Ursula Granger

In mid-January 1773, Jefferson purchased Ursula Granger and her two children, and, later, her husband, George Granger, Sr. Martha Wayles Jefferson  must have known of Ursula Granger’s skills as she was, “very desirous to get a favorite house woman of the name Ursula.”1 The Grangers were important to Monticello’s operation for the next 25 years; “Great George” became Monticello’s only African American overseer.  They probably lived in the “Negro quarter,” one of the slave dwellings for multiple families on Mulberry Row.

Ursula worked as a cook, wet-nurse (for the Jefferson's eldest child, Martha Jefferson Randolph), house maid, laundress, dairymaid, and also supervised cider-making in 1800; “There is nobody there but Ursula who unites trust & skill to do it,” Jefferson wrote. In addition to working in the Jefferson household, she cared for her own family.  In 1794 she received 30 yards of linen, 20 yards of “cloth with knap,” and 36 skeins of spun sewing thread for clothing.  Ursula, George Granger, Sr. and their son George Granger, Jr. all died within months of each other in 1799 and 1800, victims of a serious illness treated by a healer in Buckingham County.