemings' descendants, Frederick Madison Roberts, became California's first elected black representative in 1918.

Of course, no oral history project dealing with Jefferson's slaves could fail to address the disputed claim that Jefferson, following his wife's death, sired as many as eight children by Sally Hemings.

Although many Jefferson historians have expressed skepticism about the liaison, oral tradition among Hemings' descendants, many of whom come from completely distinct family lines, strongly supports the claim.

John Q. Taylor King, the 75-year-old chancellor and president emeritus of Huston-Tillotson College in Austin, Texas, recalled for researchers the time when he was about 6 years old and his elderly aunt Minerva in Memphis, Tenn., told him of his relationship to Jefferson.

``She took my sister and me to the family Bible, and in the beginning of the Bible was this family tree,'' said King, a retired U.S. Army general.

King said he is the great, great grandson of Thomas C. Woodson, who, according to family history, was one of the sons of Jefferson and Sally Hemings. His name does not appear in Jefferson's records.

``Frankly, I could care less being a descendant of the president of the United States in this way,'' King said. ``But I respect Sally Hemings and I respect Thomas Woodson.''

According to the Woodson family descendants, who hold regular reunions, Thomas Woodson was secretly ushered from Monticello at age 12 after rumors began spreading about a relationship between Jefferson and Sally Hemings. Angered that his father would disown him, he took the surname of the family he lived with after Monticello.

Woodson wound up in southern Ohio, 20 miles east of his brothers, Madison and Eston. All of Woodson's children became educators or ministers or both.

``We have physicians, we have lawyers, we have judges, we have teachers, we have scientists - our family members run the whole gamut of the work force,'' King said. ``I believe it's because of the emphasis that the early Woodsons put on education.''

LENGTH: Long  :  102 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:   AP Oral history project director Dianne Swann-Wright


(left) and Lucia ``Cinder'' Stanton, Monticello's senior research


historian, have studied the descendants of Thomas Jefferson's


slaves.

by CNB

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ORAL HISTORIANS RETRACE LIVES OF MONTICELLO SLAVE FAMILIES

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ROANOKE TIMES Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times DATE: Tuesday, January 14, 1997 TAG: 9701140033 SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C4 EDITION: METRO DATELINE: CHARLOTTESVILLE (AP) SOURCE: IAN ZACK DAILY PROGRESS MANY DESCENDANTS of Thomas Jefferson's slaves held great responsibilities and led rich lives, according to stories passed through the generations and now collected by researchers.

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Born about in Monticello, Albemarle, Virginia, United States

Ancestors

Descendants

Died about at about age 76 [location unknown]

Profile last modified | Created 17 Nov 2021

This page has been accessed 318 times.

Wormley Hughes was born March 1781, at Monticello, Virginia. He was the son of Betty Brown and a grandson of Elizabeth Hemings. His father is unknown.

He was a skilled gardener and Stable Manager at Monticello stables. He was instrumental in many of the landscaping changes at Monticello and Jefferson's surrounding properties. He was married to Ursula Granger Hughes, an enslaved cook at Monticello, daughter of Bagwell Granger, the son of "Great George" (the Overseer at Monticello) and the brother of Isaac Granger Jefferson. They had thirteen children together. He obtained informal freedom from the Jefferson family after Jefferson's death.

Wormley was informally freed by Jefferson's daughter Martha Randolph while the rest of his family was sold.

Slave Owners

https://www.monticello.org/site/research-and-collections/wormley-hughes

"United States Census, 1850," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M882-LW3 : 4 April 2020), Wormley Hughes in household of Burwell Colbert, Albemarle county, part of, Albemarle, Virginia, United States; citing family 131, NARA microfilm publication M432 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

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Wormley is 17 degrees from Harry Ferguson, 16 degrees from Arthur Guinness, 28 degrees from Seamus Heaney, 22 degrees from Jack Kyle, 23 degrees from Stephen Boyd, 28 degrees from Robert Moore, 24 degrees from Ruby Lamar, 17 degrees from Fanny Parnell, 19 degrees from William Pirrie, 16 degrees from Jonathan Swift, 19 degrees from John Synge and 14 degrees from Celia Marsh on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.

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Wormley Hughes (abt.1781-abt.1858) | WikiTree FREE Family Tree

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Born about in Monticello, Albemarle, Virginia, United States Ancestors Descendants Died about at about age 76 [location unknown] Profile last modified | Created 17 Nov 2021 This page has been accessed 318 times. Wormley Hughes was born March 1781, at Monticello, Virginia. He was the son of Betty Brown and a grandson of Elizabeth Hemings.

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Wormley Hughes was the oldest son of Betty Brown; his father has not been identified. As a boy, he worked in the Monticello house and the Mulberry Row nailery. He became head gardener, preparing flower beds and planting seeds, bulbs, and trees. He also had charge of the valuable carriage and saddle horses in the Monticello stables. He dug the grave of his master, who had called him "one of the most trusty servants I have.

Wormley Hughes and his wife, Ursula Granger, a niece of Isaac Granger Jefferson, had twelve children. Hughes was informally freed by Jefferson's daughter Martha Randolph, while the rest of his family was sold at the 1827 dispersal sale. Ursula and some of their children were acquired by the Randolphs, for whom Hughes continued to work. The Randolphs long remembered one of his expressions: "I am in no wise discouraged." Wormley and Ursula Hughes's descendants include several ministers, as well as farmers, gardeners, blacksmiths, teachers, and archivists.

Ancestry

Related People

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Wormley Hughes was the oldest son of Betty Brown; his father has not been identified. As a boy, he worked in the Monticello house and the Mulberry Row nailery. He became head gardener, preparing flower beds and planting seeds, bulbs, and trees. He also had charge of the valuable carriage and saddle horses in the...

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Hughes was the principal gardener at Monticello, probably trained by Robert Bailey, the Scottish gardener who worked at Monticello from 1794 through 1796. References to Hughes's gardening activities are frequent in Thomas Jefferson's records: hughes planted seeds, bulbs, and trees sent back from Washington; prepared and planted flower beds, and took up bulbs for the winter; and spread dung in the vegetable garden.