Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author
events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XV, Number 12 December
1, 2018
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving,
never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
MEET
THE FAMILY: The day of the evening of September 20 when I did a talk
on Saving Monticello on the mountaintop,
I sat down with a Monticello video crew in one of the upstairs rooms to talk
about the Levy family.
The result is a recently released
short video in which Monticello’s long-time curator Susan Stein and I give the
highlights of the debt we all owe to Uriah P. Levy and his nephew Jefferson M.
Levy for their decades of stewardship of Thomas Jefferson’s iconic “Essay in
Architecture.”
A link to a one-minute version of
the video, entitled “Meet the Family That Saved Monticello,” was sent out to
Monticello’s friends and supporters in an email late in November.
You can watch it yourself on
YouTube at http://bit.ly/LevyVideo
The Foundation also posted a two-minute
version on its Twitter feed.
JML in
the SAR: I remember thinking when I
learned that Jonah Phillips—Uriah Levy’s grandfather and Jefferson M. Levy’s great
grandfather—had joined a Philadelphia military unit during the Revolutionary
War that all of his descendants would be eligible for membership in the
Daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution.
I
pointed out that fact during many of my talks on the book and the family, after
giving a brief synopsis of Jonas Phillips’ life.
But I had no idea until a few weeks ago that Jefferson
Levy actually did join the SAR, which was founded in 1889. It is a descendants
group in which full membership requires documentation that you are directely descended from a patriot—someone who served in the Continental Army or
otherwise supported the Revolutinary War
I
discovered Jefferson Levy’s SAR membership when a friend and colleague, Maral
Kalbian, was digging throuhg 19th century documents on line and
found Jefferson Levy’s 1894 application to join the then-new SAR. The image to
the left is the application’s first page.
EVENTS: Just one
scheduled event in December, a holiday sale on Thursday, December 13, with a
group of vendors at a private house near Leesburg, Virginia. I’ll be signing
copies of Saving Monticello and my
other in-print book from 11:00 to mid-afternoon. Interested? Feel free to email
me and I’ll get back to you with details. marcleepson@gmail.com
There may be another last-minute
talk or signing popping up before the end of the year. For the latest on that,
go to the Events page on my website at http://leepsoncalendar.blogspot.com
If you’d like to arrange an event
for Saving Monticello—or for any of
my other books, including Ballad of the
Green Beret—please email me.
For info on my latest book, Ballad of the Green Beret, go to http://bit.ly/GreenBeretBook
For details on other upcoming
events, the page is http://leepsoncalendar.blogspot.com
GIFT IDEAS:
Want a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello? Please e-mail me at marcleepson@gmail.com I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover
copies, along with a good selection of brand-new copies of my other books: Flag: An American Biography; Desperate
Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life; and Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars
of Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.
