Fountain Hughes

Fountain Hughes (c. 1859 – July 4, 1957) was an American former enslaved person freed in 1865 after the American Civil War. Born in Charlottesville, Virginia, he worked as a laborer for most of his life, moving in 1881 from Virginia to Baltimore, Maryland. He was interviewed in June 1949 about his life by the Library of Congress as part of the Federal Writers' Project of formerly enslaved people’s oral histories. The recorded interview is online through the Library of Congress and the World Digital Library.

Fountain was a grandson of Wormley Hughes (1743-1858) and Ursula Granger, and great-great-grandson of Betty Hemings, the enslaved matriarch at Monticello. Wormley Hughes and his family were enslaved by President Thomas Jefferson.