Page:Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography (1892, volume 3).djvu/458

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424
JEFFREY
JEMISON

from the school. In the autumn of the same year (1789) she married her cousin, Thomas Mann Ran- dolph, afterward governor of Virginia, and, being engrossed with the cares of her large family, passed only a portion of her time in the White House, which she visited with her husband and children in 1802, with her sister in 1803, and during the winter of 1805-6. After the retirement of Mr. Jefferson she devoted much of her life to his de- clining years. He describes her as the " cherished companion of his youth and the nurse of his old age," and shortly before his death remarked that the "last pang of life was parting with her." After the business reverses and the death of her father and husband, she contemplated establishing a school, but was relieved from the necessity by a donation of $10,000 each from South Carolina and Virginia. She left a large family of sons and daughters, whom she carefully educated. The por- trait on page 423 represents Mrs. Randolph. There is no known portrait of Mrs. Jefferson. — Her sister, Mary, b. at Monticello, 1 Aug., 1778: d. in Albe- marle county, Va., 17 April, 1804, was also edu- cated in the convent at Panthemont, France, and is described, in a letter of Mrs. Abigail Adams, "as one of the most beautiful and remarkable children she had ever known." She married her cousin, John Wayles Epps, early in life, but was prevented by delicate health from the enjoyment, of social life. She spent the second winter of Mr. Jefferson's first term with her sister as mistress of the White House. She left two children, one of whom, Francis, survived. — Jefferson's last surviving granddaughter, Mrs. Septima Randolph Meikleham, died in Washington, D. C., on 16 Sept., 1887. See "Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson," by his great-granddaughter, Sarah N. Randolph (New York, 1871).


JEFFREY, Rosa Vertner Griffith, author, b. in Natchez, Miss., in 1828. She was the daughter of John Y. Griffith, who gained a reputation as a writer of tales and poems. Miss Griffith was edu- cated at the Episcopal seminary in Lexington, Ky., and at seventeen years of age married Claude M. Johnson, and after his death Alexander Jeffrey, of Edinburgh, Scotland. She became a contribu- tor to the " Louisville Journal " in 1850, under the pen-name of "Rosa," and has published, among other works, " Poems, by Rosa " (Boston, 1857) ; " Woodburn," a novel (New York, 1864) ; " Daisy Dare and Baby Power," poems (Philadelphia, 1871) ; " The Crimson Hand and other Poems " (1881) ; and " Marsh," a novel (1884).


JEFFRIES, Benjamin Joy, physician, b. in Boston, Mass., 26 March, 1833. He was graduated at Harvard in 1854, and in the medical department there in 1857, and, after two years' study in Europe, settled in Boston, making a specialty of diseases of the eye and skin. He is ophthalmic surgeon to the Massachusetts eye and ear infirmary, to Carney hospital, and to the New England hospital for women and children, and is a member of various medical societies. Dr. Jeffries has taken much interest in the subject of color-blindness, and has tested the eyes of thousands of people in various parts of the country. His examinations, reported in his manual on "Color-Blindness, its Dangers, and its Detection " (Boston, 1873), shows that in the United States, as elsewhere, four per cent, of males and one fourth of one per cent, of females have defective color-sense ; their results have also brought about a systematic examination of the form- and color-sense of railroad employes and pilots, and the gradual establishment of laws of control of these. He has published " The Eye in Health and Disease" (Boston, 1871): "Animal and Vegetable Parasites of the Human Hair and Skin." a Boy Is ton prize essay on "Diseases of the Skin" (1872) ; a prize essay on " The Eye," Massachusetts medical society publication ; and "Enucleation of the Eyeball," "Reports of Cataract Operations," and articles on dangers of defective vision, and the necessity for legislative enactment.


JEFFRIES, John, physician, b. in Boston, Mass., 5 Feb., 1745 ; d. there, 16 Sept., 1819. He was graduated at Harvard in 1763, and studied medicine in London and Aberdeen, receiving his medical degree at the latter place in 1769. He then returned to Boston, continued to practise with suc- cess, and was from 1771 till 1774 surgeon of a British ship of the line at that port. At the evacu- ation of Boston by the British he accompanied the troops to Halifax, where he was made, by Lord Howe, surgeon-general of the forces in Nova Scotia. In March, 1779, he went to England and was made surgeon-major to the forces in America, entering upon his duties, 11 March, 1780, at Charleston, S. C. In December of that year he resigned and re- turned to London, where he practised successfully and occupied himself with scientific investigations. He undertook two aerial voyages, the second of which, 7 Jan., 1785, was from Dover across the British channel into the forest of Guienne, in the province of Artois, France. In the summer of 1789 he returned to Boston, where he delivered the first public lecture on anatomy that was ever given in New England ; but, public feeling being against dissections, he was forced by mob violence to dis- continue his discourses. He published a " Narra- tive of Two Aerial Voyages" (London, 1786).


JEMISON, Mary (or Dehewamis), b. at sea in 1742 or 1743 ; d. on Buffalo creek reservation, 19 Sept., 1833. She was the fourth child of Thomas Jemison and Jane Irwin, who left Ireland for Philadelphia prior to her birth. The family set- tled near Marsh creek, on the frontier of Pennsyl- vania, and there followed a farming life until the spring of 1755, when they were captured by the Indians. The elder members of the family were killed, but Mary's life was spared, and she was adopted into one of the tribes of the Senecas. A few years afterward she married Shenijee, who treated her with kindness, and by whom she had two children. In 1759 she went to live with her Indian mother at Little Beard's town, on the banks of the Genesee river, and there spent the remaining seventy-two years of her life. Her first husband died soon after her removal to New York, and, after three years, she married Hiokatoo. Thence- forth she remained with the tribe into which she had been adopted, acquired in her own right a large amount of property, and was naturalized in 1817. She was the mother of eight children. In 1831 she removed to the Buffalo creek reserva- tion, and in the summer of 1833, a few months prior to her death, adopted the Christian faith. She was widely known as "the white woman." See " The Life of Mary Jemison," by James E. Seaver (Batavia, N. Y., 1842).


JEMISON, Robert, legislator, b. in Lincoln county, Ga., 17 Sept., 1802; d. in Tuscaloosa, Ala., 16 Oct., 1871. He removed in 1821 to Alabama, where he became an active Whig, and was long in the legislature. He was president of the state senate in 1863, and soon afterward entered the Confederate senate, though he had opposed secession in 1861. He did much toward improving the finances of his state, and was the founder of the Alabama insane asylum. The construction of the Alabama and Chattanooga railroad was largely due to his efforts.