Mary Hemings Bell facts for kids

Mary Hemings Bell (1753-after 1834) was born into slavery, most likely in Charles City County, Virginia, as the oldest child of Elizabeth Hemings, a mixed-race slave held by John Wayles. After the death of Wayles in 1773, Elizabeth, Mary, and her family were inherited by Thomas Jefferson, the husband of Martha Wayles Skelton, a daughter of Wayles, and all moved to Monticello.

While Jefferson was in France, Hemings was hired out to Thomas Bell, a wealthy white merchant in Charlottesville, Virginia. She became his common-law wife and they had two children together. Bell purchased her and the children from Jefferson in 1792 and informally freed them. Mary Hemings Bell was the first Hemings to gain freedom. The couple lived together all their lives. (They were prohibited from marriage by Virginia law at the time.)

In 2007 Mary Hemings Bell was recognized as a Patriot of the Daughters of the American Revolution, because she had been taken as a prisoner of war during the American Revolution. By this honor, all her female descendants are eligible to join the DAR.

Early life

Mary, the daughter of Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings, was born into slavery. Betty was the biracial daughter of an enslaved African woman and, an English sea captain whose surname was Hemings. Mary was the first of Elizabeth's twelve children. Hemings lived at John Wayles' plantation until his son-in-law, Thomas Jefferson, received her as part of a division of Wayles' estate on January 14, 1774.

She was a "valued household servant" and seamstress. Like her mother and sisters, she worked in the household where she took care of Martha Jefferson and her children, sewed, and cleaned. The overseer did not have control or responsibility for managing the work of the female members of the Hemings family.

Family

Mary Hemings had six children, some of whom were freed and some of whom were separated from her when they were sold.

Initial children

She initially had four children:

• Daniel Farley (1772-1837), Jefferson gave him to his sister,
• Molly Hemings (1777-after 1790), Jefferson gave her to his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph as a wedding gift, along with seven other slaves;
• Joseph Fossett (1780-1858), his father was believed to be William Fossett, a white craftsman at Monticello. In 1826 Jefferson freed Joseph Fossett by his will, in recognition of his valuable service as an ironworker. To settle debts of the estate, 130 Monticello slaves were sold, including Fossett's wife Edy and their children. With the help of his mother Mary Bell and other free family members, Fossett over several years purchased the freedom of his wife and most of his children. The family moved from Virginia to the free state of Ohio about 1840.
• Betsy Hemmings, (1783-1857) Her descendants say their family oral tradition is that Betsy was fathered by the recently widowed Thomas Jefferson, whose wife died in 1782. The historian Lucia Stanton found documentation that her mother Mary Hemings was one of the household slaves whom Jefferson took to Williamsburg and Richmond to care for the family when he was governor, from 1779 to 1781. Jefferson gave Betsy Hemmings at the age of 14, and 29 other slaves, as a wedding gift to his daughter Mary Jefferson and her new husband John Wayles Eppes. Betsy lived with the Eppes family for the rest of her life. Her descendants say she was his concubine from about age 21, after he was widowed, and through his second marriage. They had a daughter, Frances, and a son, Joseph, together and other children. (The names of other children were lost when a fire destroyed the plantation records.) According to her descendants, their relationship continued after he married a second time five years later, although it was not openly acknowledged. Betsy Hemmings was buried next to Eppes in his family cemetery at the plantation and her grave is marked by a tombstone similar to his. His second wife was buried at her daughter's plantation.

With Thomas Bell

During Jefferson's stay in Paris as U.S. minister to France, his overseer hired out Mary Hemings (with her two younger children) to Thomas Bell in Charlottesville. Mary Hemings became partner to Thomas Bell and they had two children:

• Robert Washington Bell and
• Sarah Jefferson Bell. Also known as Sally, in 1802 she married Jesse Scott, who was a musician who performed across Virginia with his sons. Scott also purchased Edith Fossett and two of her children with Joseph Fossett in 1827 so that they would be free to live with Joseph.

After his return and at Mary's request, Jefferson sold Mary and her two younger children to Bell in 1792. Bell informally freed the three of them that year, acknowledging the children as his. Hemings then took Bell's name.

Thomas and Mary Bell lived the remainder of their lives together and Thomas Bell became a good friend of Jefferson. Mary Hemings Bell was the first of Betty's children to gain freedom. When Thomas Bell died in 1800, he left Mary and their Bell children a sizable estate, treating them as free in his will. The property included lots on Charlottesville's Main Street. He depended on his neighbors and friends to carry out his wishes, which they did. Hemings lived in a house on Main Street. Although free, Mary Hemings remained in close communication with her enslaved family at Monticello and gave gifts to her children and others. She was remembered by them many years after her death. As an elderly man, her grandson Peter Fossett recalled how when he was a child, his free grandmother Mary gave him a suit of blue nankeen cloth and a red leather hat and shoes, grand compared to the attire of children of field slaves. She finished her days in Charlottesville. Her grave site remains unknown.

Prisoner of war and patriot

In 1780, after Jefferson was elected governor of Virginia, he moved his family to Williamsburg, then the capital of Virginia. They took along a number of slaves as servants, including Mary Hemings and Betty Brown. The following year Jefferson relocated his household to the new capital of Richmond. With the American Revolutionary War underway, when Benedict Arnold's forces raided Richmond searching (unsuccessfully) for Jefferson, they took Mary Hemings and other Jefferson slaves as prisoners of war. They were freed from the British later that year by General Washington's forces during the siege of Yorktown.

In 2007, Mary Hemings was named a Patriot of the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) by virtue of her prisoner of war status during the Revolutionary War. This automatically qualifies her female descendants as eligible to join the DAR. Mary Hemings was the first Monticello slave to be honored by the DAR.

Descendants

One of Mary's most notable descendants was William Monroe Trotter, who became a prominent Boston newspaper publisher, human rights activist, and a founder of the Niagara Movement, precursor of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP). Trotter was graduated magna cum laude from Harvard University in 1895; in his junior year he became the first man of color to earn a Phi Beta Kappa key there. Trotter was a contemporary of fellow Harvard alumnus W. E. B. Du Bois. In 1896, Trotter earned a master's degree from Harvard, planning a career in international banking. But despite his outstanding credentials, racism thwarted his efforts to find work in that field.