Thomas Jefferson had 187 slaves. We know that because he kept
meticulous hand-written records, which we still have. On January 14,
1774, after he inherited slaves from first his mother and then his
father-in-law, Thomas Jefferson wrote his inventory of 187 slaves. In
his last inventory, taken 50 years later in 1824, Thomas Jefferson
also had 187 slaves. Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826 at the age
of 83.

In October, 1802, while he was president, the story was published in
the newspapers that Thomas Jefferson, whose wife had died in 1782, was
keeping his wife's slave half-sister, Sally Hemings, as a concubine
and was producing children from her. Jefferson, who lived for 44 years
after the death of his wife and who never remarried, never denied the
story, but he never admitted it either. Sally Hemings was at his
bedside when he died. All five children of Sally Hemings were freed by
Thomas Jefferson either before his death or in his will. Thomas
Jefferson made provisions for Sally Hemings in his will. These were
almost the only slaves which Thomas Jefferson ever freed.

What do the retired Chairman of the Board of DuPont Chemical
Corporation, the first black assemblyman in the history of the State
of California, one of the co-founders of the NAACP, the first black
tenured faculty member of any college in America, the first black
woman ever to graduate from Vassar College, and a judge appointed by
President George Bush, all have in common? They are all direct
descendants of the slave children of Thomas Jefferson. Many people
have heard the story that President Thomas Jefferson, the author of
the Declaration of Independence and one of the founding fathers of the
United States of America, produced children from his slaves. Is this
story really true, and what happened to the children? Is former
Governor Douglas Wilder of Virginia one of those descendants? How
about President William Jefferson Clinton?

Edward Graham Jefferson, the retired Chairman of the Board of DuPont
Chemical Corporation, has spent his life denying that he is one of the
Slave Children of Thomas Jefferson. However, evidence shows that he is
a descendant of Beverley Jefferson, son of Sally Hemings, who was born
in 1798 and immigrated to England after he was given his freedom by
his father, Thomas Jefferson.

The father of Edward Graham Jefferson, according to Who's Who in
America, was Edward Hemmings Jefferson, born in 1895 in England.

Sam Sloan
http://www.samsloan.com/slaves.htm
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/AS...avesofthomasje