Hello Everyone!
It’s been a wonderful week here in southern Wisconsin and I’ve spent most of it among family and friends. The weather is so much cooler here with the high today supposed to be 76°, and life for me is always better in cooler temperatures. It still feels like summer, but not summer on the surface of the sun. This may have been the week that really saved my summer from slipping away as it’s been full of boat trips, barbecues and even a wonderful day at the Wisconsin State Fair. I haven’t traveled too far or done too much in the way of sightseeing or exploring, but I’ve laughed a lot and sometimes that’s the best thing you can do with your time.
After leaving you last week, I headed out into Madison and made a stop at Forest Hill Cemetery to visit the grave of Eston Hemings Jefferson. Eston was the youngest son of Sally Hemings who was an enslaved woman of mixed race who spent much of her life at Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia. DNA evidence from 1998 shows that Eston’s father was a Jefferson and while any number of people have tried to argue that it wasn’t our third president himself, there can be no definitive proof one way or the other. Thomas Jefferson’s documents show that he was present at Monticello when Eston was conceived, and Eston’s brother Madison stated during his lifetime that his mother had told them that Jefferson was their father. Of the more than 600 people enslaved at Monticello during his lifetime, Jefferson only freed a handful in his will. Eston and Madison were among them and all of those he freed were related to Sally Hemings. Eston lived with his mother in Virginia until her death and then moved to Ohio and on to Madison, where he lived the rest of his life. He and his wife both passed as White and their two sons served on the Union side during the Civil War. It was interesting to visit the grave of a man who was likely the youngest son of Thomas Jefferson and to think about his life. Forest Hill is also the site of the northernmost Confederate cemetery in the country, as nearby Camp Randall (now the site of the University of Wisconsin’s Camp Randall Stadium) served as a POW camp during the Civil War.
