John Wayles Eppes

John Wayles Eppes (April 19, 1773September 13, 1823) was an American lawyer and politician. He represented Virginia in the U.S. House of Representatives from 1803 to 1811 and again from 1813 to 1815. He also served in the U.S. Senate (1817–1819). His positions in Congress occurred after he served in the Virginia House of Delegates (1801–1803). 
A member of the wealthy planter class, he was related through his mother to Martha Jefferson, the wife of Thomas Jefferson, with whom Eppes was close.
Early life and education.
Eppes was born at Eppington, in Chesterfield County in the Colony of Virginia, the sixth child and only son of Elizabeth (née Wayles) and Francis Eppes on April 19, 1773. His father was a first cousin and his mother was a half-sister to Martha Jefferson.
After being taught by tutors, Eppes attended the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia, and graduated from Hampden–Sydney College in Virginia in 1786. He studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1794, commencing practice in the state capital, Richmond.
Marriage and family.
Eppes married his first cousin Mary Jefferson (known as "Polly" in childhood and "Maria" as an adult) on October 13, 1797 at Monticello. They resided at Mont Blanco plantation in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
After several miscarriages and the death in January 1800 of a newborn baby girl, Maria and John had two children: 
Mary died at Monticello on April 17, 1804, two months after the birth of Maria, and is buried there.
On April 15, 1809, Eppes married Martha Burke Jones, daughter of Willie Jones, a prominent North Carolina planter and politician. They had six children. 
Betsy Hemmings.
After Mary's death, Eppes moved his household and slaves from Mont Blanco to another of his plantations called Millbrook in Buckingham County, Virginia. Among the slaves was Betsy Hemmings, the mixed-race daughter of Mary Hemings and granddaughter of Betty Hemings. According to her descendants, Hemmings became a concubine to Eppes in a relationship that began when he was a young widower. She bore his son, Joseph, likely named for her brother. She named their daughter Frances, a name traditional among men in the Eppes family. She lived at Milbrook for the rest of her life, and when she died in 1857, was buried next to John Wayles Eppes in the family cemetery there.
Political career.
Eppes was a member of the Virginia House of Delegates from 1801 to 1803. On March 4, 1803 he was elected as a Democratic-Republican to the Eighth United States Congress and the next three succeeding Congresses, so he was frequently away from his plantation. He chaired the Ways and Means Committee for the Eleventh Congress but failed to be elected to the Twelfth. He spent the next two years at his plantation, Milbrook.
He was elected to the Thirteenth Congress (March 4, 1813 – March 4, 1815) and chaired the Committee on Ways and Means again. After losing the election to the Fourteenth Congress, he was elected to the United States Senate and served from March 4, 1817, until December 4, 1819, when he resigned because of ill health. He chaired the Committee on Finance during the second session of the Fifteenth Congress.
Retirement and death.
Late in life Eppes suffered from various ailments. He died at Millbrook on September 13, 1823, and was buried in the Eppes family cemetery at the Millbrook.