In the midst of the pop of holiday fireworks, conversations at family cookouts and the buzz at community gatherings, there is a quiet place to gather in Madison that has a direct connection to the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence 249 years ago.
Thomas Jefferson — wordsmith, diplomat, president — was of course a founding father of this country. But he was also a biological father, first to children from his 10-year marriage to Martha, who died young, then to children from a 40-year relationship with one of his enslaved women — Sally Hemings.
It is the youngest son of Jefferson and Hemings — Eston Hemings Jefferson — who is buried at Madison’s Forest Hill Cemetery, along with his wife, Julia, their three children and their extended family…