He was interviewed in June 1949 about his life by the Library of Congress as part of the Federal Writers' Project of former slaves' oral histories.

[3] Fountain was a grandson of Wormley Hughes (1781–1858) and Ursula Granger, and great-great-grandson of Betty Hemings, the slave matriarch at Monticello.

After Thomas Jefferson's death in 1826, Wormley Hughes (who had worked as a gardener[4]) was among a group of slaves who were "given their time."

This was an informal freedom, a non-legally binding release from the demands of enslavement without legal release, awarded usually to respective members of the slave-holder's own enslaved descendants and, at times, to other slaves deemed to have shown especially dedicated service.

Despite this, Hughes' wife Ursula and all their children were sold in 1827, along with all but five slaves from Monticello, to settle outstanding debts of the estate.

Three daughters of Hughes were sold ultimately to people in Missouri and Mississippi; others stayed closer.

By the 1920 census and thereafter, Hughes was enumerated to have been born circa 1849, contradicting at least 40 years' worth of prior documentary evidence in favor of the 1859–1863 deduction(s).

Using the 1870–1910 census data gives Hughes an age of approximately 94–98 years at the time of his death (as opposed to a claimed 109) in 1957.