John Wayles Jefferson

Who was John Wayles Jefferson?

John Wayles Jefferson, born John Wayles Hemings, was a successful businessman before and after the American Civil War, in which he served in the Union Army and was promoted to the rank of colonel. Jefferson owned a successful hotel in Madison, Wisconsin in the 1850s; after the Civil War he moved to Memphis, Tennessee, where he achieved wealth as a cotton broker. Jefferson is believed to be a grandson of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States; his paternal grandmother was Sarah Hemings, the president's mixed-race slave and half-sister to his late wife.

Jefferson was the eldest son of Eston Hemings, a former slave freed in Jefferson's will, who was seven-eighths European in ancestry and "white" under Virginia law, and Julia Ann Hemings, a free woman of color who was of three-quarters European descent. The Hemings moved from Charlottesville, Virginia to Chillicothe, Ohio in 1836. They moved to Madison, Wisconsin in 1852, where they took the surname Jefferson and entered the white community, where they were well accepted.