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Asnet Hughes -

When President Thomas Jefferson moved to the White House he brought with him an enslaved girl named Ursula Granger. The idea was for her to learn how to cook under the mentorship of the White House's French chef, and then return to his plantation, Monticello.

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Asnet Hughes -

However, Granger was pregnant when she arrived in Washington and six months later she gave birth to a boy named Asnet, sometime before March 22, 1802. Sadly, the first child ever born in the White House died just five months later.

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Asnet Hughes -

President Jefferson was away at the time of Asnet’s death and on August 17, 1802. His steward wrote him a letter informing him of what had happened: "Sir, the poor little child Asnet died on the 14th of this month, but I assure you that the good Lord rendered a great service to him and to his mother, since he would have been infirm all his life."

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James Madison Randolph -

James Madison Randolph was born on January 17, 1806, in the White House. The boy was the son of Martha Jefferson Randolph (pictured) and the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson.

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James Madison Randolph -

The baby was named after Thomas Jefferson's fellow Founding Father (and future president) James Madison. James Madison Randolph attended the University of Virginia and then became a farmer, but ended up losing everything and going back home. He died on January 23, 1834, aged 28.

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Edy and Joe’s children -

Ursula Granger wasn’t the only enslaved girl President Jefferson brought from Monticello to work in the White House. Edith "Edy" Hern Fossett came to Washington in 1802. Her son was born a year later.

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Edy and Joe’s children -

In July 1806, the child fell ill, and Edy's husband, an enslaved man named Joe Fossett, ran away from the plantation to be with his sick child and his wife. Their son died shortly after.

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James and Maria Fossett -

The enslaved couple Edy and Joe Fossett had two other children while Edy was in Washington: James and Maria Fossett, both of whom survived until adulthood.

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Fanny Hern’s children -

In 1806, President Jefferson brought Frances "Fanny" Gillette Hern to the White House. Fanny's husband, David "Davy" Hern didn’t come with her, but visited twice a year. Fanny had two children in the White House.

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Fanny Hern’s children -

Not much is known about Fanny Hern’s children, but there is one letter dated November 7, 1808, from President Jefferson to Edmund Bacon, who was the overseer of Monticello, that read "Be so good as to inform Davy that his child died of the whooping cough on the 4th. day after he left ..."

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Mary Louisa Adams -

Mary Louisa Adams was born in the White House on December 2, 1828. She was the daughter of Mary Catherine Hellena and John Adams II, the son of President John Quincy Adams.

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Mary Louisa Adams -

John Quincy Adams loved his granddaughter; he spent a lot of time with her and bought her a number of gifts over the years. Mary Louisa Adams went on to marry in 1853 and had two children. She passed away on July 16, 1859, aged 30.

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Mary Emily Donelson -

Mary Emily Donelson was a grand-niece of President Andrew Jackson. When President Jackson moved to the White House, his nephew Andrew Jackson Donelson and wife Emily moved in too. Shortly after, Emily Donelson (pictured) became pregnant.

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Mary Emily Donelson -

Mary Emily Donelson was born on August 31, 1829. The grand-niece of President Andrew Jackson also had a famous godfather: future president Martin Van Buren.

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John Samuel Donelson -

John Samuel Donelson was born in the White House on May 18, 1832. Donelson was both the grand-nephew and godson of President Andrew Jackson.

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John Samuel Donelson -

John Samuel Donelson joined the Confederacy during the Civil War and served with a Tennessee regiment. In September 1863, he fought in the Battle of Chickamauga, where he died.

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Rachel Jackson Donelson -

Rachel Jackson Donelson was born in the White House on April 11, 1835. Like Mary Emily Donelson, she was also a daughter of Emily Donelson. She was named after President Andrew Jackson’s late wife Rachel Jackson. Her godfather was future president James Polk.

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Rachel Jackson Donelson -

Rachel hadn’t celebrated her second birthday yet when her mother Emily Donelson died in 1836. Rachel Jackson Donelson moved to Texas, married twice, and had no children. She died on March 22, 1888, aged 52.

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Rebecca Van Buren -

Rebecca Van Buren was born on March 4, 1840. She was the daughter of Angelica (pictured) and Abraham Van Buren, and the granddaughter of President Martin Van Buren.

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Rebecca Van Buren -

Rebecca tragically passed away a few months after her birth. She was the first ever person to be born and to die in the White House. Pictured is Rebecca's mother, Angelica, as a child.

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Robert Tyler Jones -

Robert Tyler Jones was born in the White House on January 24, 1843. He was the grandson of President John Tyler.

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Robert Tyler Jones -

Jones joined the Confederacy during the Civil War and saw quite a lot of action, having fought at the Battle of Gettysburg. Robert Tyler Jones died on May 18, 1885, aged 52.

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Sally Walker -

Sarah "Sally" Walker was born in the White House on March 15, 1846. Sally was the daughter of President James K. Polk’s nephew, Joseph Knox Walker, and his wife Augusta Adams Tabb.

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Sally Walker -

Sally Walker once explained how she was born in a letter. "In 1846 ... on [former president Andrew] Jackson's birthday and in the room he occupied." She died in 1903, aged 57.

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Joseph Knox Walker Jr. -

Joseph Knox Walker Jr. was yet another baby born in the White House. The son of Joseph Knox Walker and Augusta Adams Tabb was born on December 9, 1847. He was the brother of Sally Walker. Joseph Knox Walker Jr. is said to have died after falling from a horse. He was just 10.

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Julia Grant -

Julia Grant was born in the White House on June 7, 1876. Her parents were Ida Marie Honoré and President Ulysses S. Grant's son, Frederick Dent Grant.

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Julia Grant -

Grant wrote about her White House birth in her 1921 memoir, ‘My Life Here and There.' She describes the setting, "..in a quiet room, its windows looking out under the great portico of the President's mansion, a first child was born, an unusually large girl, 13 pounds of chubby health — myself." Julia Grant died on October 4, 1975, aged 99.

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Esther Cleveland -

Esther Cleveland was born on September 9, 1893. She was President Grover Cleveland's second daughter and the first and only child of a president to be born in the White House.

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Esther Cleveland -

Esther Cleveland (far left) went on to marry a British Army Captain at Westminster Abbey in London. She died in Tamworth, New Hampshire, on June 25, 1980, at the age of 86.

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Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. -

Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. was born on January 17, 1915. The last baby to be born in the White House was the grandson of President Woodrow Wilson.

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Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. -

Francis Bowes Sayre Jr. became dean of Washington, D.C.'s National Cathedral in 1951. Unlike his grandfather, Sayre Jr. opposed segregation. In 1965 he joined the voting rights march in Alabama organized by Martin Luther King Jr. Sayre Jr. also served on the President's Committee on Equal Employment during the Kennedy Administration. He died in 2008, aged 93.

Sources: (Grunge) (The White House Historical Association) (The Fayetteville Observer) (National Archives)

See also: American presidents and their secret society connections

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