Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson
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Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson (October 19, 1748 (O.S.) – September 6, 1782) was the wife of the third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson. She never became First Lady of the United States because she died long before her husband was elected to the presidency.
Martha (Patty) was born to John Wayles (1715 - 1773) and his first wife Martha Eppes (1712 - 1748), wealthy plantation owners in Charles City County, Virginia [1]
Her father was born in Lancaster, England and emigrated alone to Virginia in 1734, at the age of nineteen, leaving family in England. He was a lawyer by profession and was in the 1750s and 60s King's Attorney for Virginia as well as a local agent for Lidderdale and Company, tobacco merchants. He was well-loved by all his neighbours, and Jefferson said that his eminence in his profession was due to his diligence. Her mother was a daughter of Francis Eppes of Bermuda Hundred, and was a widow when Wayles married her. As part of her dowry, Patty's mother brought with her a personal servant, Susanna, who had an eleven year old daughter by the name of Elizabeth Hemings (Betty). Their marriage contract stipulated that mother and child were to remain the property of Patsy Eppes and her heirs forever or be returned to the Eppes family should there be no heirs. This is how Martha Jefferson came into custody of the Hemingses. On Christmas Day 1747 twins were born to John and Patsy Wayles and died the same day. Patsy Eppes Wayles presumably was carried off by 'milk leg' (an embolism) or puerperal fever. She died when her child, Patty, was three weeks old.
Wayles married Miss Mary Cocke of Malvern Hill (Charles City Co.) two years later and they had four daughters: Sarah (died an infant), Elizabeth (who afterward married Francis Eppes of Bermuda Hundred, Patty's cousin), Tabitha (who married Robert Skipwith and died young, and Anne (Nancy, who married Henry Skipwith, brother of Robert). In 1759 Wayles was again widowed. In 1760 he married another widow, Elizabeth Lomax Skelton, whose brother in law, Bathurst Skelton, Patty Wayles afterwards married. Elizabeth died in 1761. John Wayles went to England briefly on family business and when he returned he took up with Betty Hemings, now his housekeeper, who was then age 28 and the mother of three children already with a Negro. Together, John and Betty had five children, the last of whom, Sally Hemings was born after her father's death. Thus Patty was the half sister of all the Wayles-Hemingses. Sally has been alleged to be the mother of several children with Thomas Jefferson; proof of this is circumstantial, being based on evidence from a co-lateral descendants and not direct descent from Thomas Jefferson.
Her first marriage in 1766 to Bathurst Skelton (1744-1768) resulted in one son, John Wayles Skelton (1767-1771). Bathurst Skelton died in September of 1768 in Williamsburg, after an accident. Her son, John, died suddenly of a fever on June 10, 1771, when Patty was already engaged to Jefferson.
She married the future President on January 1, 1772 at her father's house, the Forest, in Charles City Co. They had six children: Martha (Martha Jefferson Randolph, Patsy) (1772-1836), Jane Randolph (1774-1775), an unnamed son (b./d. 1777), Mary (Maria Jefferson Eppes, Polly) (1778-1804), Lucy Elizabeth (1780-1781), and Lucy Elizabeth (1782-1785).
Patty was in frail health for much of her marriage. She is believed to have suffered from diabetes, the cause of her childbearing problems. In the famous summer of 1776 she had suffered a miscarriage and was very ill, thus Jefferson's desperation to get out of Philadelphia as soon as possible.
Mrs. Jefferson was, according to her daughter and to eyewitness accounts (the French delegation), musical and highly educated, a constant reader, with the greatest fund of good nature, a vivacious temper which might sometimes border on tartness but which was completely subdued with her husband by her affection for him. She was a little over five feet tall, with a lithe figure, luxuriant auburn hair and hazel eyes. She played the keyboard and the guitar, and was an accomplished needlewoman. Her music book and several examples of her embroidery survive. It was she who instituted the brewing of beer at Monticello, which continued until her husband's death. She was much beloved by her neighbours, and a great patriot, raising funds for the cause before and after her tenure as First Lady of Virginia.
When she died, after the birth of her sixth child, Jefferson was distraught and for years suffered from deep depression. No miniature of her survives, although there are a silhouette and sketches of her daughter Maria Eppes, who resembled her mother. Other portraits, reputing to be of her, are of her daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph.
