Lydia Broadnax (Liddy Brawnix) (d. by 1827) lived by 1783 in Williamsburg as the slave of George Wythe, who manumitted her in 1787 when she was “more than forty five Years old.” Broadnax continued to work for Wythe as a paid domestic servant, presumably moving with him to Richmond in 1791. By 1797 she owned property in Richmond, on which she later collected rent from boarders. Broadnax was present the day Wythe died in 1806. He had probably been poisoned by his great nephew, and she became ill from the same cause. Her testimony against the likely perpetrator was not heard in court because Broadnax was African-American. Wythe provided for her continued support in his will. In 1806 TJ borrowed a portrait of Wythe from Broadnax in order to have a copy made, and the following year he gave her $50 in response to a letter in which she complained of failing eyesight attributable to the poisoning and asked for “some charitable aid.” In her 1820 will, admitted to probate in 1827, Broadnax left her house and half-acre lot in Richmond to her great nephews (Andrew Nunn McKnight, “Lydia Broadnax, Slave, and Free Woman of Color,” Southern Studies, new ser. 5 [1994]: 17–30; York Co. Deed Book, 6:351; Wythe’s will, 20 Apr. 1803, with codicils of 19 Jan., 24 Feb., and 1 June 1806, admitted to probate 11 June 1806 [DLC: TJ Papers, 131:22615, 159:27971–2]; Broadnax to TJ, 9 Apr. 1807 [MHi]; TJ to George Jefferson, 18 Apr. 1807 [NN: Richard John Levy and Sally Waldman Sweet Collection]; DNA: RG 29, CS, Richmond, 1810, 1820; Richmond City Hustings Court Will Book, 4:361–2).

The letter above is probably not in Broadnax’s hand, given her declining eyesight in 1807 and the fact that she signed her will with a mark in 1820.