Francis W. Eppes

Francis Wayles Eppes VII (September 20, 1801 – May 10, 1881) was a planter and slave owner from Virginia who became prominent near and in Tallahassee, Florida. His maternal grandparents were President Thomas Jefferson and his wife Martha; his paternal grandparents were Francis Wayles Eppes VI, also a prominent planter in Virginia, and his wife Elizabeth Wayles, half-sister to Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson.
After marrying and moving in 1829 from Virginia with his family to near Tallahassee, Florida, Eppes established a cotton plantation. His first wife died and in 1837 he married a second time. With both wives, he had a total of 13 children.
Long interested in education, in 1856 Eppes donated land and money to designate a school in Tallahassee as one of the first two state-supported seminaries, now known as Florida State University. He served as president of its board of trustees for eight years.
Biography.
Francis Wayles Eppes was born in 1801, the second child of Maria (née Jefferson) and John Wayles Eppes. He was born at Monticello, his maternal grandfather's plantation in Albemarle County, Virginia. When he was born, his parents resided at Mont Blanco plantation in Chesterfield. He was the only one of three Eppes children to survive childhood.
After his mother died in 1804 when he was three, soon after the birth of her third child, Eppes' father moved his household and slaves from Mont Blanco, to another of his plantations, Millbrook, in Buckingham County. Francis spent much time at nearby Monticello with his maternal aunt Martha Randolph and his grandfather, the widower Thomas Jefferson. At his father's plantation, he was cared for by the slave Betsy Hemmings, later called "Mam Bess." Jefferson had given her to Eppes' parents at their wedding. She was the daughter of Mary Hemings and the granddaughter of Betty Hemings, who was held by the Jeffersons at Monticello. Among his early nurses was Critta Hemings Bowles, an aunt of Betsy Hemmings.
Eppes studied law, but never completed his legal studies.
Marriage and family.
At the age of 21, Francis married Mary Elizabeth Cleland Randolph (January 16, 1801 – April 15, 1835), the daughter of Thomas Eston Randolph and his wife, Jane Cary (Randolph) Randolph, on November 18, 1822. They moved to Poplar Forest plantation in Bedford County, Virginia, which was built by his grandfather Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson had originally planned this plantation for his daughter Maria, but she died in April 1804 at age 25. He designated it as his grandson Francis' inheritance. Poplar Forest was the only Jefferson property to pass to the intended heir. Jefferson's debts disrupted the rest of his bequests after his death in 1826.
In 1827 after Jefferson's death, Eppes purchased and freed the elder slave Critta Hemings Bowles, who had been his fourth nurse when he was an infant. She had long been married to Zachariah Bowles, a free man of color.
The Eppeses lived at Poplar Forest until 1828, when they decided to move to Florida. By that time they had buried three children at the Jefferson family cemetery at Monticello. Both his father and Jefferson had died by then. Believing Poplar Forest to be too isolated, Eppes was ready to try his fortunes elsewhere. Florida was being rapidly developed for cotton production. In 1829, he moved with his family to Leon County, Florida, settling just east of Tallahassee.
Such moves broke up both planters' and slaves' families. The Eppes took numerous slaves with them, among them grown descendants of Betsy Hemmings, who was given to Francis by his father as a wedding present.
His first wife died in 1835 following the birth of her sixth child. Two years later, Eppes married Susan Margaret Ware Crouch (February 14, 1815 – September 1, 1887), the widowed daughter of U.S. Senator Nicholas Ware, of Georgia. They had seven children together. With his two wives, Eppes was father to a total of thirteen children, but at least three died in childhood in Virginia.
Career.
He established the Francis Eppes Plantation in Leon County, Florida, raising cotton as a commodity crop by the use of extensive slave labor. In the antebellum period, cotton prices were high and there was extensive trade with England.
Eppes took an active interest in educational issues in Florida. In Tallahassee, he began 35 years of distinguished service to his community. He was a founding member of the Episcopal Church there. In 1833, Eppes was appointed one of fourteen justices of the peace in Leon County. Eppes was elected to serve as a Deputy to the 1838 General Convention of the Episcopal Church, held that year in Philadelphia. Among its actions, the Convention officially admitted the Diocese of Florida.
Eppes first served as intendant (mayor) of Tallahassee from 1841–1844 and then again from 1856–1857. His first election was largely due to a rise in sentiment against lawlessness, particularly duels among leading men in territorial Florida. Florida Militia Brigadier General Leigh Read had recently been killed by Willis Alston, in a case attracting much attention. Read had earlier killed Willis' brother Augustus Alston in a duel. Eppes appointed six officers, who are considered the beginning of the Tallahassee Police Department.
In 1851, the Florida Legislature authorized two seminaries of higher learning in Florida. One seminary was to be located west of the Suwannee River and one to the east of the river. In 1854, Eppes tried to gain approval for the western seminary to be located in Tallahassee, but was rejected.
In 1856, Eppes initiated the proposal again and offered to fund an initial endowment of $10,000, plus a $2,000 per year stipend and a new building. The legislature accepted the proposal. That year, the existing Florida Institute in Tallahassee was designated as the State Seminary West of the Suwannee River. Classes began in 1857. Eppes served on the seminary's board of trustees for eleven years; for the last eight of those years, he served as president of the board. The seminary later developed as Florida State University.
Eppes died on May 10, 1881, and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery. Three of his children by his first wife had died earlier in Virginia. They were buried at the Jefferson family cemetery at Monticello. Also buried there were Francis' Jefferson grandparents and mother, Maria. Later, at least three of his grandchildren were also buried there. Since the late 19th century, the cemetery has been owned and operated by the Monticello Association, a private lineage society of descendants of Jefferson and Martha Wayles. (This property is separate from the Monticello plantation, which is owned and operated by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation.)
Legacy and controversy.
In 1995, Florida State University established the Jefferson–Eppes Trophy to honor Eppes and his grandfather Thomas Jefferson. A statue of Eppes was installed to commemorate him at the university and unveiled in January 2002. In 2016, the Eppes statue was the subject of a non-binding removal referendum introduced by the FSU chapter of Students for a Democratic Society because Eppes owned slaves. The referendum failed by a vote of 71% to 29%. In May 2018, an FSU panel voted to recommended the removal of the statue as well as the Eppes designation at Eppes Hall. On July 20, 2018, maintenance crews removed the statue from Westcott Plaza. On May 12, 2019, the statue was relocated to another part of the campus. On July 24, 2020, the statue was removed from the campus.