Eston Hemings was Thomas Jefferson's youngest son by Sally Hemings. He was born enslaved at Monticello in 1808 and freed in Jefferson's will at the age of eighteen. He became a gifted fiddler in Chillicothe, Ohio, where locals said he looked so much like Jefferson that strangers on the street would stop and stare.

But in 1852, Eston made a choice that would haunt his family for generations. He moved to Wisconsin, changed his last name to Jefferson, and crossed the color line — erasing his mother's name to give his children a future as white Americans. It took 146 years and a DNA test to bring that name back.

This is the story Behind the Throne.

00:00 Intro
00:41 Welcome to Behind the Throne
02:50 Chapter One — The Youngest at Monticello
10:13 Chapter Two — Free, and Still in Virginia
16:48 Chapter Three — The Best Fiddler in Ohio
23:40 Chapter Four — A Name That Was Not Hemings
30:52 Chapter Five — The Uncle
38:24 Epilogue

Sources and further reading:
Madison Hemings, "Life Among the Lowly, No. 1," Pike County Republican, March 13, 1873
Scioto Gazette, August 1, 1902 (Chillicothe, Ohio)
Annette Gordon-Reed, "The Hemingses of Monticello" (2008)
Annette Gordon-Reed, "Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy" (1997)
E. A. Foster et al., "Jefferson fathered slave's last child," Nature 396 (1998)
Thomas Jefferson Foundation, Report of the Research Committee on Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings (2000)
Monticello, "Getting Word: The Hemings Family" (monticello.org)
Encyclopedia Virginia, "Will and Codicil of Thomas Jefferson (1826)"

Behind the Throne tells the stories of the people who shaped American presidents — and were shaped by them. New episodes every week.

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