devastated to learn that it had been lost in a shipwreck on its way to her. Among the other Hemmings projects lost to time is a four-person landau carriage that Hemmings fashioned in 1814 for an aging Thomas Jefferson, who became tired of making his thrice-yearly visits to Poplar Forest on horseback. Hemmings created all the necessary parts for the carriage; his relative Joseph Fossett completed the ironwork; and another relative Burwell Colbert painted the finished carriage. The finished product was a source of great pride for Jefferson. John Hemmings had some woodworking signatures that help distinguish his work from that of other workers at the Monticello Joinery. They include attaching shelves to the sides of a cupboard, using a double-bead moulding on the front of shelves, and curving the moulding on bed frames. After Hemmings became master craftsman of the Monticello Joinery, he trained other slaves, including Thomas Jefferson's three sons by Sally Hemings. At the age of 14, Beverley, Madison and Eston each became apprenticed to Hemmings and learned to be highly skilled carpenters. Thomas Jefferson and John Hemmings developed a working relationship. They wrote letters to each other and shared drawings about woodworking and the work being done on both of Jefferson's houses; twelve of the letters survive. Hemmings also informed Jefferson when Nace, a Poplar Forest slave, stole produce from the house garden. Jefferson rewarded Hemmings with an annual bonus each year, beginning in 1811, of fifteen to twenty dollars, or about one month's wages. When Jefferson became ill, Hemmings nursed him for two months and helped him to walk. On April 16, 1826, an ailing Thomas Jefferson prepared his will. In it, he stipulated that John Hemmings would be freed as of a year after his death, given all the tools of his trade, and gifted a life estate in a house and an acre of land, provided that he stayed close to his wife Priscilla and his likely next place of employment, the new University of Virginia. Hemmings was one of five members of the Hemings family freed in Jefferson's will. Hemmings was also given the service of his two nephews and apprentices Madison and Eston Hemings until they turned twenty-one; as Madison was already of age when Jefferson penned his will, he was freed immediately upon Jefferson's death. Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. He was buried in a coffin that John