In 1836 Madison, Mary and their infant daughter Sarah left Charlottesville for Pike County, Ohio, probably to join his brother Eston, who had already moved there with his own family. They lived in Chillicothe, which had a thriving free black community, abolitionists among both races, and a station of the Underground Railroad. Surviving records in Pike County state that Hemings purchased for $150 on July 22, 1856, sold the same area for $250 on December 30, 1859, and purchased for $10 per acre on September 25, 1865. The Hemings had more children born in Ohio.