Washington's Family Secret?

By CBSNews.com staff CBSNews.com staff

July 8, 1999 / 11:53 AM EDT / CBS

It was a family secret passed on by word of mouth from generation to generation with the understanding to not tell any white person. The secret is out, and sisters Linda Bryant and Janet Allen, descendants of a slave, are trying to prove that they are direct descendants of George Washington, America's founding father. CBS This Morning Co-Anchor Mark McEwen reports.

Linda Bryant and her sister Janet Allen, who come from a family of ten children, say they decided in 1996 for their mother's sake to tell their story.

"Our mother couldn't get it out in her time because of the civil rights era, lynchings, and pot shots that were taken at the family. So we kept quiet until we recently came out," says Allen.

The family story that Allen and Bryant were told is that George Washington, about five years before he became president, fathered a son named West Ford with Venus, a slave on the plantation of Washington's half brother John Augustine Washington. His plantation was called Bushfield and was located about a one and a half to two days' ride from Mount Vernon, Washington's home.

Basically bringing our story public is more of a ritual of pride to the Ford descendants, instead of a bid for public acceptance about his alleged paternity. West Ford has been in literature since 1850. So it really has been public knowledge for quite some time," Says Bryant.

One of the pieces of evidence that Linda Bryant says that her family has is the preferential treatment that West Ford received from the Washington family. In her will Hannah Washington, John's wife, directed that West Ford be inoculated against smallpox, trained in a trade until he was 21 and then freed.

Linda Bryant

You have to understand West Ford was a "white slave," says Bryant. "He was fair-skinned, he had blue-gray eyes and red hair. You have to imagine him living as a white slave on the Bushfield plantation. From the time of his birth, he was told that even though his skin was white, the Washington family would never claim him as a Washington," Bryant says.

Historian Richard Brookhiser, author of a biography of Washington called Founding Father, disagrees, although he does not discount a family connection.

"I think there is a Washington connection with West Ford. I think it is more likely that his father was George Washington's nephew, Bushrod, who was an important man, an associate justice of the Supreme Court," he says.

Brookhiser says that Washington's movements have been carefully studied during the time in question, and there is no proof that he went t the plantation where Venus lived during that time. West Ford's birth, he says, came"at a very busy time in Washington's life, when he was winding up the Revolutionary War and being constantly besieged by visitors at Mount Vernon."

It also is believed that Washington was sterile. He and his wife Martha had no children, although she was a widow with four children when they were married in their late 20s.

West Ford died in 1863. His burial place is unknown, making a DNA comparison that would prove their claim more difficult for his descendants. Recently, DNA sample comparison solidified the long-debated claim of descendants of slave Sally Hemmings that her child was fathered by Thomas Jefferson.

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