Page "Daughters of the American Revolution" Paragraph 50

After the war, Hemings gained informal freedom when her common-law husband, Thomas Bell, a white merchant of Charlottesville, purchased her and their two mixed-race children from Jefferson.

She was forced to leave her two older children, Joseph Fossett and Betsy Hemmings ( as she spelled it ), enslaved at Monticello.

After Bell's death, Mary and their two children inherited his estate.

She kept in touch with her large extended Hemings family, still enslaved at Monticello, and aided her children there.

When Jefferson's slaves were sold after his death in 1826 to settle his debts, Mary Hemings Bell was able to purchase family members to help keep families intact.