Thomas Jefferson's Florida
- citruslandfl
- Mar 17
- 5 min read
A Women’s History Month Blog
Part 1: Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine:
Maria died 8 September 1896 while visiting her son, Dr. Francis Eppes Shine, in New York City. A St. Augustine sweetheart for more than a quarter century at the time of her death, news of Maria’s passing at age 56 cast a bleak cloud over much of Florida, a deep sorrow that reached far beyond the ancient walls of the State’s oldest city. Buried in Orlando, home of St. Luke’s Church that had been founded by her parents, family members desiring to attend Maria’s funeral services would have had to travel from Florida’s Jacksonville, St. Augustine and Tallahassee, as well as such distant historic Virginia places as Alexandria and Albemarle County, home of Maria's great-grandfather’s Monticello.
A distinguished member of a Quintessential Florida family, Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine knew well her family’s contributions to the amazing story of both her home State and the Nation. Her father, Francis Wayles Eppes, had arrived in West Florida sixteen years before Statehood, when the entire Florida Territory was home to fewer than 35,000 citizens. Few families could tout a Florida history dating prior to the arrival of Francis Wayles Eppes, the grandson of President Thomas Jefferson.
Maria’s father, after departing his grandfather’s Monticello in Virginia, settled in 1829 on the outskirts of Tallahassee, where he established Magnolia Plantation. Maria herself was born on 12 April 1840 in Tallahassee, when the Territory’s population had grown to 55,000. Five years after her birth, Florida became the 27th State of these United States.
Dr. William & Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine Residence, St. Augustine
At the time of her death in 1896, Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine was the Organizing-Regent of a planned St. Augustine Chapter of The Daughters of the American Revolution. The local chapter was to have as its namesake Maria’s Grandmother, Maria (Jefferson) Eppes, one of only two daughters of the author of our Declaration of Independence to bear children.
This author, on 12 March 2025, had the honor of being the guest speaker at the Maria Jefferson Chapter of the NSDAR monthly meeting. Since its founding, this NSDAR Chapter has worked tirelessly to preserve the history of St. Augustine.
Maria’s obituary appeared in the Savannah Morning News of 11 September and Alexandria Gazette of 12 September 1896. “Leaving St. Augustine in good health,” it was reported, she died suddenly in New York City while visiting her son. On her way north, said the Savannah paper, Maria had also visited her cousin, Mrs. J. W. Burke, in Alexandria. The wife of John W. Burke, the “Mrs.” is more accurately described as Martha Jefferson (Trist) Burke, a great-granddaughter of President Thomas Jefferson by his oldest daughter Martha.
Like that of Francis W. Eppes, the Burke’s became Orlando landowners in the post-Civil War years of the 1870s, receiving land adjacent to the homestead of Francis W. Eppes on Lake Pineloch in Orange County. Francis Eppes and Nicholas Trist, both young men when residents of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello prior to the President’s death on 4 July 1826, each received 80 acres in a little-known 1871 land transaction in the historic Fort Gatlin area south of Orlando. Martha (Trist) Burke, wife of John W., inherited her father’s 80 acres upon his death.
Francis Wayles Eppes, having lost his entire “Florida Panhandle” wealth in the Civil War, relocated his family, with exception of daughter Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine and her husband, to Orange County in Central Florida to begin anew.
More on the Eppes / Randolph families of Central Florida can be found in Beyond Gatlin: A History of South Orange County, by this author.
The St. Augustine Eppes Branch:
As for Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine, ties to the birth of our Nation derive from both her father and mother. On her paternal side was Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence. On her mother’s side, Susan Margaret (Ware), the second wife of Francis Wayles Eppes, were numerous Patriots including Dr. Robert Ware. Susan, the daughter of Georgia’s Senator and Governor Nicholas Ware (1776-1824), was a granddaughter of Dr. Robert Alexander Ware (1752-1817), the latter, according to the NSDAR, “was a gallant officer in the Virginia Militia, known as the Minute Men.” He was wounded three times during the Revolutionary War.
Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine, in December 1865, married Dr. William Francis Shine in Tallahassee, where both families were residing prior to the Civil War. Maria, at the time of her marriage in December 1865, was the stepsister to five-living “Eppes” siblings by her father’s first marriage to Mary Elizabeth Cleland (Randolph 1801-1835), and the second oldest of five natural siblings at the time of her death. Two half-siblings and four natural siblings were still residents of Florida at the time of Maria’s death in 1896.
Eppes Sisters Married Shine Brothers
Three daughters of Francis & Susan Eppes married three sons of Richard Alexander & Mary Ann (Maultsby) Shine of Tallahassee. Maria Jefferson (Eppes) married Dr. William Francis Shine (1835-1910) in 1865; Martha Virginia (Eppes1847-1920) married Thomas Jabez Shine (1842-1889) in 1866; and Carolina Matilda (Eppes 1857-1940) married Dudley S. Shine, Sr (1853-1939) in 1885. Daughter Martha Jefferson (Eppes) Shine, after the death of Thomas, remarried Reverend Henry W. Greetham. Dudley and Carolina (Eppes) Shine eventually relocated to Jacksonville.
Three (Eppes) Shine Sisters became Mothers of Doctors:
Twenty-six years to the day following the death of Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine, in far off France, Maria’s one and only son, Dr. Francis Eppes Shine, died at the American Hospital. “Dr. Shine,” reported the New York Times of 22 September 1922, “who was the great-great-grandson of Thomas Jefferson, was born at St. Augustine, Florida, January 13, 1871. In the Chinese Relief Expedition in 1900,” continued the Times, “he served on the Hospital Ship Maine. After he moved to Arizona in 1903, he became chief surgeon of the El Paso & The Southwestern Railroad, and of the Copper Queen Consolidated Mining Company.”
Eppes Returns to Monticello:
Nearly a century after his great-grandfather, Francis Wayles Eppes, departed Virginia and the beautiful residence of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, the remains of Dr. Francis Eppes Shine, son of Maria Jefferson (Eppes) Shine, were returned from France and laid to rest in Monticello Graveyard - on the historic grounds of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in Albemarle County, Virginia. Such a burial right is reserved only for lineal descendants and their spouses of Thomas Jefferson.
Next Sunday, March 23, 2025, Part 2: Martha Virginia (Eppes) Shine
Bring the family to Ethel Heritage Day
And stop by my Cronin Books Booth & say hello!
I invite you to peruse my books at www.CroninBooks.com
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