Peter Carr Biography and Conception Scenarios

Col. Randolph informed me that Sally Hemings was the mistress of Peter, and her sister Betsey the mistress of Samuel and from these connections sprang the progeny which resembled Mr. Jefferson. Both the Heming girls were light colored and decidedly good looking. The Colonel said their connection with the Carrs was perfectly notorious at Monticello, and scarcely disguised by the latter never disavowed by them. Samuel’s proceedings were particularly open.³⁹

Jefferson’s granddaughter Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge (1796-1876), who spent much of her youth at Monticello, would also describe the promiscuous behavior of the young men around Monticello, particularly that of Peter and Samuel Carr:

There were dissipated young men in the neighborhood who sought the society of the mulatresses and they in like manner were not anxious to establish any claim of paternity in the results of such associations.
One woman known to Mr. J. Quincy Adams and others as “dusky Sally” was pretty notoriously the mistress of a married man, a near relation of Mr. Jefferson’s, and there can be small question that her children were his.... Mr. Southall and himself being young men together, heard Mr. Peter Carr say with a laugh, that “the old gentleman had to bear the blame of his and Sam’s (Col. Carr) misdeeds.” ⁴⁰

Peter likely made such a comment to Valentine Southall to impress and shock this younger man who was a frequent guest at Monticello. Since the accusations — which would later be leveled in the press against Jefferson — only named Sally Hemings and not her sister Betsey, Peter’s comment points to the possibility that both brothers might have had sexual relations with Sally Hemings. Other confessions were of the same tone: that both of them had relations with Sally Hemings.

Jefferson biographer Andrew Burstein noted that records verify the proximity of the Carr brothers to Monticello for Sally Hemings’ conceptions:

“Jefferson's Account Books show that both nephews [Peter and Samuel Carr] were either present at Monticello or having transactions with Jefferson during specific periods that correspond to Sally Hemings conceptions. Peter was 3 years older than Sally Hemings and had grown up as a favorite on his uncle's estate; Jefferson was 30 years older than Sally Hemings.” ⁴¹

Peter was ready by the end of the 1790’s to try to enter public service in the capacity of a member of the Virginia state legislature. He was a passionate political supporter of Jefferson and his Republican Party, but in his first foray into politics he stumbled out of the blocks in an incident that demonstrated Jefferson’s deference to his nephew Peter.

It has been revealed that under the pseudonym “John Langhorne,” Peter addressed a letter to George Washington (then of the opposing Federalist party) on September 25, 1797, in what appeared to be a sincere communication commiserating with Washington on alleged defamations directed at the former president in his retirement.⁴² After Washington dispatched a cautious reply,⁴³ a local Federalist wrote to inform him⁴⁴ and charged that author – possibly acting in league with Jefferson – had hoped to elicit an indiscreet response that would somehow reveal Federalist intentions.⁴⁵ The incident dealt a final blow to Washington’s already deteriorating relationship with Jefferson but otherwise achieved nothing.⁴⁶ Jefferson biographer Randall was informed who the author was, though he did not give his name, and said:

He was a young man, and was guilty of a highly improper and senseless prank; but he acted without the knowledge of anyone (unless perhaps of a person still younger and more thoughtless than himself) — [he] regretted it as soon as done — and most bitterly regretted it when he learned that it had been seized upon to hang a suspicion on Mr. Jefferson. ⁴⁷

Whether the letter was a clumsy prank — for the group of young men in Albemarle County associated with Peter were capable of practical jokes — or whether it was a deliberate effort to gain political ends, it unfortunately helped finalize a growing breach between Washington and Jefferson.⁴⁸ No records have been found to indicate that Jefferson reprimanded his nephew or that he tried to amend the situation with Washington, perhaps because in the process he would have had to expose his nephew as the author.

Jefferson must have forgiven him, because after Peter’s failed attempt to win election to the Virginia House of Delegates in 1799, Peter worked with Jefferson on his 1800 presidential campaign which was conducted mostly from his Monticello home.⁴⁹ Jefferson was under scrutiny by the press and accused of many things, but it was still two years before the accusations of his mixing with Sally Hemings were first published (in 1802).

Sally Hemings was still living in her cabin when she conceived her third child sometime between July and September 1800,⁵⁰ during the same time that Peter was regularly visiting Monticello to help with the campaign, most likely traveling alone by horseback from Carrsbrook. Sally Hemings' daughter Harriet (II) was born in May of 1801.

After Jefferson won the Presidential election, in March of 1801 he moved to Washington, DC, later bringing a few slaves from Monticello with him. However, it is noteworthy that he did not bring Sally Hemings, who remained at Monticello during his two terms of office, and there is no record of her ever traveling to Washington, DC.⁵¹

A month later, Peter Carr became a justice of the peace for local Albemarle County in Virginia on April 18, 1801. That same year he was elected to represent the county in the Virginia House of Delegates. He was beginning his career in public office, where he had to keep his reputation intact. While residing at Carrsbrook, Carr served in the House of Delegates for five terms.

In 1802, one year after Sally Hemings’ child Harriet II’s birth, salacious writer James Callender published accusations that Jefferson fathered children with his slave Sally Hemings who he described as “dusky Sally... the black wench and her mulatto litter,” and the “mahogany colored charmer,” “romping with half a dozen black men,” and a “slut as common as the pavement.” These descriptions were leveled even though Callender had never stepped foot at Monticello or interviewed anyone from there. His article began with the phrase “IT is well known that...” ⁵²

Callender had previously spent years attacking the Federalists, the party in opposition to Jefferson, and a frustrated President Adams even sent Callender and other journalists to prison under sedition charges under the notorious Alien and Sedition Acts. Jefferson was strongly against imprisoning journalists and vacated all their charges when he came into office. Callender was freed, but he felt he was owed a government post which Jefferson refused to grant. The bitter Callender then turned against Jefferson and made it his mission to take down Jefferson with salacious attack articles.

Jefferson was dragged through the press, and an off-color poem to the tune of Yankee Doodle describing his slave relationship also spread by newspapers and pamphlets throughout the states.⁵³ By his re-election year in 1804, the accusation that Jefferson was having an ongoing sexual relationship with his slave Sally Hemings had been circulating for two years and had become well known.

Back at Monticello, the salacious public accusations against Jefferson and the rumors about Peter being the culprit were causing great pain and embarrassment to Jefferson’s daughters and their families, particularly his daughter Martha Jefferson Randolph, who “took the Dusky Sally stories much to heart.” She never spoke with her sons about the topic except on her deathbed, when she asked them to salvage the documents that proved that Jefferson and Sally Hemings were away from each other during at least one of the conception windows of her children, however those documents were lost. ⁵⁴

On 17 April 1804, Jefferson’s daughter Maria “Polly” Jefferson Eppes died at the age of twenty-six. At this point in his life Jefferson had lost 5 of his 6 children, along with his wife. He had been extremely fond of Polly, and this was a significant loss for him. The funeral drew family and friends from all over Virginia to Monticello. Jefferson was grief-stricken and was joined by his last surviving daughter, Martha, who had played a key role years earlier to comfort and tend to him after the loss of his wife and his other children. While Jefferson was surrounded by the many who had come to mourn the loss of his daughter, it was during this period that Sally Hemings conceived her fourth child, Madison Hemings, who was born nine months later at Monticello on 19 January 1805.

Since it was repeatedly said by others and even confessed by Peter himself that he was the father of Sally Hemings' children, it is worth exploring the scenarios where Peter may have used the larger gatherings of family and friends as a cover to secretly join Sally Hemings in her cabin. Since the conceptions of Sally Hemings' other children occurred when Jefferson was at Monticello, it may have been the larger gatherings of people that may have provided cover for Peter to slip away from the crowd unnoticed, particularly when Jefferson was entertaining guests as the center of attention, or when the house was full of guests sleeping.⁵⁵ Peter may have waited until everyone retired, then slipped out and walked from the main house down to Sally Hemings' cabin.

In addition to his patriarchal status with his extended family, Jefferson’s fame attracted large numbers of visitors — at times as many as fifty — and he felt obligated to accommodate them.

“Mr. Jefferson always made his appearance at an early breakfast, but his mornings were most commonly devoted to his own occupations, and it was at dinner, after dinner, and in the evening that he gave himself up to the society of his family and his guests.” ⁵⁶

Jefferson would house guests in his home for weeks at a time, wherever space allowed. However, this only occurred when Jefferson was present at Monticello, as all other times the house was closed up. If Peter had come to visit Sally at Monticello when Jefferson wasn’t present and no guests were around, it would have been more noticeable and attracted more inquiry from overseers, slaves as well as full-time white immigrant workers.

Even though Peter lived relatively close by, he may have only consorted with Sally under such conditions to avoid being exposed. Leaving his wife with his children at his home in nearby Carrsbrook, he would have had the excuse of visiting Jefferson at Monticello and staying the night at his uncle’s home. If there was a large number of visitors at Monticello, Peter’s movements would not have stood out, since such large gatherings would have required the services of more servants who would have been occupied at the main house and less likely to notice him visiting Sally’s cabin, as “It took all hands to take care of [the] visitors.” ⁵⁸

One of the most compelling eye-witness accounts at Monticello came from Captain Edmund Bacon, who noted seeing another man emerging early mornings from Sally’s cabin. In his Garden Book, Jefferson described Bacon as his Monticello overseer and before that working for him in various positions on the property.⁵⁹ Back when Jefferson went to France, Bacon’s older brother was Monticello overseer. In his later years, Capt. Bacon dictated his memoirs in interviews with Reverend Hamilton Pierson, and while talking about Sally’s daughter Harriet, he stated that he saw not Thomas Jefferson, but another man coming out of Sally Hemings' cabin on many mornings:

“Mr. Jefferson freed a number of his servants in his will. I think he would have freed all of them if his affairs had not been so much involved that he could not do it. He freed one girl (Harriet) some years before he died, and there was a great deal of talk about it. She was nearly as white as anybody and very beautiful. People said he freed her because she was his own daughter. She was not his daughter; she was ____’s daughter. I know that. I have seen him come out of her mother’s [Sally's] room many a morning when I went up to Monticello very early.” ⁶⁰

Rev. Pierson’s ministerial discretion omitted the name of the man that Capt. Bacon stated that he saw. Pierson justified the deletion by explaining that he did not want to cause pain to any surviving relatives. This was similar to how Jefferson’s biographer Randall also withheld Peter Carr’s name as the author of the infamous Langhorne letter, as well as how James Parton wrote in 1873, “The father of those children was a near relation of the Jeffersons, who need not be named.” ⁶¹

Regardless of who the man was who regularly emerged from Sally Hemings’ cabin, one thing is clear: Capt. Bacon stated definitively that it was not Thomas Jefferson he saw leaving Sally Hemings room many mornings, but another man.

A year after Madison Hemings’ birth, Peter Carr wrote to his sister Mary Carr on New Years Eve 1806: “I have hired Sary, and would thank you to desire Saml to send her over this evening.” ⁶² “Sary,” a nickname for Sarah, may have been Sally Hemings, and the Monticello research report gives her probable birth name as Sarah. Madison Hemings named his first daughter “Sarah.” Many of Jefferson’s slaves were allowed to move freely around the Charlottesville area, and some were loaned to family and friends for various services. This note from Peter is similar to others mentioned in correspondence noting that Sally Hemings was hired out as were many of her siblings from time to time. Her older sister Critty, a Monticello servant, married a free black man who lived near the Carrs in a “freestate” section of Albemarle, so presumably Sally Hemings visited her sister in that neighborhood too. If it was Sally Hemings, hiring her may have provided Peter with an opportunity to extricate her from Monticello, away from all its onlookers. ⁶³

Jefferson biographer Randall relayed the conversation he had with Jefferson’s grandson Colonel Randolph who described confronting the two Carr brothers who shed tears of remorse about the public furor over Jefferson’s supposed infidelity:

Colonel Randolph said that a visitor at Monticello dropped a newspaper from his pocket or accidentally left it. After he was gone, he (Colonel R.) opened the paper and found some very insulting remarks about Mr. Jefferson’s Mulatto Children. The Col. said he felt provoked. Peter and Sam Carr were lying not far off under a shade tree. He took the paper and put it in Peters hands, pointing out the article. Peter read it, tears coursing down his cheeks, and then handed it to Sam. Sam also shed tears. Peter exclaimed, “arnt you and I a couple of — pretty fellows to bring this disgrace on poor old uncle who has always fed us!” ⁶⁴

This second confession has been confused by some to be the same confession referred to in Ellen Coolidge’s letter, where she described how Peter may have been bragging to Mr. Southall — who was a younger contemporary of Peter — “say[ing] with a laugh, that ‘the old gentleman had to bear the blame of his and Sam’s (Col. Carr) misdeeds.’” ⁶⁵ However, in the scenario quoted above, Col. Randolph — Jefferson’s grandson —was scolding the two Carr brothers and forcing them to acknowledge their transgressions that brought pain to their uncle and the wider family. Therefore, these seem to be two separate admissions. Historian Douglas Adair: “Peter Carr must have been conscious, long before Callender made Sally Hemings' name notorious, that this affair was only the most obvious and sensational way in which he had disappointed Jefferson's hopes and plans for his career.” ⁶⁶

There also appears to be a third admission. Biographer Henry S. Randall was also sent a letter in 1838 from someone describing a conversation they had had with a contemporary of Peter Carr:

More than 20 years ago, the late Francis B. Dyer—a native of Albemarle and a worthy member of the Charlottesville Bar—told me that P… C… used to say that his was the sport and deviltry, while the uncle had the credit or blame.⁶⁷

After the birth of Madison Hemings, Peter appears to have had no further children with Sally. Perhaps the relationship came to an end or was brought to an end. Did someone else in the family draw a line? Or was there simply a falling out between Peter and Sally? Did Peter's wife Hetty find out and insist that he end the relationship with Sally in order to fortify their marriage? Such an affair would need to be kept absolutely secret in order to not only protect their reputation, but also by extension the reputations of Hetty’s two brothers who held high federal positions, as such rumors could potentially cause them serious political problems. It appears Peter was able to preserve his marriage to Hetty: upon his death, Peter’s will bequeathed "to my excellent and beloved wife all my estate whatsoever and wherever during her life...” ⁶⁸

Peter's mother, Martha Jefferson Carr, died in 1805, a year after Madison Hemings’ birth and before the birth of Sally Hemings’ last child Eston. Could his mother have appealed to Peter on her deathbed for him to end the relationship, rumors of which might have caused pain and embarrassment to her brother Thomas and the family?

Sally Hemings’ last son Eston was conceived sometime between 15 August and 12 September 1807. The 1998 y-DNA study showed no genetic match between Eston Hemings and Carr descendants, however it showed a y-DNA match with 25 Jefferson males who were alive at the time. Jefferson’s brother Randolph would also have carried that matching y-DNA, and evidence has points to him as a likely candidate for the paternity of Eston.⁶⁹

Jefferson’s brother Randolph was known at Monticello as “Uncle Randolph,” and could also have been referred to as “Uncle Jefferson.” In 1976, a descendant of Eston Hemings told The Washington Post of her family’s oral history: “We were told we were related somehow to an uncle of Jefferson’s.” ^{70 71}

Randolph Jefferson rode and served with four militiamen who had black slave mistresses, including one man whose mistress was Mary Hemings, one of Sally's sisters.⁷² Randolph was invited by Jefferson to join him and Randolph’s twin sister Anna ⁷³ at Monticello in the late summer of 1807, nine and a half months before Eston’s birth.⁷⁴

While Thomas Jefferson entertained relatives and guests with intellectual discussions and music in the main house at Monticello — similar to Peter Carr — Jefferson’s brother Randolph may have slipped out unnoticed to Sally Hemings’s cabin. He was said to be “an unenlightened dirt farmer” ⁷⁵ who “imbibe[ed] alcoholic beverages,”⁷⁶ and not interested in Jefferson’s political life.⁷⁷ A Monticello slave described how Randolph was known to “come out among black people, play the fiddle and dance half the night,” and “hadn't much more sense than” the slave himself.⁷⁸

Just days after news spread of Eston’s birth, Randolph appeared uninvited at Monticello. During that visit Randolph was joined by his adult legal children and was assisted by his brother Thomas to draft Randolph’s will, stipulating that all his property be bequeathed to his legal [white] children. Could Randolph’s adult children have been insisting on the drafting of a will because of their concern of potential competing claims to his inheritance from Sally’s child Eston?

Shortly after Eston’s birth in 1808, Sally Hemings was moved out of her cabin to live with her sister Critta in the south colonnade of the main Monticello house, possibly to protect her from any paramours.

In 1809, Jefferson’s term as president ended and he returned from Washington to spend the rest of his life in retirement at Monticello. After his return, and throughout his remaining 17 years, Sally Hemings had no further children, which contradicts the notion that he moved her into the main house complex to continue a sexual relationship with her. Sally would have been 36 years-old and still of child-bearing age, since both her mother Betty and sister Betty Brown each had children until the age of 42.

The same year, Randolph remarried to a younger, controlling wife named Mitchie Pryor. In 1815 he conceived a son with her, John Randolph Jefferson, confirming that his virility would have still been intact at the time of the 1807 conception of Eston Hemings.

Peter Carr, despite his widely acknowledged gifts, failed to realize Jefferson’s hopes for him to achieve a distinguished legal or political career, at least in part because of his self-indulgence and indolence which he stood accused of in an otherwise affectionate memoir by a much-younger cousin. ⁷⁹

Peter did, however, collaborate in perhaps the greatest project of Jefferson’s retirement: the promotion of education and the eventual creation of the University of Virginia and shaping of public schooling in America.

After his political defeat in 1809, Peter turned his classical education to practical advantage by running a private school at Carrsbrook. The school, which opened in 1811, accommodated seventeen boys, including a score of day students, until it closed several years later.

In Jefferson’s travels to Europe he observed various universities and contemplated what would make an ideal higher education for the youth of Virginia post Revolution. It was the mature Peter who became the “depository” of Jefferson’s ideas on education. Some of Jefferson's most famous dicta —on religion, on travel, as well as on education— were addressed to Peter in a famous letter of September 1814. Their common interest in learning was a continual bond between them. ^{80 81}

Carr's experience as both an educator and legislator made him a logical candidate for appointment in 1814 as a trustee of the infant Albemarle Academy, the forerunner of the University of Virginia. Elected president of the trustees, Carr assisted Jefferson in drafting plans for the government of the school and for financing its erection and support. He and Jefferson also drafted a petition asking for an appropriation from the General Assembly for the institution. It was his involvement with Jefferson on this project which occasioned the oft-cited letter which Jefferson outlined his plan for a comprehensive system of public education for Virginia, which would become a blueprint for the public school system in America.

The War of 1812 had escalated and now was at Virginia’s doorstep. After the British army burned Washington in August 1814, Peter joined the contingent of militia guarding the approaches to Richmond. The British moved instead against Baltimore, and he returned home, but the rigors of service in a cold and wet encampment compromised his health. Two weeks after complaining to Jefferson of rheumatism, ague, and fever, Peter Carr died at Carrsbrook on February 17, 1815. ⁸²

There is a mystery of how Jefferson reacted to Peter Carr’s death and whether his body was buried near his mother and father in the Monticello Cemetery as he requested in his will. ⁸³

It was Jefferson’s usual habit to record family deaths in a prayer book and in his Memorandum Books; however, he could have been overcome with grief when Peter died in 1815. There is no entry in his records of Peter's death or burial. The lack of any entry is extremely unusual since Peter was most likely buried at the family cemetery at Monticello near his father and mother (as he requested in his will) in an unmarked grave. ⁸⁴

A year after Peter’s death, Jefferson mentioned him in a letter to Peter’s brother, Judge Dabney Carr (Jr.). In the letter, Jefferson was reminiscing about the death of his childhood friend Dabney Carr (Sr.) who had passed away in 1773. After describing many of his positive attributes, he reflected on his passing and related it to Peter’s death:

“[T]o give to those now living an idea of the affliction produced by his death in the minds of all who knew him, I liken it to that lately felt by themselves, on the death of his eldest son, Peter Carr, so like him in all his endowments and moral qualities, and whose recollection can never recur without a deep-drawn sigh from the bosom of anyone who knew him.” ⁸⁵

Peter Carr was eulogized by his friend William Wirt, who wrote: “No man was dearer to his friends; and there was never a man to whom his friends were more dear.”

[I]t is certainly easy to conceive how such a relationship might have gone on without his specific knowledge. Monticello was usually crowded with visitors, and Jefferson’s practice of enchanting his guests with after-dinner conversation is well established. His far less cerebral brother, Randolph, is said to have preferred spending his evenings at Monticello playing his fiddle and dancing among the slaves. There is no reason to assume that, while Thomas Jefferson was occupied entertaining visitors, others — be they Randolph, one of his sons, or perhaps one of Jefferson’s other nephews from the Carr family — could not have been exploiting the women in the slave quarters. This could have had aspects of mutual affection, violent rape, or simply acquiescence to the inevitable by a slave woman who felt powerless to resist—we just do not know. It may have occurred behind Thomas Jefferson’s back or with his general knowledge. Given his well-established opposition to miscegenation⁸⁶ and the sexual exploitation of slave women,⁸⁷ not to mention his professed belief that slave holders had a moral duty to treat their slaves with dignity,⁸⁸ it is difficult to assume that it occurred at Monticello with his blessing. ⁸⁹

Jefferson’s biographer Randall discussed with Jefferson’s grandson, Colonel Jeff Randolph, the possibility that Jefferson may have been insulated from news of the sexual activity of the Carr brothers at Monticello:

I asked Col. [Jeff] Randolph why on earth Mr. Jefferson did not put these slaves who looked like him out of the public sight by sending them to his Bedford estate or elsewhere, — He said Mr. Jefferson never betrayed the least consciousness of the resemblance — and although he (Col. Randolph) had no doubt his mother (Jefferson’s daughter Martha Randolph) would have been very glad to have them thus removed, that both and all venerated Mr. Jefferson too deeply to broach such a topic to him. What suited him, satisfied them. Mr. Jefferson was deeply attached to the Carrs — especially to Peter. He was extremely indulgent to them and the idea of watching them for faults or vices probably never occurred to him. Do you ask why I did not state, or at least hint the above facts in my [biography] Life of Jefferson? I wanted to do so. But Colonel Randolph, in this solitary case alone, prohibited me from using at my discretion the information he furnished me with. When I rather pressed him on the point, he said, pointing to the family graveyard, “You are not bound to prove a negation. If I should allow you to take Peter Carr’s corpse into Court and plead guilty over it to shelter Mr. Jefferson, I should not dare again to walk by his grave: he would rise and spurn me.” ⁹⁰

Did Jefferson know of the relationship and allow it to continue, or was he unaware? Jefferson may have been deferential to Peter Carr to a fault, possibly turning a blind eye. Or was such information kept from him, to not cause him pain and embarrassment, as his grandson described?

When Peter precipitated the final falling out between Jefferson and Washington with his “John Langhorne” letter stunt, Jefferson could have cleared his own name and salvaged his relationship with Washington by exposing his nephew Peter as the culprit who operated independently. However, Jefferson kept silent. He had made it his mission to raise and protect the son of both his deceased best friend and his own widowed sister.⁹¹ Jefferson may have been willing to sacrifice his own public character to protect Peter’s character, as well as protect his widowed sister Martha Jefferson Carr, whom Jefferson took in to live at Monticello after the passing of her husband Dabney Carr.

Jefferson always strove to overlook the bad and only see and encourage the good in people. His family members knew him as an eternal optimist, invested in fostering the positive image of others, advising “never to speak or write amiss of any body, not even where it may be true, nor to countenance those who do so.”⁹² Just as there was an effort to avoid the topic with Jefferson, there was likely an effort to also shield Jefferson’s widowed sister (Peter’s mother) Martha Jefferson Carr from the rumors. Jefferson wrote to his brother after her passing: “she had the happiness, and it is a great one, of seeing all her children become worthy & respectable members of society & enjoying the esteem of all.”93 After all, Peter later contributed to Jefferson’s inspiration for establishing a school of education, which ultimately led to the historic creation of the University of Virginia.

Lastly, it is likely that Sally Hemings and five of her fourteen brothers and sisters were the children of Betty Hemings and John Wayles, who was the father of Jefferson’s wife Martha Jefferson. This is believed to be the reason why the wider Hemings family — not just Sally’s children — had special privileges at Monticello, and a number of them were either allowed to run away or were legally freed along with property and money.⁹⁴ In addition to protecting Peter Carr, Jefferson’s silence may have also been protecting Sally Hemings by absorbing the accusations and shielding both of them from public ridicule and scorn.