including Fossett's wife Edy and their children. With the help of his mother Mary Bell and other free family members, Fossett over several years purchased the freedom of his wife and most of his children. The family moved from Virginia to the free state of Ohio about 1840. Betsy Hemmings, (1783-1857) Her descendants say their family oral tradition is that Betsy was fathered by the recently widowed Thomas Jefferson, whose wife died in 1782. The historian Lucia Stanton found documentation that her mother Mary Hemings was one of the household slaves whom Jefferson took to Williamsburg and Richmond to care for the family when he was governor, from 1779 to 1781. Jefferson gave Betsy Hemmings at the age of 14, and 29 other slaves, as a wedding gift to his daughter Mary Jefferson and her new husband John Wayles Eppes. Betsy lived with the Eppes family for the rest of her life. Her descendants say she was his concubine from about age 21, after he was widowed, and through his second marriage. They had a daughter, Frances, and a son, Joseph, together and other children. (The names of other children were lost when a fire destroyed the plantation records.) According to her descendants, their relationship continued after he married a second time five years later, although it was not openly acknowledged. Betsy Hemmings was buried next to Eppes in his family cemetery at the plantation and her grave is marked by a tombstone similar to his. His second wife was buried at her daughter's plantation. With Thomas Bell During Jefferson's stay in Paris as U.S. minister to France, his overseer hired out Mary Hemings (with her two younger children) to Thomas Bell in Charlottesville. Mary Hemings became partner to Thomas Bell and they had two children: Robert Washington Bell and Sarah Jefferson Bell. Also known as Sally, in 1802 she married Jesse Scott, who was a musician who performed across Virginia with his sons. Scott also purchased Edith Fossett and two of her children with Joseph Fossett in 1827 so that they would be free to live with Joseph. After his return and at Mary's request, Jefferson sold Mary and her two younger children to Bell in 1792. Bell informally freed the three of them that year, acknowledging the children as his. Hemings then took Bell's name. Thomas and Mary Bell lived the remainder of their lives together and Thomas