Edith Fossett
After Thomas Jefferson’s retirement, Edith Hern Fossett worked as the enslaved head chef at Monticello. She was a French cooking instructor at the White House in Washington, D.C. According to Daniel Webster, who was referring to her cooking, the meals at Monticello were “half Virginian, half French style, in good taste and abundance.” In 1802, Thomas Jefferson decided that fifteen-year-old Fossett should learn to cook at the White House under George Washington’s chef, Honoré Julien.
Edith Fossett
Joseph Fossett
Mary Hemings Bell, Elizabeth Hemings’ eldest daughter, had a son named Joseph Fossett. He was a skilled blacksmith who “could do anything with steel or iron that was required.” Despite the fact that some of Fossett’s descendants claim Thomas Jefferson as a paternal grandfather, Joseph’s surname suggests a different lineage. In the years leading up to Fossett’s birth, a white carpenter named William Fosset worked at Monticello. Fossett’s mother and other enslaved housekeepers lived in Richmond when Jefferson was governor of Virginia.
Joseph Fossett