Isaac Jefferson, also likely known as Isaac Granger (1775 – 1846) was a valued enslaved artisan of US President Thomas Jefferson who crafted and repaired products as a tinsmith, blacksmith, and nailer at Monticello. Although Thomas Jefferson gave Isaac and his family to his daughter Maria and her husband John Wayles Eppes in 1797 as a wedding gift, Isaac Jefferson/Granger appeared to gain his freedom by 1822, according to his memoir. In the 1840 census, he was recorded as Isaac Granger, a free man working in Petersburg, Virginia. Rev. Charles Campbell interviewed him there and published his memoir under the name of Isaac Jefferson in 1847 a year after Isaac's death. Granger/Jefferson describes Thomas Jefferson as a master and his part in the lives of his slaves. Early life Born into slavery in 1775, Isaac was the fourth son of Ursula Granger and Great George (a son Archy died in early childhood before Isaac was born). His father rose in the hierarchy from foreman of labor to become overseer of Monticello in 1797, the only slave to reach that position under Thomas Jefferson. He was paid an annual wage of £20. In 1773 Jefferson had purchased Isaac's mother Ursula, and she became a highly trusted domestic servant. She served as a pastry cook and laundress, with duties including meat preservation and the bottling of cider. Isaac's older brothers were George and Bagwell. Isaac spent his childhood on the plantation near his parents. His early tasks included carrying fuel, lighting fires, and opening gates. Because Jefferson took Great George, Ursula and their family with him to Williamsburg and Richmond when he was elected governor, the boy Isaac witnessed dramatic events during the Revolutionary War. He later recounted vivid memories of 1781, including Benedict Arnold's raid on Richmond and seeing the internment camp for captured slaves at Yorktown. Service at Monticello Probably about 1790 at the age of 15, Isaac began his apprentice training in the metalworking trades. As president, Jefferson took Isaac as part of his household to Philadelphia. He arranged to have the youth apprenticed for several years to a tinsmith, a skilled and valued trade. Isaac Jefferson's account is the only source for this aspect of his working life. He learned to make graters, pepper boxes and tin cups, about four dozen a day. After the household's return to Monticello, the president set up a tin shop. Isaac Granger/Jefferson