It is always dangerous for an author to discuss a work in progress, but I
will toss out some of the thoughts I've had on James Callender, the
muckraker, and see if any of the learned folks on this list can shed
additional light on this murky subject. 

I have been doing a lot of fresh research on Callender, and though I'm still
working out some details, I have more or less come to the conclusion that
Callender should simply be dropped from the witness list in the Hemings
case. I don't think he can be cited for or against the paternity claim.
Callender never visited Monticello and never laid eyes on Sally Hemings. His
modern-day credibility is based on the view of his recent biographer,
Michael Durey, that Callender was an annoying but skilled journalist, and on
the view of Hemings partisans that Callender had reliable sources around
Monticello, sources who had first-hand knowledge of the actual facts of the
TJ/Hemings relationship and conveyed that information to Callender. My
analysis leads me to think that he did not have the multiple informants in
Albemarle County he claimed to have. I believe he had one source, probably
David Meade Randolph, who despised Jefferson. My feeling is that if
Callender had rock-solid, reliable sources, his articles would have been
more accurate.

If you look at his articles closely you find that Callender was demonstrably
correct on three points only--there was a slave named Sally at Monticello,
she had been in France with Jefferson, and she had children who resembled
Jefferson. Just about every other "fact" he printed about Hemings and her
family is demonstrably wrong. Callender's statement that Thomas Jefferson
was the father of the Hemings children is, I think, merely an assertion
based on hearsay, probably from David Meade Randolph. 

The really interesting question is -- where did David Meade Randolph get his
information? His wife was the sister of TJ's son-in-law, Thomas Mann
Randolph. Perhaps TMR told his sister straight out: "Jefferson is having
children with Sally." But it seems plausible to me that TMR may have told
his sister some things about Hemings, then she told her husband, David, who
passed the information to Callender. David Meade Randolph and Callender are
both known as skilled twisters of facts. In their hands, a few tid-bits of
family gossip -- there was a slave named Sally who had children who looked
like Jefferson -- became inflated.

Perhaps Thomas Jefferson was the father of the Hemings children; but my
feeling is that we can't rely on Callender as a source. I would cross him
off my list, though this doesn't get Jefferson "off the hook."  Although I
use the words "witness" and "hearsay," I am not adopting courtroom
limitations on testimony; I'm looking at this as a historian, not as a lawyer.

I am grateful to Rebecca and James McMurry for transcribing and publishing
the complete run of Callender's articles on Hemings. I don't agree with all
of their analyses, but they have done a great service making the full texts
available. It's only when you read all of the articles that you can see that
Callender was an accomplished "propaganda hound." His errors are so
outrageous that I believe they had to be fabrications.  I think it's fair to
say that he was truly a professional liar. This does not lead me to the
conclusion that Jefferson was "innocent," only that I can't take Callender's
word for it one way or the other. I'm still at work on my book and I may
find something that changes my mind, but that's where I stand now. 

Henry Wiencek
Charlottesville

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