Martha Wayles (1748-1782)/Biography

Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, born Martha Wayles (October 30 1748 –, ) was the wife of , who was the third. She never became because she died long before her husband was elected to the presidency.

Life
Martha (Patty) was born to John Wayles ( - ) and his first wife Martha Eppes ( - ), wealthy plantation owners in

Her father was born in and emigrated alone to  in, at the age of nineteen, leaving family in England. He was a lawyer. Martha's mother was a daughter of Francis Eppes of and was a widow when Wayles married her. As part of her dowry, Patty's mother brought with her a personal, Susanna, who had an eleven year old daughter by the name of Elizabeth Hemings (Betty). Their marriage contract stipulated that mother and child were to remain the property of Patsy Eppes and her heirs forever or be returned to the Eppes family should there be no heirs. This is how the Hemingses came into the custody of Martha Wayles. Patsy Eppes Wayles died when Patty was three weeks old. Patty's father remarried Mary Cocke of and had her half-sister Elizabeth, who married Patty's cousin and became the mother of. After the death of his third wife, John Wayles took up with the slave Susanna and had several children, the famed as well.

Patty first married Bathurst Skelton (-) and had one son, John Wayles Skelton (-). Skelton died in September of 1768 in after an accident. Her son, John, died suddenly of a fever on June 10, 1771, when Patty was already engaged to Jefferson.

She married her distant cousin Thomas Jefferson on, at her father's house, the Forest. They had six children: (1772-1836), Jane Randolph (1774-1775), an unnamed son (b./d. 1777), Mary (Maria Jefferson Eppes, Polly) (1778-1804), Lucy Elizabeth (1780-1781), and Lucy Elizabeth (1782-1785).

Patty was in frail health for much of her marriage. She is believed to have suffered from, the cause of her childbearing problems. In the famous summer of 1776 she had suffered a miscarriage and was very ill, thus Jefferson's desperation to get out of as soon as possible.

Patty Jefferson was, according to her daughter and to eyewitness accounts (the French delegation), musical and highly educated, a constant reader, with the greatest fund of good nature, a vivacious temper which might sometimes border on tartness but which was completely subdued with her husband by her affection for him. She was a little over five feet tall, with a lithe figure, luxuriant auburn hair and hazel eyes. She played the and the, and was an accomplished needlewoman. Her music book and several examples of her survive. It was she who instituted the brewing of beer at, which continued until her husband's death. She was much beloved by her neighbours, and a great patriot, raising funds for the cause before and after her tenure as First Lady of Virginia.

When she died, after the birth of her sixth child, Jefferson was distraught and for years suffered from deep depression. No miniature of her survives, although there are a silhouette and sketches of her daughter Maria Eppes, who resembled her mother. Other portraits, reputing to be of her, are of her daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph.