| John Wayles, Esq. | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 31, 1715 Lancaster, England |
| Died | May 28, 1773 (aged 58) Charles City County, Virginia |
| Nationality | English |
| Occupation | Attorney at law |
| Spouse | Martha Eppes, Tabitha Cocke, Elizabeth Lomax, Elizabeth Hemings (Common-law) |
| Children | Martha Wayles, Elizabeth Wayles, Tabitha Wayles, Ann Wayles, Robert Hemings, James Hemings, Thenia Hemings, Critta Hemings, Peter Hemings, Sally Hemings |
| Relatives | Thomas Jefferson |
John Wayles (January 31, 1715 – May 28, 1773) was a planter, slave trader and lawyer in the Virginia Colony. He is historically best known as the father-in-law of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States.
Wayles is accepted has having taken his mixed-race slave Betty Hemings as a concubine after being widowed the third time; he had six children with her, of whom the youngest was Sally Hemings. The children were three-quarters European in ancestry and half-siblings to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. After Wayles' death, Martha and Thomas Jefferson inherited the Hemings family and more than 100 other slaves as part of his estate.
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Born in Lancaster, England in 1715, Wayles emigrated as a young man to the English colony of Virginia, likely during the 1730s.
In Virginia, Wayles became part of the planter elite. He also worked as a lawyer and did some slave trading. His plantation, called "The Forest", was located in Charles City County, one of the first four shires in the colony and located in the Tidewater region along the James River.
He married Martha Eppes (b. at Bermuda Hundred on 10 April 1721) on 3 May 1746. As a wedding settlement, her parents gave the new couple an African slave known as Susannah and her young mixed-race daughter Elizabeth or Betty Hemings. The girl was the daughter of an English sea captain John Hemings. Hemings family tradition tells that John Hemings tried to buy Susannah and their daughter Betty from Wayles; but he refused to sell them.
Martha Eppes Wayles gave birth to fraternal twins on 23 December 1746, but the girl was stillborn and the boy lived only a few hours. About two years later, on 31 October 1748, Martha Wayles gave birth to her only surviving child, also named Martha. The mother died less than a week later on 5 November 1748, at the age of 27. In those years, women had a high rate of mortality related to childbirth.
Secondly, Wayles married Tabitha Cocke, also of the planter class. They had several children:
Wayles' second wife died sometime between August 1756 and 1759.
On 26 January 1760, Wayles married his third wife, Elizabeth Lomax Skelton (widow of Reuben Skelton, older brother of his daughter's first husband). They had no children. She died on 10 February 1761.
Several sources attest that after the death of his third wife, the widower Wayles took his slave Elizabeth Hemings as his concubine, a practice relatively common among planters.[1] Elizabeth, also called Betty, was mixed race and at the time already had four children. She was about 26 years old.
Together, Wayles and Betty Hemings had six mixed-race children, what was often called "a shadow family":
As their mother was a slave, the children were all born into slavery under the principle of partus sequitur ventrum, which had been part of Virginia law since 1662. They were three-quarters European in ancestry and half-siblings to Wayles' daughter Martha. She married Thomas Jefferson in 1772. Wayles was not known to acknowledge his children by Betty, nor did he free her or them in his will. He died in debt and it took Jefferson years as co-executor to clear the estate.
His daughter Martha Wayles first married Bathurst Skelton, younger brother of Reuben Skelton. He died young. A few years later, Martha married Thomas Jefferson. They had two daughters who survived to adulthood, but only one lived past age 25.
Upon his death at age 58 in 1773, John Wayles left substantial property, including slaves, but the estate was encumbered with debt.[3] Martha and her husband Jefferson inherited all eleven members of the Hemings family as well as more than 100 other slaves. Jefferson and other co-executors of the Wayles estate worked for years to clear it of debt.