Wisconsin was Home to a Confederate Spy, Thomas Jefferson’s Illegitimate Son and a Failed Hollywood Producer

What do a female Confederate spy, the illegitimate son of Thomas Jefferson, and a failed Hollywood tycoon have in common?

These disparate, fascinating personalities rest for all eternity in peaceful Wisconsin graveyards. Belle Boyd, the seductive Mata Hari of the Civil War, died in the Dells. Eston Hemings Jefferson, illegitimate child of President Thomas Jefferson, passed away in Madison. And Harry Aitken, the driving force behind D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation, eventually came home to Waukesha.

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Public Domain

Belle Boyd

Belle Boyd

Maria “Belle” Boyd, born in 1844, was 16 years old when she began managing her father’s Virginia hotel. Her curvy, buxom figure enchanted Union soldiers when they arrived for lodging, or a meal and she overheard bits and pieces of private conversations as she waited on them. Belle gave General Stonewall Jackson this information on a regular basis with the help of a slave, Eliza Hopewell. The two used a hollowed-out pocket watch so Eliza could pass the messages safely across enemy lines.

When several intoxicated soldiers assaulted her mother in one of the hotel’s parlors, Belle pulled a pistol and killed one of the men. While awaiting trial for murder, Belle initiated a clandestine affair with Captain Daniel Kelly, and he helped her escape in the middle of the night. She was recaptured and sentenced to be hanged. Using another man, Belle escaped again, and with a set of forged documents, she arrived at the General’s camp. For her bravery, Jackson awarded her the Southern Cross of Honor. He also made her his personal aide-de-camp, which no doubt raised more than a few eyebrows.

For the next year, Belle avoided arrest by Union troops but was eventually apprehended and taken to Washington D.C.  While in Old Capitol Prison, she seduced an officer named Samuel Harding and became pregnant. The couple fled to England where she supported Harding and their daughter as a music hall entertainer. Harding died unexpectedly just as Belle was finding success as an actress on London’s stages. At the end of the Civil War, she returned to the United States and earned a fortune in theaters and opera houses performing a racy melodrama of her life as a spy. She also married and divorced two ardent lovers and gave birth to four more children. Belle also published a highly fictionalized autobiography that became a bestseller. In 1900, she suffered a fatal heart attack while promoting her book in Wisconsin Dells. Only 56 years old, Belle Boyd was buried in the Dells’ Spring Grove Cemetery. Her autobiography and a few non-fiction books are still in print and range from $5 to $60 on eBay.

Passing for White

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Photo by MadisonIthaca - WikiMedia Commons

Grave of Eston Hemings Jefferson

Grave of Eston Hemings Jefferson

In 1827, Thomas Jefferson’s will stated that five of his slaves be freed. Among them were his mistress, Sally Hemings, and two of the children he fathered with her. Jefferson’s 400 other slaves were sold to pay off the considerable debts against his estate. Sally was only one-quarter black, and occasionally her sons could pass for white. Jefferson’s illegitimate son Eston, already a skilled carpenter and proficient violin player, was 19 years old upon his release from Monticello. He found lucrative employment in a Charlottesville, Virginia woodworking shop and built a house for his mother and older brother, Madison. Both brothers married, started families and lived with Sally until her death in 1835. 

A few years later, Madison and Eston moved their families to Ohio, a free state and an important part of the Underground Railroad network. When the Fugitive Slave Act was enacted in 1850, Eston moved his wife and three children further north to avoid capture by the bounty hunters. Settling in Madison, Wisconsin, Eston changed his surname to Hemings Jefferson, and the family lived comfortably in the white community.

When he passed away in 1856 at age 48, America was preparing for a war. In the waning years of the 19th century, Eston’s children and grandchildren faced public scorn from a handful of influential voices who challenged the family legend that connected Eston with his famous father, Finally, in 1998, a series on DNA tests proved once and for all that Eston Hemings was indeed the son of Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings.

Wisconsin Klan Connection

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Public Domain

Harry Aitken

Harry Aitken

Born in 1877 on a farm near Goerkes Corners in Waukesha, Harry Aitken became fascinated by the shabby, turn-of-the-century storefronts that were outfitted to show the first silent movies produced by inventor Thomas Edison. Aitken studied the business model of a nickel theater and partnered with John Freuler, a wealthy Milwaukee investor. Violating the Edison company’s patents, they made their own movies and delivered them weekly to hundreds of theaters in 45 cities. 

In 1908 Aitken and Freuler went to Los Angeles and built a large movie studio of their own. They offered British vaudevillian Charlie Chaplin $10,000 a week to make 20-minute comedies for their rapidly growing theater chain. When Chaplin discovered his films were grossing more than $5 million annually, the popular comedian demanded a percentage of the profit. Instead, Freuler and Aitken sold the motion picture studio, divided the considerable assets and dissolved their partnership. 

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‘Birth of a Nation’ Poster

Aitken used his assets to finance a groundbreaking two-hour movie proposed by a talented filmmaker, D.W. Griffith. Based on a popular racist novel, The Clansman, Griffith’s epic film was titled The Birth of a Nation, and it sold out wherever it was shown. 

Without informing Aitken, Griffith made a back-door deal with Louis B. Mayer, a shrewd Boston businessman who operated a large scrap metal yard. Mayer had seen the film and immediately sensed its potential. After lining up engagements at hundreds of theaters in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont, Mayer gave $25,000 in cash to Griffith. The investment returned nearly $250,000, money that legally as well as ethically should have been used to retire Aitken’s outstanding loans. 

Mayer became the CEO of a tiny California movie studio that he transformed into the world-famous MGM. Unable to pay of his debts, Aitken declared bankruptcy and returned to Waukesha a defeated man. His attempts to start businesses in Wisconsin were only marginally successful. The one-time movie mogul died in 1956 and was buried in Prairie Home Cemetery near the farm where he was born.

Is Harry wandering along the freeways that devoured the streets of his childhood? Is Belle still using her charms on behalf of the Confederacy? Does a man once owned by a United States president roam the town where he became truly free? It’s possible …