Israel Jefferson

Israel Jefferson (c. 1800 – after 1873), known as Israel Gillette before 1844, was born a slave at Monticello, the plantation estate of Thomas Jefferson, third President of the United States. He worked as a domestic servant close to Jefferson for years, and also rode with his brothers as a postilion for the landau carriage.

After 1826, Gillette was sold to Thomas Walker Gilmer as part of the sale of 130 slaves from Monticello following Jefferson's death, when many families were broken up. He purchased his freedom from Gilmer in 1844 and took the surname of Jefferson. According to his memoir, this was at the suggestion of a clerk when he registered as a free man.

Jefferson and his freeborn wife Elizabeth moved to the free state of Ohio, where he worked on a steamboat. In 1873, he was interviewed and his memoir was published in the Pike County Republican, the same year as a memoir by Madison Hemings, also a former slave at Monticello. Jefferson's memoir provided detailed information on life at Monticello. In it, he also attested to Thomas Jefferson's fathering the children of Sally Hemings, affirming Madison's account. In 1998, a DNA study helped to confirm his account, as it showed a match between the Jefferson male line and a descendant of Eston Hemings, the youngest son.

Israel Gillette was born into slavery; he estimated about 1797. His mother was an enslaved woman known as Jane and his father was Edward Gillett. Together, Edward and Jane had thirteen children, all of whom bore their father's surname Gillette.

During his years as a slave at the Monticello estate, Gillette served in a number of capacities, starting as a waiter at the family table at about the age of eight years. Of his service to Mr. Jefferson, he said: “For fourteen years I made the fire in his bedroom and private chamber, cleaned his office, dusted his books, run of errands and attended him about home". He and his older brother Gilly "...were both retained about the person of our master as long as he lived." He added, "Frequently, gentlemen would call upon him on business of great importance, whom I used to usher into his presence," and "sometimes I would be employed in or doing some other work in the room where they were.”

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