Edward Gillette, a Monticello wagoner, and his wife Jane, a farmworker, had twelve children, who worked in the fields, the stables, the kitchen, the textile shop, and the coopers' shops. Their daughter Frances, who married David Hern, learned French cookery at the President's House in Washington. Three of their sons (Gill, Israel, and James) drove Jefferson's landau carriage by riding the horses as postilions. The Gillettes' sons Barnaby, James, and Moses made flour barrels and tobacco hogsheads, earning money through premiums for productivity and payments for wooden articles they made in their free time.
Israel Gillette (1800-after 1873) took the surname Jefferson when he bought his freedom in the 1840s and moved to Ohio. After years as a servant on an Ohio River steamboat, he and his freeborn wife, Elizabeth, bought a small farm in Pike County. They were active in the Eden Baptist Church; Israel Jefferson was deacon and treasurer. Moses Gillette (1803-after 1880) settled near his brother in southern Ohio when he became free after the Civil War.
Moses Gillette (1837-after 1920), son of Moses Gillette of Monticello, raised more than twenty children in Albemarle County, Virginia. His descendants include Getting Word participants Jeniece Johnson, Margaret (Mrs. Donald) Gillette, Phyllis Williams, and Donalyn Gillette (below, photograph courtesy of Jane Feldman).