William Beverly Hemings (April 1, 1798 – 1873), also referred to by family members as Beverley, was the son ofSally Hemings, an enslaved woman atMonticello, and widely believed to be the eldest son ofThomas Jefferson, the thirdPresident of the United States.^[1] He was one of four Hemings children to survive to adulthood and was part of the large enslaved Hemings family closely associated with Jefferson.

Hemings was born at Monticello inAlbemarle County,Virginia, on April 1, 1798.^[1] His mother, Sally Hemings, was an enslaved woman of mixed ancestry, the half-sister of Jefferson’s wife,Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson. Contemporary accounts and later research suggest that Hemings and his siblings were afforded relatively privileged status compared with other enslaved people at Monticello, including training, lighter work, and eventualde facto freedom.

In his Farm Book,^[2] Thomas Jefferson listed Beverley among the plantation's skilled tradesmen, specifically as a carpenter. Plantation records and correspondence between Jefferson and his principal overseerEdmund Bacon, indicate that he wasapprenticed to his uncle, the skilled masterJoinerJohn Hemings, from the age of fourteen. In this role, he is believed to have assisted in the plantation'scooperage (barrel-making) and, more significantly, in the construction and fine woodworking at Jefferson's second plantation home and periodic retreat,Poplar Forest inBedford County, Virginia, about 80 miles to the southwest.

As was true of several others in the Hemings lineage, Beverley was also a musician, occasionally called upon to playviolin for dances arranged by Jefferson's granddaughters.

In keeping with Jefferson’s practice regarding Hemings’ children, Beverley was allowed to leave Monticello without pursuit when he came of age. Although he was never formallymanumitted he was, as was said then, "Given his time" and permitted to leave the plantation as a free person. Unlike his younger brothersMadison andEston, who identified as Black later in life, Beverley reportedly chose to assimilate into white society, marrying a woman of European descent, and raising a family whose descendants identified as white. Apart from certainU.S. Census records, his later life inWashington D.C., and also possibly in theState of Maryland, was lived outside the public record, with relatively limited detail.

The Hemings family held a unique position at Monticello. Sally Hemings’ mother,Elizabeth "Betty" Hemings, and her many descendants formed a large enslaved kinship network within Jefferson’s household, both at Monticello and Poplar Forest. William Beverly Hemings was one of six known children born to Sally Hemings, only four of which survived to adulthood; his siblings wereHarriet (I andII),James Madison Hemings, andThomas Eston Hemings.^[1] In his 1873memoir, Madison Hemings stated that Thomas Jefferson was the father of all of Sally Hemings’ surviving children.^[3]

In that same memoir, Madison goes on to explain how their sister Harriet was also permitted to leave Monticello, having been, in fact, assisted in doing so by her renowned father. She too ultimately joined her brother Beverley there atWashington City where she likewise proceeded to pass undetected into the majority society, marry and raise a family there, unbeknownst to any others as the former slave girl Harriet Hemings of Monticello.

Beverley Hemings is believed to have died around 1873, though documentation is limited.

Interest in William Beverly Hemings and his siblings grew significantly in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, following the Monticello community’s work to integrate the history of slavery into the site’s interpretation.^[1] The 1998 Y-DNA study published in Britain'sNature science journal linked the Jefferson male line with Eston Hemings’ descendants, further supporting accounts that Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children.^[4] His life illustrates the complex intersections of race, slavery, freedom, and identity in early America.

• Hemings
• Sally Hemings
• Madison Hemings
• Eston Hemings
• John Wayles Jefferson
• Jefferson–Hemings controversy
• Monticello
• Snow Riot § Biography of Beverly Snow

• Brodie, Fawn M.Thomas Jefferson: An Intimate History. W.W. Norton, 1974. ISBN 978-0-393-00771-3.
• Gordon-Reed, Annette.Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. University of Virginia Press, 1997. ISBN 978-0-8139-1759-2.
• Gordon-Reed, Annette.The Hemingses of Monticello: An American Family. W.W. Norton, 2008. ISBN 978-0-393-34574-6.
• Gordon-Reed, Annette, and Peter S. Onuf.Most Blessed of the Patriarchs: Thomas Jefferson and the Empire of the Imagination. Liveright, 2016. ISBN 978-0-87140-442-8.
• Stanton, Lucia.Those Who Labor for My Happiness: Slavery at Thomas Jefferson's Monticello. University of Virginia Press, 2012. ISBN 978-0-8139-3224-3.

• Thomas Jefferson's Monticello
• Sally Hemings and Her Children
• The Memoirs of Madison Hemings
• The Memoirs of Israel Jefferson
• Edmund Bacon,Mr. Jefferson's Servants, memoir,Thomas Jefferson, PBS Frontline

• 1798 births
• 1873 deaths
• Hemings family
• Children of Thomas Jefferson
• Children of Sally Hemings
• People from Albemarle County, Virginia

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