ABSTRACT
Francis Jefferson Roberson was born in Saint Louis, Missouri, the son of William A.Roberson and Lucy Jefferson Roberson. His father, a free person of color before the Civil War, was the proprietor of a prosperous barbershop and massage parlor housed in one of Saint Louis’ premier hotels until his death in 1878.1 Francis’s mother was born in slavery in Mississippi. Her father, also a slave, was, according to family oral history, a natural son of Thomas Jefferson.
