>> Doug Swanson: Good afternoon, everyone.
I would like to welcome you all to the McGowan
Theater located in the National Archives building
in Washington, D.C. I'm Doug Swanson.
I just want to tell you about a few things
coming up here in the future. I hope you will
be able to join us this Friday, which is March
6th, at noon for a special author talk to
help launch our new exhibits "Spirited Republic,
Alcohol in the American History."
Journalist and author Mark Will-Weber will discuss his book "Mint Juleps with Teddy Roosevelt: The Complete History of Presidential Drinking".
The Exhibit can be found in the Lawrence F. O'Brien Gallery on the main exhibit level and will run through January 10th of 2016.
Then on Thursday March 12th at noon , Thomas Fleming will talk about "The Great Divide:
 The Conflict Between Washington and Jefferson  that Defined a Nation."To find out more about these and our other
public programs and exhibits, please take
one of our monthly event calendars which you
will find in the racks in the theater lobby
or you can visit our Web site at www.archives.gov/calendar.
Our topic for today is "Martha Jefferson:
An Intimate Life with Thomas Jefferson" by
William G. Hyland, Jr. Mr. Hyland, a native
of Virginia, is the author of the book "In
defense of Thomas Jefferson" nominated for
the Virginia Literary Award. He has authored
"Long Journey with Mr. Jefferson, a biography
of famed historian Dumas Malone."
A professor of law at Stetson University College of Law. Mr. Hyland is a member of the Virginia and New York Historical Societies. 
He serves on the Board of Directors of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society. His lectures have included 
speeches seen on  Book TV, University of Virginia, The National Archives. He is also a trial lawyer
with nearly 30 years of high profile litigation
experience and served on the Florida Judicial
Nominating Commission.
A former prosecutor, Mr. Hyland is licensed
to practice in the District of Columbia, Florida,
Alabama, Colorado, and the United States Supreme
Court. Before law school, Mr. Hyland worked
with top secret security clearance with arms
control in disarmament agencies and the Georgetown
Center for Strategic and International Strategy.
The publications also inclusively action published
in the American Journal of Trial Advocacy
and Law versus National Security when lawyers
make terrorism policy, University of Richmond
Global Law and Business.
Please join me in welcoming William G. Hyland,
Jr. back to the National Archives.
(applause).
>> William G. Hyland, Jr.: Good afternoon.
It is nice to be back. I thought I would have
brought a little good weather back with me.
I just flew up from Tampa, Florida, yesterday.
And it was a brisk 79-degrees and sunny, so
I have to fly out tonight before we get hit
with 6 inches of snow because spring training
is calling me back. Thank you for coming out
in bad weather. I appreciate it.
Martha Jefferson, Martha Jefferson was Thomas
Jefferson's good law, kindred spirit, and
his wife for ten years.She tragically died
in childbirth at the tender age of 33. A year
after the bloody Revolutionary War ended,
Martha Jefferson lay near death. She feebly
held up three fingers to Thomas Jefferson.
Thomas Jefferson's face was set hard as he
stared into Martha's red-rimmed eyes, hazel
eyes, that he affectionately called Patty.
She asked him on her deathbed for a secret
promise.
After she died, she asked him never to marry
again. The edge of almost manic desperation
permeated her tone. The words had a double
ominous meaning for both her and Thomas Jefferson.
The thought of her own harsh stepmother's
invaded Martha's protective thoughts for her
three young daughters, Polly, Patsy, and Lucy.
Jefferson wiped away a single tear and chastely
kissed her on the forehead and agreed to her
dying plea. He looked into her hazel eyes
and said he would never, ever marry again
after she died and he never did.
Jefferson's attempted screens and cries of
anguish when she died came out as a complete
shock to him. He was so overwhelmed at her
death that he literally fainted. He toppled
backwards and was caught by his sister-in-law
and two servants, Betty and Nance Hemings
from actually hitting the ground. He fainted.
They were sobbing over him and trying to revive
him. They thought he was going to die himself.
Grief stricken and nearly suicidal, Jefferson
secluded himself in his library for almost
three weeks. His face was a frozen mask of
grief. He thought nothing could ever wound
him so deeply or jolt his mind so near to
the boundaries of insanity. If not for his
10-year-old daughter Patsy who was a lifeline
in a torrential sea of pain, there was no
doubt that Thomas Jefferson, age 39, patriot,
author, statesman, politician, farmer, scientist
would have died from his own hand or from
a broken heart.
Who was Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson? And
how did she influence perhaps arguably the
most important American in history? What was
their life like at their mountainside home
of Monticello during the darkest days of the
bloody Revolutionary War? She endured six
pregnancies, the death of four children while
running a household and two plantations, not
only Monticello but her father's plantation
called The Forest.
What was her relationship with the famous
Hemings' servants of Monticello and the infamous
Sally Hemings herself? What did Martha look
like? Was she a kind matriarch or cruel like
her two stepmothers? What was her relationship
with Thomas Jefferson's mother, her mother-in-law
Jane Randolph Jefferson? Jefferson's controlling
and somewhat eccentric mother.
Martha Jefferson is a little known and elusive
figure in history. She has been all but lost
to history until now. By gleaning anecdotes
and quotes from a myriad of sources, my book
tries to present Martha as a vivid character
rather than merely the dutiful wife of Thomas
Jefferson. Instead of having a frosty respect
for Martha, as a woman who endured seven difficult
pregnancies and life-threatening pregnancy,
I hope the reader will experience a visceral
appreciation of this woman who helped her
husband every step of the way to climb the
scales to the zenith of political greatness.
Martha's resolve, courage, and steadfastness
patriotism, these exemplary virtues were forged
through a lifetime of hard work, emotional
distress but most importantly through a deep
and abiding love of family.
A portrait of Martha emerges as a woman who
had charm, sophistication, grace, education,
and a profound sense of family while enduring
a bloody Revolutionary War. Martha would have
been an exceptional woman in any era, but
for her to do what she did in the 18th century
America given attitudes about women was truly
remarkable. Martha has been overshadowed by
the other elemental women of the Revolution:
Abigail Adams, Dolly Madison, Martha Washington.
But she was no less a fervent and passionate
patriot whose tireless pursuits on behalf
of her family and her country proved just
as crucial to the forging of a new nation
as the rebellion that established it.
Martha endured the revolution as valiantly
as some men, defending her very doorstep at
Monticello from the raiding British invasion,
especially the bloody dragoon by the name
of Banastre Tarleton. Tarleton wanted to capture
Jefferson, hang him in front of his family
and the townspeople of Charlottesville, and
then draw and quarter his body. Not a pleasant
experience for his family.
Thomas Jefferson did not sit for a portrait
until after his wife's death, and no likeness
of Martha was ever put to canvas as far as
we know. This picture is a modern day depiction
from what we have from descriptions of her.
According to family tradition, Martha was
auburn--haired and hazel-eye with, quote,
a life and exquisitely formed figure, a model
of graceful and queen-like carriage. Mrs.
Jefferson was small, recalled the Monticello
slave, Isaac Jefferson, and a, quote, pretty
lady.
Family members described her as distinguished
for her beauty, her accomplishments, for solid
merit. Quote, a little above medium height
and, quote, slightly but exquisitely formed.
Her complexion of brilliant and her large
expressive eyes were the richest shades of
hazel. To judge from traditional family description,
Martha had a striking resemblance to Venus,
a portrait and sculpture that Jefferson owned.
Like the captivating statue, Martha was reportedly
distinguished for her rare beauty. Her skin,
although described as fair, was free of the
red freckles that Thomas Jefferson had.
Martha was also vivacious, well-read, intelligent,
and musically gifted. She had a sparkle about
her that radiated to everybody she met. Her
sister Tabatha's husband, Robert Skipwith,
knew her well and said she was the greatest
fun of good nature and sprightliness. She
moved with grace when she walked or danced
or rode a horse. And there was a distinctly
musical lilt to her charm.
Martha sang beautifully and played the piano
and the harpsichord with, quote, uncommon
skill. Genial in conversation, she exhibited
both excellent sense and a lively play of
fancy. Her personality exhibited, quote again
from family members, frank, warm-hearted and
impulsive disposition. She was a favorite
with her husband's sisters, with his family
generally, and with her neighbors.
Her family connections were impeccable, even
for a Randolph, like Jefferson's mother, Jane
Randolph. And her social skills according
to her grandchildren were considerable. She
not only impressed a French aristocrat but
during the Revolution, she also became warm
friends with a family of a Hessian baron who
was prisoner of war in Charlottesville. It
is these fascinating details that breathe
life into Martha Jefferson, the most famous
woman in American history that no one knows
really anything about.
She was a woman of her time with all the graces
and vanities. Can we blame her if she spent
a little bit too much money at the dressmaker
shop in Williamsburg as instanced by a bill
called for her long after her death or fretted
over being replaced in her husband's affections
too soon?
I have attempted a meticulous recovery of
Martha Jefferson. Not all but most historians
feel when we look back, Thomas Jefferson is
now mingled with an acute sense of loss of
Martha, devoted wife, beloved mother, and
fiercely loyal daughter.
She was probably the Revolutionary woman most
taken with the ages' liberal prescription
for enlightenment, gentility, and refinement
due in large part to her father and her husband's
profound influences.
To become a natural aristocrat one had to
acquire the attributes of a natural aristocrat,
enlightenment, gentility, and taste. We shall
never understand a young Martha Jefferson
until we appreciate the intensity and earnestness
of her desire to become cosmopolitan, gentile
in a most enlightened, quote, lady.
Whether Martha had that desire from childhood,
fostered by her father and accelerated by
her famous husband, we shall never know. Yet,
the desire blossomed from a young age at times
forced by circumstances beyond her control.
Thomas Jefferson still survives, were the
dying words of John Adams. And they are true
today as they were in 1826.
But Martha Jefferson also survives in spite
of Jefferson's attempt to erase her from prying
eyes, the sacred enemy, a lover as he stated.
He burned all of their correspondence. He
burned all of their letters. And he gathered
up all the letters from neighbors. Martha's
ghost haunts the scenes of her life with as
lively a passion as when Maria Cosway wrote
to Jefferson years later after her death querying
whether his future at Monticello would be
haunted by, quote, the shadow of a woman.
Indeed, Martha is everywhere on the mountain.
She's in Williamsburg, Charles City, Eppington,
The Forest, Bermuda Hundred. She survives
in the commentaries of friends and neighbors,
of her daughters and granddaughters and in
the material goods that she left behind. For
example, salt shakers to the lock of hair
that Jefferson wore in a mourning ring after
her death.
We know about the other famous women in Jefferson's
life, the alleged slave mistress -- and I
do emphasize the word "alleged" Sally Hemings
-- Jane Randolph, his controlling mother,
and Maria Cosway in France after Martha's
death. Yet, we virtually know nothing about
Martha Jefferson, wife, daughter, mother of
six. She was Jefferson's greatest, true love,
his only wife and his true kindred spirit.
Tragically she was torn from him by her own
deep overwhelming desire to give him a family.
Martha's fragile body was finally wracked
from seven dangerous pregnancies, killing
her at the tender age of 33 from complications
of childbirth, exacerbated by a form of gestational
diabetes and tuberculosis.
Emotionally Jefferson never recovered from
her death. He never married again true to
his promise. I referred to the burning of
his correspondence with his beloved Martha.
Jefferson's foremost biographer, Dumas Malone
remarked, quote, because of this impenetrable
silence on his part, probably we shall never
know much about Martha Wayles Jefferson and
her life with him. Following this assumption,
most Jefferson biographers have settled for
the usual sketchy descriptions of her, beautiful
but slight, a devoted mother, gentile, charming
in her behavior and musically gifted. A Hessian
officer who was a guest at Monticello wrote
that Martha was, quote, in all respects a
very agreeable, sensible, and accomplished
lady. But this cliche'd and constrained image
of Martha as mere refined gentry is now unraveled.
She is also an industrious manager of two
large estates, both Monticello and her father's
plantation called The Forest.
My new book discovers new facts about Martha's
childhood, her first marriage. She was married
before she married Thomas Jefferson. She had
a child with her husband before she married
Thomas Jefferson, an a little boy by the name
of Jack Skelton who died at 3-1/2 before she
married Thomas Jefferson.
Had some artist been able to capture Martha's
lively temperament on canvas, however deep
and tragic shadows might have bruted in the
background, for all her vivacity, death seemed
to follow both her and Thomas Jefferson. Her
father outlived three wives, including Martha's
own natural mother who died just a week after
giving birth to Martha herself. But Martha
was an emotionally strong woman who endured
one tragedy after another when she finally
met Jefferson. He later described their 10-year
marriage as, quote, uncheckered happiness.
And one of Martha's alleged half-sister, the
infamous Sally Hemings, the youngest of the
family of slaves she inherited from her father
John Wayles -- Wayles himself was the victim
of toxic rumor and that he had an affair with
Sally's mother, Betty Hemings. Was the rumor
true? In all probability, no. I have attempted
to take a painstaking look at the evidence
into John Wayles, perhaps, the most influential
man on Martha Jefferson. While investigating
Martha's relationships with the other men
in her life, from her father John Wayles to
her first husband Bathurst Skelton -- that's
quite a name, Bathurst Skelton -- her little
boy who died at age 3-1/2 to Thomas Jefferson
himself.
I have attempted to recreate their relationship
in meticulous detail from the food they ate,
the music they enjoyed, the books they read,
the clothes they wore to the savage wore they
endured as husband and wife. But for all their
life experiences, in the end their relationship
embodied an American love story for the ages.
I hope to give the reader an exclusive look
at Martha's character who some historians
have ceded as bland if she has been mentioned
at all. But Martha is shown to be a passionate,
sensitive, capable, well-read girl who matured
into a tender and accomplished, sometimes
willful woman. Martha was no milk sob nor
docile. She lost, by Jefferson's own letters,
over 100 pound sterlings in cards in January
of 1773, although Jefferson abhorred cards
and gambling.
Martha's temper and vivacity are attested
to by her daughter Patsy and her granddaughters
and is her strong-minded child rearing. Patsy
related one incident where she had been scolded
not once but twice by Martha whereupon Jefferson
intervened with some gentle words. Martha's
granddaughter Ellen Randolph Coolidge celebrated,
quote, her whit, her vivacity, and her agreeable
person and manners while her great granddaughter
Sara Nicholas Randolph added that Martha was,
quote, a person of great intelligence and
strength of character with, quote, a mind
of no ordinary caliber.
She was well-educated for her day and a constant
reader. She inherited from her father his
method and industry. This paragram of white
southern womanhood was not all sweetness as
even some of her descendants admitted. She
had a vivacity of temper which might sometimes
border on tartness. But Martha was tender,
too. Jefferson told his sensitive daughter
Polly that Martha had once remarked at being
ill-treated by a neighbor but, yet, she rather,
quote, endure two such insults as to offer
one.
In my book, it is my hope to bring Martha's
character to life for the reader with new
and revealing dates, the historical period
in which Martha matured as a woman, wife and
mother was quite simply the greatest and perhaps
the most tumultuous in American history. She
knew and loved Jefferson during his greatest
political writings. And there is new evidence
of her influence on these historical documents,
especially the Declaration of Independence
as well as his governorship of Virginia and
brutal Revolutionary War in which her own
home was invaded by British troops. Martha
and her children barely escaping with their
lives.
And, finally, new evidence has emerged as
to the probable cause of Martha's death. Previously
thought to be complications from childbirth,
while properly cautious about any long-term
diagnosis, diabetes, gestational diabetes,
combined with tuberculosis were the likely
sources of Martha's complications, woes, and
medical complications. Martha's babies grew
larger with each birth, a very common symptom
of a life-threatening disease. Her final baby,
Lucy Elizabeth, weighed an amazing 16 pounds.
Finally, Martha played the most essential
role in the life of Thomas Jefferson: Lover,
friend, and partner in fame who faced the
late 18th century with the dangers of frequent
childbearing and searing anxiety about infant
mortality. It is beyond coincidence that Martha
died from complications following labor as
did her own daughter Polly, as did Martha's
own mother, Mary Eppes. Death and tragedy
seemed to follow Martha Jefferson. All the
more remarkable then that Martha loomed so
large in life and death and in her case the
formation of a fledgling nation. Martha Jefferson's
pleasures and tragedies and even the personal
charms that the family treasured were typical
of Chesapeake women of the time. But her crowning
achievement was to provide a happiness to
Thomas Jefferson and her children. Although
Jefferson preserved more than 25,000 letters
from his collection, he kept 18,000 letters
of his own. He destroyed all of Martha's correspondence
with him, going so far as to collect her letters
and friends from his neighbors. As biographer
Dumas Malone succinctly put it, quote, his
wife did not belong to posterity. She belonged
to him.
Martha Jefferson was buried beneath a great
oak on the side of the mountain at Monticello
near Jefferson's boyhood friend Dabney Carr
and her lost children. She was buried in the
80 square foot graveyard Jefferson had made
at the side of the mountaintop in 1773, a
year after their marriage. The graveyard had
been cleared from the surrounding forest to
receive the body of his friend and brother-in-law
Dabney Carr who died of 29 of, quote, bilious
fever. The spot selected for the graveyard
was a sentimental one because the two young
men had read and talked together under a great
oak tree at this spot and then made a pact
that they would both lie there in death one
day. When Martha was buried, Jefferson placed
on the grave slab a white marble with her
birth date and these lines: Quote, to the
memory of Martha Jefferson, daughter of John
Wayles, born October the 19th, 1748 intermarried
with Thomas Jefferson January 1st, 1772. Torn
from him by death September 6th, 1782. This
monument of his love is inscribed, quote,
if in the house of Hades men forget they're
dead, yet, will I even there remember you
dear companion? Those last words were a quotation
from the Iliad in Greek. Jefferson used these
words for other reasons than display of classical
learning noted his biographer, Dumas Malone.
Quote, he thereby revealed his devotion to
the initiated while veiling it from the vulgar
gaze of the public.In the end, there is only
one picture of Martha that lasts, and that
is a woman who deeply loved Thomas Jefferson.
Martha's laughter still rings in the south
pavilion and the trills of her harpsichord
echo in the parlor. Her step sounds in the
beer room and her directing voice in the kitchen.
Martha's spirit breathed life into both Monticello
and Thomas Jefferson, so much so that Jefferson
could not bear to face Monticello without
her. He had to change it radically in an attempt
to mute Martha's strong image. He never did.
Thank you very much.
(applause).
I will be glad to answer any questions if you have any.>> Hi, thank you. I'm going to be a recently
retired infectious disease specialist. I was
intrigued, you said the evidence about her
cause of death, especially the tuberculosis
-- the diabetes makes sense if she had a 16-pound
baby. If she -- do you how they came up with
that diagnosis? If she had pulmonary tuberculosis,
there would have been a high chance that Jefferson
himself would have had tuberculosis.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Right. From some of
the surrounding women in the Chesapeake Bay
area, they found there was a large outbreak
of tuberculosis in and around of the years
of her death. But there is no doubt in my
mind that she died from complications. Her
body just wore out.
>> The diabetes makes sense.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: The gestational diabetes
definitely. But she had six children in ten
years. And four of them died. So her body
was literally wracked by these pregnancies
one after another. And I think Jefferson had
a lot of guilt, quite frankly, after she died.
There was some letters and notes in some of
his papers, certainly I think he kind of felt
that it was kind of his fault.
>> You also said that you concluded that there
is no evidence that Sally Hemings was her
father's daughter. Do you know how that came
about?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Yes.
>> Because I don't think there's any doubt
that the Hemings did come from Jefferson and
Hemings, the subsequent Hemings.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Yeah, no. Well, my
first book -- my first book "In Defense of
Thomas Jefferson," talks about the whole DNA
of Jefferson. Thomas Jefferson, let me make
this clear -- I'm probably the only historian
who says this. Thomas Jefferson did not have
a sexual relationship with Sally Hemings.
>> So those reunions they are having are not
--
>> William Hyland, Jr.: It was a Jefferson.
It was not Thomas Jefferson. But I go into
a lot of detail about John Wayles, her father,
because he is alleged to have been Sally Hemings'
father with Betty Hemings. I did a painstaking
investigation. There was no documentary evidence.
Sally Hemings was born after John Wayles died,
number one.
Number two, she was born at a plantation called
guinea which was about a three days hard ride
at his plantation at The Forest. He was completely
sick and debilitated in the last year of his
life. So in all probability, he was not having
a sexual relationship with Betty Hemings at
a different plantation. Anyway, that's for
a different lecture.
>> Last year I read a book and I think it
was "Mr. Jefferson's Women," something like
that. And the author went through systematically
and talked about the way that Thomas Jefferson
interacted with women, talked about the relationships
with them, and concluded that he was really
a misoginist who didn't like women and proved
it, whatever.
And I do think -- if I can remember correctly,
it did admit that the relationship was a love
relationship with his first wife, but it was
quite convincing about these other relationships.
Have you heard of this book?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: I have read it. It
is Jon Kukla book called "Mr. Jefferson's
Women."
>> Yes.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Completely disagree
with his theory. He was, of course, a man
of the 18th century. And you cannot -- people,
historians, want to bring him out of the 18th
century and into the 21st century. And I think
that is a mistake.
He had the traditional view of women in the
18th century, that they were -- the main goal
was to produce children and support the family.
A misogynist? No. He loved women. He was surrounded by women, his mother, his sister who 
Dabney Carr was married to, his daughter Martha actually moved in with him with her 12 children, his
wife. He was the patriarch to all of these
women. So he was surrounded by women. He loved
women. But having said that, he had the traditional
view of an 18th century man.
>> Thank you.
>> You made reference during your talk about
her influence on his writings during the time
they were married. And you said there was
no evidence. Can you elaborate a little bit
on that?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: The ten years that
they were married, he had his greatest political
writings: Declaration of Independence, notes
on the state of Virginia. He tried to emancipate
the slaves as a burgess.It is my theory that
Martha's relationship with the Hemings, that
Betty Hemings was basically a surrogate mother
to her. Her own mother died in childbirth.
She had two mean step mothers who were never,
ever mentioned in Jefferson's memorandum books.
But she felt a kinship with Betty Hemings
and the Hemings. I think it was this influence
that influenced Jefferson to want to emancipate
the slavery.
You know, Thomas Jefferson was the President
who abrogated, who abolished the slave trade
with Africa. He gets pegged very harshly,
in my view, as a slave owner. He absolutely
was a slave owner, but I think it was her
views, her unique kinship to the Hemings that
affected his views on slavery. He didn't think
they were equal to him, but he did believe
in the emancipation, the eventual emancipation
of slavery.
That quote, that portion of the Declaration
of Independence was removed by other members
of the convention. But I think it was her,
really her relationship with the Hemings that
affected his views on slavery especially.
>> One more quick question. How did a hardnosed
lawyer get involved with a romantic topic
such as this?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Great question. I
ask myself that a lot. You know, it came really
-- it was an idea from my father who gave
me a lot of the evidence to write a law review
article about the DNA evidence about Thomas
Jefferson. And when I -- he gave me all this
evidence, I just couldn't believe it.
The DNA was never taken from Thomas Jefferson.
All the DNA matched was a male Jefferson.
And I kind of began to look at all the evidence
and the relationship and the accusation that
he had an affair with a 14-year-old slave
girl beginning in France. And it literally
as his granddaughter said was a moral impossibility,
just not true.
So, anyway, that's where I kind of got the
notion for the first book and then it kind
of snowballed after that.
>> So is there any reasonably close precision
on who the male Jefferson was?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: You have to read my
first book. Randolph Jefferson his younger
brother, who was at Monticello nine months
before Sally Hemings gave birth, who went
out and partied with the slaves. Sally Hemings'
children were rumored to be fathered by Uncle
Randolph. Randolph Jefferson was known as
Uncle Randolph at Monticello. It probably
was Randolph Jefferson. But in all probability,
Sally Hemings had more than one lover. Betty
Hemings, her mother, had at least three lovers,
black and white. But she probably had more
than one lover. But it was not Thomas Jefferson.
>> And Randolph Jefferson is Thomas Jefferson's
uncle or his younger brother?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Younger brother, 12-year
ne'er-do-well partying younger brother.
>> I will pick up your books, I guess, at
some point.
>> Does Thomas ever state that he didn't remember
because of the deathbed promise or is that
conjecture?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: It is conjecture within
a reasonable degree of probability because
she asked him and it was witnessed by family
members and the slaves. I don't think he ever
found anybody that he felt in love with so
much as he fell in love with Martha.
Maria Cosway came very, very close in France.
She was kind of the second Martha Jefferson,
but she was married at the time. And they
had kind of a month-long flirtatious, not
a sexual relationship but more of a friendship.
But I don't think he ever found somebody that
had all the quality he was looking for many
Martha: Beautiful, intelligent, from a great
family, his intellectual equal.
>> Would you mind telling us a little bit
about Martha's first husband and how he became
her first husband? Did he die? Was there a
divorce? And then how did Thomas and Martha
actually meet?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Not a lot is known
about Bathurst Skelton. But he did die of
they think some sort of fever. But it is really
interesting because he knew Thomas Jefferson.
They went to William and Mary together. The
Skeltons were a fairly famous family in Virginia.
So they met. They married. They had a child.
But a year after they met and married, he
died suddenly. But they had a little baby,
Jack Skelton. So she moved back with her father
to The Forest. She had a little baby and she
was widowed.
In all probability, she probably met Jefferson,
as I say in the book, at one of the balls,
either in Williamsburg at the governor's palace
or at her father's home at The Forest because
you have to remember, John Wayles had four
daughters. And he was trying to get them married.
That's the way in the 18th century that you
got to introduce a man and a woman. You threw
a ball.
So it was probably a ball at her father's
home that they first met because there is
recorded evidence that he came to visit her
on several occasions at The Forest. That was
something surprising to me. I did not know
she had been married before and had a child
before.
>> (speaker off microphone.)
>> William Hyland, Jr.: If I can bring it
back up --- I don't think I can. The one on
the left was a 20th century artist that was
put in a portrait book of the President's
wives. And he did a recreation of it from
the modern description from her family members.
The other lady was a French lady that supposedly
looked like her but it was -- she's -- that
was not -- it is not Martha Jefferson, but
it is a period of her time that she looked
with the auburn hair, the hazel eyes and painted
in the 18th century. So no portrait as we
have found out exists of Martha Jefferson.
And if it did, Jefferson probably destroyed
it.
>> If you wouldn't remind the questions since
they are not going to the microphone.
>> (speaker off microphone.)
>> William Hyland, Jr.: That's a great question.
Why did he destroy all the letters and was
that typical of the 18th century? Actually,
Martha Washington, I believe, destroyed most,
if not all of her letters with George Washington.
I will have to check my facts. But I think
she also did that, too.
But he was so overwhelmed with grief and he
was such a private person that he did not
want anyone to know his business, especially
his love life. I mean, he was just a nut about
his privacy at Monticello. He had shutters
put over his private study because people
were always coming up after his presidency
to see him. I think he was so overwhelmed
with grief that the ten years of uncheckered
happiness, he could not believe they were
over and that was part of his grieving process.
Certainly from a 20th century standpoint,
that's not how we grieve or how somebody does
grieve but as his biographer said, she belonged
to him, not a historical record.
>> You indicated he wrote about 25,000 letters
and roughly 7,000 were to Martha?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: We don't know how
many because he destroyed them all. He kept
18,000 letters himself because he was --
>> On his famous copying.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Polygraph machine.
>> Did he have this copying thing when he
was writing to Martha? And what do you know
about the circumstances of his burning the
letters? Was it one big bond fire several
years later, two months later, three weeks
he was in the study?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: We don't know, but
in all probability it was during the time
right after she died within a few months.
>> When he was 39?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: When he was 39 that
he destroyed all their correspondence. The
polygraph machine I think was invented by
him after her death in 1787. She died in 1782,
I think. If I have my facts correct, the polygraph,
the original, I think, is at the Smithsonian
here and there is a copy at Monticello. But
I think he invented that after her death.
But, again, he wanted to save all his memories
for himself, not a historical record at all.
So I believe from all the evidence, all the
letters I read, it was this two-month grieving
process that he secluded himself in his den,
in his office, that he probably destroyed
all the correspondence.
>> Could you enlighten us a little bit more
about how his older daughter kept him from
potentially committing suicide?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Patsy was 10 years
old at the time. He had two daughters at the
time. Patsy and Polly, three, I'm sorry, Patsy
and Polly and Lucy. Patsy and Polly were the
only two to grow up to adulthood. Patsy, she
loved to ride horses. Jefferson loved to ride
horses. When he finally emerged -- and I think
she wrote in her memoirs that he emerged as
a ghost from an tomb when he finally came
out of his den. All he wanted to do was go
out into the forest and ride and have his
mind blanked. In fact, she described him riding
and he was so distract that he almost fell
over one time and she actually had to grab
him from falling off the saddle because his
mind was still on the grief. And he wrote
another letter to, I believe it was Edmond
Randolph saying he swoons every time he sees
his children and he said something about if
it was not for my filial obligation, he would
join Martha.
>> So he had a belief in the afterlife strongly?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: That's a whole other
conversation.
>> Yes, I understand.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: He made references
to God. In the end, though, he probably believed
in what's called intelligent design and not
a God.
Yes, ma'am?
>> (speaker off microphone.)
What was the relationship with the 16-pound
child?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Lucy Elizabeth. He
took care of her, but he was, again, so distraught
at her death that he accepted to be minister
of France. He wanted to get away from Monticello,
her death. And he actually left the two little
girls, except Patsy, with his aunt, his sister-in-law,
Martha's sister. I believe her name was Mary
Eppes, but don't quote me on that. So he took
Patsy, the 10-year-old, and went to Paris
as minister of France.
He left her in the care of the aunt. The little
baby, the 16-pound baby died about a year
later of whooping cough. And that's when he
asked that the other daughter, Polly be sent
over to France. This is where the whole Sally
Hemings myth comes in, that he sent for Sally
Hemings. No, he didn't send for Sally Hemings.
He sent for his other daughter Polly. And
he asked for an adult nurse to come with her
to make the ocean voyage. That adult female
got sick. She was pregnant. So the aunt took
it upon herself to send Sally Hemings with
Polly because they were both about the same
age and she thought that would be a good travel
mate for her because she didn't want to go.
The baby Lucy Elizabeth died.
>> One more off topic. About a quarter a century
ago, I went to -- there was a two-day thing
about Thomas Jefferson at UVA. And it was
either sponsored by a large part, a Providence
foundation tied to some church in Charlottesville
that claimed to have evidence -- I didn't
really believe it -- that Jefferson had been
involved in founding a church. Do you know
anything about that at all?
>> William Hyland, Jr.: I don't know anything
about that.
>> Okay.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: He did go to church.
He was married, I believe, in an Episcopal
Anglican ceremony at his father-in-law's estate.
And there was a minister there who actually
gave some religious vows. I don't know about
him founding that. He founded the University
of Virginia. But he did have his own Bible
which he kind of cut and paste and made his
own Jefferson's Bible which, again, I think
the original is in the Smithsonian right across
the street.
>> Thank you.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Thank you.
>> Doug Swanson: Thank you for coming.
>> William Hyland, Jr.: Thank you so much.
(applause)
