Daguerreotype of Isaac Jefferson

Isaac Jefferson, also known as Isaac Granger, a former slave of Thomas Jefferson, is the subject of this daguerreotype made about 1845. A son of the enslaved George and Ursula Granger, Isaac Jefferson labored at Monticello as a tinsmith, nail maker, and blacksmith. He later worked as a blacksmith in Petersburg, where this image was made; Isaac Jefferson was then about seventy years old. He dictated his reminiscences to the Reverend Charles Campbell about 1847.