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Martha Wayles Skelton (1748-1782) was only twenty-three years old when she and Jefferson were married on New Year's Day in 1772 at the bride's plantation near Williamsburg, Virginia. This was her second marriage; her first husband, Bathhurst Skelton, had died four years earlier, after they had been married for two years. Martha herself lived for only ten years after she and Jefferson were married. In that time she became pregnant nine times, but gave birth to only six children and, of these, only three girls—Martha, Mary, and Lucy—survived their early infancy. The physical strain of her many pregnancies weakened Martha considerably. She never regained her strength after Lucy's birth, dying a few months later. Lucy died when she was two years old.
Martha Jefferson Randolph (1772-1836) was the Jeffersons' first child. Known as “Patsy,” she was ten years old when her mother died. At twelve, when Jefferson was appointed minister to France, she moved with him. While in France, she attended a convent school and began learning the duties of running Jefferson's house. She returned with her family from France in 1789, and it was just a year later that she married her childhood sweetheart, Thomas Randolph. They ended up having eleven children. When Jefferson became President, it was Martha who acted as official hostess at the White House. When Jefferson retired to Monticello, Martha and her husband moved there with him.
Mary Jefferson Eppes (1778-1804), called both Maria and Polly, was sent to live with her aunt, Elizabeth Wayles Eppes, when her mother died. She stayed with the Eppes in their house (called Eppington) until Jefferson sent for her to join him in France. She attended a convent school with her sister for a short time and was then tutored at home by Martha. In 1799, Mary married her cousin John Wayles Eppes and returned to Eppington, her former home. She and her husband had one child, but Mary did not live to see him grow up—she died when she was just twenty-five years old.
For two hundred years, rumors circulated that Jefferson had a relationship with his slave Sally Hemings after his wife's death. In 1998, DNA testing revealed that Jefferson could have been the father of at least one of Sally's five children, but whether or not he actually was, is still uncertain.
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