2008-2014

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson Volume XI, Number 12                                                                     December 1, 2014 Fact or Fiction: Matthew Kraus, a professor in the Department of Judaic Studies at the University of Cincinnati, asked me to review Commodore Levy: A Novel of Early America in the Age of Sail written by the late Irving Litvak and edited by Bonny V. Fetterman (Texas Tech University Press, 672 pp, $45.00) for H-Judaic, the on-line Jewish studies network. I was pleased to do so and my review was published late in November. “Uriah Phillips Levy is perhaps the most celebrated member of one of the nation’s most celebrated eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Jewish American families,” I wrote, then went on to give a capsule history of the family, beginning with Dr. Samuel Nunez, UPL’s great-great grandfather who was among forty-two Sephardic Jews fleeing the Spanish Inquisition who arrived in Savannah, Georgia, in 1733. I then talked about Levy’s legacy as a hero of the War of 1812, and as the first Jewish-American to have a full Navy career and the first to reach the Navy’s highest rank, Commodore. And, of course, I mentioned that Levy, an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson, bought Monticello in 1834 when it was falling apart and repaired, restored, and preserved the place. I went on to mention that the best treatment of Levy’s life is Ira Dye’s Uriah Levy: Reformer of the Antebellum Navy (2006). And that the 1963 bio, Navy Maverick by Donovan Fitzpatrick and Saul Saphire, was filled with speculative and poorly sourced information. I had to report that Litvag, a former news writer for the CBS Radio Network and a long-time public relations executive, used the unreliable Navy Maverick as what he called “a road map and guide” for his Commodore Levy, which he described as “neither biography nor a work of history.” Litvag, who died in 2005, produced a long novel replete with one invented character and oceans of made-up dialogue. The book gets most of the important facts of Levy’s long life correct. But since it’s a historical novel with large amounts of fanciful writing, it is not a completely true picture of the man’s life. Even so, while a certain amount of leeway should be allowed a historical novel, there simply are too many imagined conversations, too much labeling of emotions, and far too much speculative scene setting. I went on to point out several inaccuracies in the book. And then I covered Litvag’s handling of the sensitive issue of Uriah Levy’s ownership of slaves at Monticello. My conclusion: Many parts of this book are very interesting. But it is not the book to go to for a completely factual look at Uriah Levy’s life. As far as its literary merit is concerned, I said, Litvak did a credible job. It’s not War and Peace, but contains well-imagined vignettes that highlight the often dramatic life and times of a noteworthy figure in Jewish American history.  To read the entire review, go to http://bit.ly/UPLreview EVENTS:  Here’s a rundown on my December events. All of them are talks on my latest book, What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life. ·        Thursday, December 4 – 11:30 a.m. talk at the monthly meeting of the Albemarle DAR Chapter in Charlottesville, Virginia ·        Saturday, December 6 – 12:15 p.m. talk at the monthly meeting of the Fairfax DAR Chapter in Fairfax, Virginia ·        Thursday, December 11 – 7:00 p.m. talk at Kings Park Library, 9000 Burke Lake Rd., Burke, Virginia. Free and open to the public. For info, call 703-978-5600 or go to http://bit.ly/KingsParkLibrary ·        Friday, December 12 – 11:30 a.m. talk at the monthly meeting of the Commonwealth DAR Chapter, Glen Allen, Virginia ·        Saturday, December 13 – 11:00 a.m. talk at the monthly meeting of the Nelly Custis DAR Chapter, Alexandria, Virginia ·        Sunday, December 14 – 2:00 p.m. talk at the Thomas Balch Library, 208 W. Market St., Leesburg, Virginia. Free and open to the public. For info, call, 703-737-7150 or go to http://bit.ly/BalchTalk  Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event for that book—or for any of my other books. Marc527psc@aol.com  For more details on other upcoming events, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That’s the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower.

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter The latest about the book, author events, and more Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson Volume XI, Number 11                                                                        November 1, 2014 Monticello in the EB: In last month’s newsletter, I reported that the editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica had asked me to expand the EB entry on Francis Scott Key based on my new biography, What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life. The editor also asked me to redo the EB entry on Monticello, which I was very pleased to do. I added an important part of the story of Monticello to the entry—what happened there after Thomas Jefferson died. Here’s an excerpt from the entry, which was posted in mid October. It amounts to a summary of the main parts of Saving Monticello: When Thomas Jefferson died at Monticello on July 4, 1826, he left his heirs more than $107,000 in debts. Thomas Jefferson Randolph—Jefferson’s grandson and the executor of his estate—put Monticello on the market to try to raise cash to pay off the debt. In 1827 Randolph and his mother auctioned off Jefferson’s slaves, household furniture and furnishings, supplies, grain, and farm equipment. Then they sold or gave to relatives nearly all of his artwork, along with thousands of acres of land he owned. In 1831 the Randolphs sold the house and 552 acres to James Turner Barclay, a Charlottesville druggist, for about $7,000. Barclay sold it and 218 acres in 1834 to U.S. Navy Lieut. Uriah Phillips Levy, an ardent Jefferson admirer. Levy, the first Jewish American to make a career as a U.S. Navy officer, made much-needed repairs to Monticello and opened the house to visitors. During the Civil War the South seized Monticello because it was owned by a Northerner. It was briefly owned by Benjamin Ficklin, a Confederate officer, but returned to the Levy family after the war. When Uriah Levy died in 1862, his heirs challenged his will, which directed that Monticello be used as an agricultural school for the orphans of navy warrant officers. Seventeen years of legal wrangling ensued, during which time Monticello fell into near ruin. In 1879 Uriah Levy’s nephew—Jefferson Monroe Levy, a prominent New York City lawyer, stock and real estate speculator, and three-term U.S. congressman—bought out the other heirs and gained title to Monticello. He immediately began repairing and restoring Monticello and its grounds. By 1911 a national movement was in full swing to take the house from Jefferson Levy and turn it over to the federal government to be used as a shrine to Jefferson. Bills were introduced in Congress that would have done so; none became law. In 1919 Levy put Monticello on the market. The newly formed private nonprofit Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation bought Monticello and its 640 acres from Levy in December 1923 for his asking price of $500,000. Levy died soon thereafter. To read the entire new Encyclopedia Britannica entry on Monticello, go to http://bit.ly/FSKEncyBrit  To read the FSK entry, go to http://bit.ly/FSKEncyBrit At Monticello I spent a very enjoyable day on Saturday, October 25, signing books at the Gift Shop at Monticello. As usual, I met many interesting people and had some great conversations. What’s more, It was a picture-perfect fall day in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. But don’t just take my word for it. SM Newsletter subscriber Rebecca English, who lives in Charlottesville and stopped by to say hello (with coffee!), took this great photo on one of the trails on the Monticello grounds.  EVENTS:  Here’s a rundown on my November events: ·        Saturday, November 8 – 11:30 a.m. talk on Francis Scott Key at the monthly meeting of the George Washington Chapter, Sons of the American Revolution, in Alexandria, Virginia ·        Thursday November 13 – 10:30 a.m. talk on Francis Scott Key at the monthly meeting of the Mount Vernon DAR Chapter, Alexandria, Virginia. ·        Thursday, November 13 – 8:00 p.m. talk on Saving Monticello as part of the NVHA Distinguished Speaker Series at the Northern Virginia Hebrew Congregation, 1441 Wiehle Ave, Reston, Virginia. The event is free and open to the public, For info, call 703-437-7733 or go to www.nvhcreston.org ·        Saturday, November 15 – 10:00 a.m. talk on Vietnam veterans issues at the monthly meeting of the Mine Run DAR Chapter, Germanna, Virginia ·        Tuesday, November 18 – 7:00 p.m. talk on Francis Scott Key at Middleburg Library, 101 Reed Street, Middleburg, Virginia. The event is free and open to the public. For info, call 540-687-5730. ·        Wednesday, November 19 – 5:30 p.m. talk on Francis Scott Key at Washington College in Chestertown, Maryland, sponsored by the C.V. Starr Center for the Study of the American Experience. The talk is free and open to the public. For info, go to www.washcoll.edu/centers/starr ·        Thursday, November 20 – 7:30 p.m. talk on Francis Scott Key at the monthly meeting of the Stone Bridge DAR Chapter, Sterling, Virginia ·        Saturday, November 22 – 10:00 a.m. talk on Lafayette at the monthly meeting of the Jamestown Chapter, Colonial Dames of the 17th Century, Alexandria, Virginia ·        Sunday, November 23 – 3:00 p.m. talk on Francis Scott Key for the Waterford Foundation at the Old School House, 40222 Fairfax Street, Waterford, Virginia. For info, call 540-882-3018. Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event for that book—or for any of my other books. Marc527psc@aol.com  For more details on other upcoming events, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That’s the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower.

Saving Monticello: The Newletter The latest about the book, author events, and more Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson Volume XI, Number 10                                                                        October 1, 2014 UPL and the War of 1812:  I had a call in mid-August from Melissa Gerr, a reporter for the Baltimore Jewish Times. She was preparing an article about Jewish patriots in the War of 1812 and wanted to interview me about Saving Monticello and Uriah Levy. We did the interview and her article appeared in the September 5 issue with the title “Jewish Patriots: Balancing Jewish American Identities During the War of 1812.” The well-done article also includes a section on Mendes Cohen (below), a first-generation Sephardic Jew who was born in Richmond and fought at Fort McHenry during the Battle of Baltimore—when Francis Scott Key wrote the “The Star-Spangled Banner.” “Cohen wasn’t watching, he was in Fort McHenry,” Marvin Pinkert, Executive Director of the Jewish Museum of Maryland, told Gerr. Cohen, Gerr notes, “volunteered for Capt. Nicholson’s Baltimore Fencibles artillery unit (volunteers were not required to swear oath upon a New Testament Bible, something Cohen refused to do) and was one of three men who bravely retrieved the main supply of gunpowder from its storage inside the fort after a bomb had landed in the magazine. Cohen and his fellow artillerymen saved the gunpowder supply—and the fort—from detonating.” Gerr’s section of Uriah Levy notes: “Leepson’s book, Saving Monticello, is Uriah P. Levy’s story, beginning when he was born in Philadelphia in 1792 as a fifth-generation Sephardic Jewish American—unique for that time—from great-great-grandparents who escaped Lisbon during the Inquisition of 1733.” I should point out that I tell the complete story of Monticello following Jefferson’s death—not just Uriah Levy’s, although his is at the heart of the book. I also cover the Randolph family and their decision to sell the place, the brief ownership of James Turner Barclay (1831-34) and the important role played by Uriah’s nephew Jefferson M. Levy, who owned Monticello from 1879-1923 and—like his uncle—saved it from ruin.  Not to nitpick, but in this otherwise excellent article, Gerr also says that Uriah Levy was held in Dartmoor Prison in England after his ship, The Argus, was captured by the British. As I point out in the book, Levy was, indeed, taken prisoner (along with the rest of the crew), but there is no evidence that he was held at that infamous prison. That misstatement is from a virtually un-sourced 1960s Levy bio. I also have to point out that while Gerr correctly notes that Levy “invested in real estate in the 1820s,” she then quotes me as saying he purchased “a farming village on the island of Manhattan” that eventually became Greenwich Village. That’s not what I said— or what’s in the book. I said that he bought eleven rooming houses in a section of New York City that was “a farming village,” and that it soon thereafter became the home of many artisans and took the name Greenwich Village. Also, Gerr writes: “After Levy’s death in 1862 in Brooklyn, N.Y., his nephew owned Monticello for a short time, and in 1923, he sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation.” Uriah Levy died in Manhattan and Jefferson Levy owned Monticello for forty-four years. You can read the entire article at http://bit.ly/LevyWarof1812 Monticello in the EB: The editor of the Encyclopedia Britannica asked me a couple of weeks ago if I would be interested in expanding the EB entry on Francis Scott Key. I was very much interested. If you go to the EB page for the Key entry (http://bit.ly/FSKEncyBrit) you can see what I wrote, which is based on my new FSK bio, What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life. The editor also asked me to add to the entry on Monticello to include a few hundred words on the subject of Saving Monticello: what happened after Thomas Jefferson died. I have written the copy; it has not yet been posted. I’m sure it will be by November 1, the next SM Newsletter, and I’ll report on it then. Stay tuned. STILL SELLING: I’m happy to report that Saving Monticello continues to attract new readers. Now in its sixth printing in paperback from the University of Virginia Press, SM today was listed as the 25th best-selling book on historic preservation on Amazon.com  At last count, there were fifty Amazon Reader Reviews; thirty-seven rated the book five stars; eight gave it four stars. EVENTS:  Here’s a rundown on my October events: Saturday, October  4  – A talk for the Henry Clay DAR Chapter in Annandale, Virginia on Francis Scott Key. Tuesday, October 7 – A talk on Francis Scott Key for the Williamsburg, Virginia DAR Chapter Saturday, October 11 – A talk for the Chevy Chase, Maryland, DAR Chapter on Francis Scott Key Saturday, October 18 – A book signing of Lafayette and What So Proudly We Hailed at the Heritage Day Festival in Hillsboro, Virginia. It’s an all-day event, beginning at 10:00 a.m. I’ll be on hand till around 2:00. What So Proudly We Hailed has been getting great buzz, including my appearance on CBS This Morning on Saturday, September 13 (in photo, above). Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event for that book—or for any of my other books. Marc527psc@aol.com  For more details on other upcoming events, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That’s the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Gift Ideas:  If you would like a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello, e-mail me at Marc527psc@aol.com Or go to this page of my website: http://marcleepson.com/signedbooks.html to order copies through my local bookstore, Second Chapter Books in Middleburg, Virginia. We also have copies of Desperate Engagement, Flag and Lafayette,& What So Proudly We Hailed.    The SM Newsletter On Line: You can read back issues of this newsletter at http://bit.ly/SMOnline: I welcome comments. If you have received this in error, or do not wish to continue receiving it, please send an email and I’ll take you off the list.

Monticello, July 2014, photo by Cara Leepson

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XI, Number 9                                                              September 1, 2014

NOT MONTICELLO:  In the fifteen years that I have been involved with researching, writing, and marketing Saving Monticello, I’ve periodically come across people around the county so enamored with Thomas Jefferson’s Essay in Architecture that they have felt compelled to build their own replica. The latest is a $6-million, 10,000-square-foot, virtually full-sized Monticello that is nearly complete in Somers, Connecticut.

The latest Monticello is being built by Helen and Prestley Blake, who is ninety-nine-years old and co-founded the Friendly’s Ice Cream restaurant chain with his brother Curtis in Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1935.  

Blake and his wife Helen will not live in the new Monticello. The plan is to sell it. “This is my swan song,” Prestley Blake said recently. “This is the last thing I’ll leave for posterity. I want this to be an asset to the community.”

Prestley Blake (pictured in the photo below with his brother Curtis in front of the first Friendly’s) has something in common with Uriah and Jefferson Levy, who owned Monticello from 1834 to 1923: He’s an ardent admirer of Thomas Jefferson. Since Monticello itself isn’t for sale—and never will be—Blake decided to build his own near his summer residence in Somers in Central Connecticut not far from the Massachusetts line.

Construction began last summer, and it appears the new Monticello will be complete by the end of September—a feat that Thomas Jefferson never dreamed of as he spent many years redesigning and rebuilding Monticello.

Prestley and Helen Blake took their general contractor to Virginia in May 2013 where they took pictures of  Mopnticello and picked up a book that contains Jefferson’s architectural drawings, most likely Monticello in Measured Drawings, which is published by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation and has twenty-eight measured drawings created by the 1990 Historic American Buildings Survey. 

Not all of the Connecticut Monticello will be Jeffersonian, however. There will be a three-car garage, an elevator and the kitchen will be on the ground floor. “It’s basically a design-build project as we go along,” the contractor, Raymond Laplante, told the Hartford Courant.

Prestley Blake is “very adamant about the outside being like the original,” Jennifer Champigny, the interior designer, said. “But, realistically, nobody would move into the original Monticello the way it is. So the modernized part of it, he’s definitely on board with that.”

To read the entire Hartford Courant article, go to http://bit.ly/BlakeMonticello

Events:  September will be my busiest book event month ever because of the 200^th anniversary of the Battle of Baltimore (September 12-14) and of Francis Scott Key writing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” All the events will deal with What So Proudly We Hailed, my new biography of Key. Here’s a rundown:

• Thursday, September 4  – A talk for the Eliza Monroe Chapter of the U.S. Daughters of the War of 1812 in Alexandria, Virginia
•  
• Friday, September 5 – A talk at the Historic Annapolis Museum, 99 Main Street in Annapolis at 7:00 p.m. Free and open to the public. For info, call 410-990-4783

• Tuesday, September 9  – A talk for the Kate Waller Barrett DAR Chapter in Alexandria, Virginia.

• Tuesday, September 9  –  A live appearance on the “Aspects of Writing Radio Show” on KLAV, Las Vegas at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time

• Wednesday, September 10 – An appearance on “Maryland Morning with Sheilah Kast” on WPPR-FM, Baltimore.

• Wednesday, September 10 – A talk at 7:00 p.m. at Washington Adventist University, Tacoma Park, Maryland

• Thursday, September 11 – A talk at 6:30 p.m. at the Enoch Pratt Free Library, 400 Cathedral Street in Baltimore.

• Friday, September 12 – A live appearance on WTOP radio in Washington, D.C. at 2:20 p.m. Eastern time.

• Saturday, September 13 – The Keynote Speech at the Francis Scott Key Legacy Society Dinner at the Virginia Episcopal Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia.

• Sunday, September 14 – A book signing at the Barnes & Noble Power Plant in downtown Baltimore, from noon to 3:00 p.m. at 601 E. Pratt St., 410-385-1709.

• Monday, September 15 – A 7:00 p.m. talk at Rust in Leesburg, Virginia,. 380 Old Waterford Rd 703-777-0323

           

• Thursday, September 18 – A talk at the monthly meeting of Vietnam Veterans of America Northern Virginia Chapter 227, Neighbor’s Restaurant, 262D Cedar Lane, Vienna, Virginia. Open to the public.

• Tuesday, September 23 – A talk at 7:00 p.m. George C. Marshall International Center, Leesburg, Virginia, 7717 Edwards Ferry Rd., Leesburg, Virginia.

• Saturday, September 27 - A talk at 1:00 p.m in the Peabody Room of the  Georgetown Neighborhood Library, 3260 R St., N.W., Washington, D.C. For info, call 202-727-0233.

What So Proudly We Hailed has been getting great buzz. Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event for that book—or for any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on other upcoming events, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower.

                                         Monticello, May 2014, photo by Cara Leepson

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XI, Number 8                                                  August 1, 2014

THE ROTUNDA:  Jefferson Levy, who owned Monticello from 1879 until he sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923, was a wealthy lawyer and real estate and stock speculator who split his time between New York City and Charlottesville. Levy had real estate holdings in both places—and also played the part of a civic-minded citizen in New York and Virginia.

In April 1899, for example, in commemoration of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, Jefferson Levy gave the University of Virginia a large regulator clock for its library and a device that electronically controlled the bells in all the University’s lecture rooms.

He also presented the University with two 56-inch steel clock dials for the centerpiece of the school, the Thomas-Jefferson designed Rotunda overlooking the main part of the Jefferson’s original “Academical Village,” the Lawn. The original clocks had been lost in a disastrous 1895 fire.

The Rotunda—which, along with Monticello, Independence Hall in Philadelphia, and the Statue of Liberty, is a UNESCO World Heritage site—and the 1895 fire are in the news today as U-Va. has begun a $42-million dollar restoration and renovation of the building. The structure was rebuilt after the fire by the New York architectural firm of McKim, Mead and White. Stanford White (1853-1906) himself—the designer of the old Madison Square Garden in New York who was considered the premier American architect of the late 19^th century—took charge of the project.

           

A view of the Rotunda—which Thomas Jefferson modeled after the Pantheon in Rome—from the Lawn surrounded by the buildings in which the University’s first students and professors lived and classes were held. A select group of fourth-year students today gets to live in rooms on the Lawn.

  

White rebuilt the Rotunda with his own touches, including adding a staircase on the rear entrance (seen from the road) and two new wings. More changes were made in 1938 and in 1976, restoring more of elements of Jefferson’s original design. Last year a new copper roof was installed and extensive repairs made to the masonry and windows.

The new restoration and renovation, which is being paid for with private contributions and state money, will include lots of nuts and bolts work on the buildings mechanical systems. Plus, workers will be–among other things—replacing the portico roofs, installing a new elevator, replacing the Dome Room ceiling, repairing and installing new drains, and doing extensive landscaping on the courtyards and the north terraces.

“The overarching goals of this work are to protect and sustain the University of Virginia’s most important architectural asset,” David Neuman, the University’s Architect, said.

U-Va. has an excellent web page that tells the entire story of the Rotunda:  http://rotunda.virginia.edu

A NOVEL LIFE: Texas Tech University Press has just published Commodore Levy: A Novel of Early America in the Age of Sail, a fictionalized account of the life of Uriah Phillips Levy, who owned Monticello from 1834 until his death in 1862. The book was written by the late Irving Litvag, who died before it was published. Bonny V. Fetterman completed the manuscript. 

Levy’s “life is tailor-made for an historical novel, and, after years of painstaking research, Irving Litvag has written it,” Brandies University Jewish Studies Professor Jonathan Sarna said of the book, calling it “a one-of-a-kind portrait of an early American Jewish hero.”

Look for our review in an upcoming issue of this newsletter.

Events:  Here’s a rundown my August events:

Saturday, August 2  – I will be taking part in the Hillsboro Farmers Market from 10:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. at the historic Old Stone School in the small Western Loudoun County, Virginia, town of Hillsboro, signing copies of What So Proudly We Hailed and Lafayette. It’s a fundraiser for the Hillsboro Community Association, which maintains the school.

Friday, August 15 – I’ll be appearing live on “Midday with Dan Rodricks” on WYPR-FM, the Baltimore NPR station, from 1:00 to 2:00 Eastern time, talking about What So Proudly We Hailed

Tuesday August 19  – A talk on What So Proudly We Hailed at 7:00 p.m. at the Riversdale House Museum, 4811 Riverdale Rd., Riverdale Park, Maryland.

Saturday, August 23  – My part in the all-day Frederick Under the Flag commemoration will be an 11:00 a.m. talk on What So Proudly We Hailed at the Frederick (Hessian) Barracks on the Campus of Maryland School for the Deaf, 101 Clarke Place in Frederick, Maryland. For more info call 301-600-4045 or go to http://bit.ly/FrederickEvent

What So Proudly We Hailed is the first full-length Francis Scott Key biography in more than seventy-five years. It’s been getting great buzz. Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event for that book—or for any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on my speaking events for 2014, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Monticello photo by Cara Rose Leepson, June 2014

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XI, Number 7                                                  July 1, 2014

UPL’S WILL: As I noted in Saving Monticello, when Uriah Levy died on March 22, 1862, he left behind a large estate—and one very strange will, most notably the section dealing with what he wanted to be done with Monticello. Levy had written his will four years earlier. At the time of his death, in addition to Monticello and the surrounding acreage, he owned more than two dozen properties in New York, primarily rooming houses and other residential real estate in Greenwich Village. That property subsequently was valued at $330,600, a very tidy mid-19^th century sum.

Levy bequeathed all of his city property to his young wife, Virginia Lopez Levy, along with all his household furniture. Upon her death or marriage, he directed that the furniture go to his favorite nephew, Asahel—referred to in the will as “Ashel”—S. Levy, a New York City lawyer, one of eight executors his uncle named for his estate.

As for Monticello, the will reads: “I give, devise and bequeath my Farm and Estate at Monticello in Virginia, formerly belonging to President Jefferson” along with a significant chunk of New York City real estate, to “the People of the United States” for “the sole and only purpose of establishing and maintaining” there “an Agricultural School for the purpose of educating as practical farmers children of the warrant office of the United States Navy whose Fathers are dead.”

No one who has studied Uriah Levy’s life has come to close to figuring out what was in his mind when he decided to turn Monticello into a farm school for Navy warrant officers’ orphan boys. Nor do we know why he directed that, failing Congress’s approval of the plan, Monticello should go to the state of Virginia for the same purpose. If Virginia refused, Jefferson’s mansion was to go to the Portuguese Hebrew congregations of New York, Philadelphia, and Richmond.

Congress never took action on the bequest and Levy’s heirs sued his estate starting what would become a seventeen-year legal battle during which a all-but-neglected Monticello almost went into ruin. But that’s another story—one that is at the center of Saving Monticello.

March 24, 1862, New York Daily Tribune notice of Uriah Levy's death

When I was doing research for the book, I found a copy of Levy’s will in the files of the Jewish Historical Society of New York. I recently came across an article reporting that the will had been admitted to probate that appeared in The New York Times on May 28, 1862. The headline reads: “LOCAL INTELLIGENCE.; The Will of Commodore Uriah P. Levy. VALUABLE REQUEST TO THE NATIONAL GOVERNMENT PRIVATE LEGACIES.

The anonymous reporter got his details right. Here are some excerpts:

The will of Commodore LEVY was presented to the Surrogate yesterday for probate. Its provisions are of great public interest, and call for detailed notice:

The Executors named in the will are Benjamin F. Butler, D.V.S. Coddington, Ashael S. Levy, and Jos. H. Patten, of this City; Dr. Joshua Cohen, and Jacob S. Cohen, of Baltimore; George Carr, Esq., of Charlottesville, Va., and Dr. Blake, of Washington.

Mrs. Levy receives only her right of dower and all the household furniture, plate, &c., so long as she shall remain unmarried, excepting what is otherwise bequeathed to revert upon her death or marriage. Capt. Levy’s nephew, Ashel S. Levy, receives the Washington farm, in Albemarle, Va., with all the negro slaves, &c., and $5,000 in cash; also, his gold box with the freedom of the City of New-York.

He leaves to his brother, Joseph M. Levy, $1,000 in cash, and mortgage on his house in Baltimore; to his brother, Isaac Levy, $1,000, and all debts due him on notes; to Mitchell M. Levy, son of his brother, Joseph P. Levy, $1,000 in cash; to Eliza Hendricks, of Cincinnati, Ohio, the income of $1,000; to his nephew, Morton Phillips, of New-Orleans, his gold hunting-watch and $500; to Col. T. Moses, of South Carolina, a large silver urn, formerly belonging to Dr. Phillips, on which is to be engraved, “From Capt. Uriah P. Levy, United States Navy, to his kinsman, Col. Franklin Moses, State Senator of the State of South Carolina, as a testimony of my affection.”

There are also legacies of $100 each to Capt. John B. Montgomery, Capt. Lawrence Kearney and Capt. Francis Gregory, United States Navy, and Benjamin F. Butler, to purchase mourning rings. To Lieuts. Peter Turner and John Moffatt United States Navy, and Dr. J. Cohen and Jacob J. Cohen, Jr., Col. M. Cohen. United States Navy: Lieut. Lanier, Capt. William Mervine and Commodore Thomas Ap C. Jones, each $25, to purchase mourning rings.

The will directs the executors to erect a monument at Cypress Hills, to consist of a full length statue of Capt. Levy, in iron or bronze, in the full uniform of a Captain of the United States Navy, and holding in his hand a scroll on which shall be inscribed: "Under this Monument," or, "In Memory of Uriah P. Levy, Captain in the United States Navy, Father of the Law for the Abolition of the Barbarous Practice of Corporeal Punishment in the Navy of the United States." The monument is to cost $6,000, and the body is to be buried under it.

To the Historical Society are bequeathed three paintings -- "The Wreck of the Medusa Frigate," by Gericault; "The Descent of the Infant Jesus," and "Virgin Confessing the Bishop of Rouen," and a Rural Scene, by Carl Bonner.

Events:  My new book, What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life, the first biography of Key in more than seventy-five years, was published on June 24. I’m happy with the early reviews, including one in The Washington Post, which ended with: “Marc Leepson makes the story flow and offers an interesting snapshot of one of the best-known — and least-known — figures in American history.”

Most of my events in coming months will be in conjunction with the Key bio, but I have several talks scheduled for my other books. Here’s what’s happening in July:

• Friday, July 4 – I will talking about What So Proudly We Hailed on at least three radio programs: The Dave Plier Show on WGN in Chicago at 7:10 a.m. Central time; The Warren Pierce Show on WJT in Detroit at 7:50 a.m. Eastern time; and NPR’s “Hear and Now” on differing times depending on your local station.

• Saturday, July 5 – A talk and book signing on Desperate Engagement, beginning at 12:30 p.m. at the Sesquicentennial Sacred Trust Talks and Book Signing Event at Gettysburg National Military Park in Pennsylvania. The event is free and open to the public. Several great historians also will be speaking that day, including Ed Ayres and Bud Robertson. For more info, go to http://bit.ly/DEGettysburg

• Sunday, July 6  – A talk on What So Proudly We Hailed and book signing at the Curious Iguana bookstore in downtown Frederick Maryland at 12 North Patrick Street. For info, call 301-695-2500.

• Saturday, July 12 – A talk on Desperate Engagement and book signing at the B&O Railroad Museum in Ellicott City, Maryland, at 1:00 p.m. For info go to, wwwborail.com  or call 410-752-2490.

• Thursday, July 17 – A 6:00 p.m. talk on What So Proudly We Hailed and book signing at the Society of the Cincinnati’s magnificent Anderson House, 2118 Massachusetts Avenue, NW in Washington, D.C. It’s free and open to the public with light refreshments after the talk. For info, 202-785-2040.

• Sunday, July 20 – A talk on the Key book and a book signing beginning at 4:00 p.m. at the Barns of Rose Hill, in downtown Berryville, Virginia, at 95 Chalmers Court. For info, call 540-535-8974 or go to http://bit.ly/RoseHillBarns

• Wednesday, July 23 – A talk on What So Proudly We Hailed and signing in the “Books on Broad” series at the Library of Virginia in downtown Richmond at 800 E. Broad Street. The event begins at 5:30 with a wine and cheese reception. It is free and open to the public. For info, call 804-356-1928 or go to http://bit.ly/FSKLVA

• Friday, July 25 – I will be part of all-day Star-Spangled Banner Symposium sponsored by Smithsonian Associates at the National Museum of American History in Washington. The program begins at 9:30 a.m. with a behind-the-scenes look at the Star-Spangled Banner (the flag) and continues through the afternoon. My talk on Francis Scott Key begins at 2:30. A book signing follows. For more info, call 202-633-8595 or go to http://bit.ly/AmerHistFSK

Please email if you’d like to arrange an event for any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on my speaking events for 2014, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XI, Number 6                                                              June 1, 2014

The U.S.S. Levy:  Uriah Phillips Levy, whose life story is at the center of Saving Monticello, served in the U.S. Navy for fifty years. He joined the Navy in 1812 when he was twenty years old, and served until his death in 1862. He was the first Jewish-American to have a full Navy career and the first Jewish Commodore, the Navy’s highest rank at the time.

A hero of the War of 1812, Levy is one of the most-honored Jewish Navy officers. The Jewish chapel at Norfolk Naval Station was named for him in 1959. The first Jewish chapel at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis was dedicated as the Commodore Uriah P. Levy Center and Jewish Chapel in 2005. And during World War II the U.S. Navy named a destroyer escort after him.

The USS Levy, a Cannon class destroyer escort (above), was launched and christened (by a grand niece of Uriah Levy) in March of 1943, commissioned in May, and served throughout the southern and central Pacific from August 1943 until the war ended two years later. Its main job was escorting naval fleet ships, but in 1945 the Levy saw plenty of action, bombarding and blockading Japanese-held islands in the Marshalls.

The ship’s officers hosted the surrender ceremonies of Japanese forces at Mille (sometimes spelled “Mili”) Atoll in the Marshall Islands group on August 22 —the first formal surrender of Japanese territory in World War II. The surrender came four days after members of the Levy crew had landed on the island, exchanged fire with the Japanese, and began making arrangements for the formal surrender.

The ceremonies (above) took less than an hour. “Generally the mood aboard the ship was one of happy relief,” Levy crew member Chuck Hays later told the Destroyers Escort Sailors Association. “The captain used the PA to pass the word of what was going on as it happened. Not a lot of shouting and such, just back slapping and congratulating each other among the crew. There was a saying in those days in the Pacific: ‘Golden Gate in ’48.’ Well, we knew we wouldn't have to wait that long anymore to get home.”

The U.S. flag was formally raised over Mille on August 28, and most of the Japanese troops left the following day. The Levy also was present on September 5, 1945, when the Japanese surrendered at Jaluit Atoll, a ceremony that took place aboard her sister ship the USS McConnel.

The ship went out of active service in November of 1945, was decommissioned in 1947, and put in mothballs in Norfolk as part of the Navy’s Atlantic Inactive Fleet. The Pentagon sold the USS Levy for scrap on June 18, 1974, to the Boston Medals Company of Baltimore. The price: $94,666.66.

A ‘New’ Letter: When is an 1805 letter a new letter? When it is written by Thomas Jefferson, hitherto unknown, and discovered in 2014 in a private collection. The letter in question was written by President Thomas Jefferson on July 24, 1805, to Bowling Clark, his former overseer at Monticello and Poplar Forest,. It deals with Jefferson’s “country house,” Poplar Forest (below) in Bedford County, Virginia.

The letter indicates that Jefferson was contemplating what would become of his family after his death. That is an aspect of Jefferson’s life that I cover in Saving Monticello as his dismal financial situation when he died in 1826 (he was more than $107,000 in debt) led directly to the family selling Monticello.
In the 1905 letter, Jefferson asks Clark to do an appraisal of the property to help eventually divide it up among his grandchildren. “This renders it necessary that I should understand the separate value of each portion of them distinctly,” Jefferson wrote. “As no person is so well acquainted with them as yourself, I must ask a favor of you to consider the questions on the paper enclosed, and to write at the end of each the answer in figures, and to send me the same paper to Monticello, by the first post.”

As I noted in Saving Monticello, Thomas Jefferson did not wind up dividing the property up among his grandchildren. In his will, the Sage of Monticello gave the entire property to his grandson Francis Eppes, the son of Jefferson’s deceased daughter Maria and her husband (and cousin) John Wayles Eppes.  
The letter is being sold by The Raab Collection of Ardmore, Pennsylvania. For more info, go to http://bit.ly/1805JeffersonLtr

Events:  My next book, What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life, the first biography of Key in more than seventy-five years, will be published later this month. Most of my events in coming months will be in conjunction with the new book, but I have several talks scheduled for my other books. Here’s a rundown my June events:

• Saturday, June 14 – I will be taking part in a Flag Day flag retirement ceremony at 11:00 a.m. at Battley Cycles, 7830 Airpark Rd., Gaithersburg, Maryland, sponsored by Vietnam Veterans of America’s Montgomery County, Maryland Chapter 642. I’ll be signing copies of Flag: An American Biography following my remarks at the ceremony.

• Wednesday, June 18 – A talk and book signing on What So Proudly We Hailed, beginning at 11:50 for the Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at George Mason University at the Loudoun Campus, 21641 Ridgetop Circle, Sterling, Virginia. Reservations required. To do so, call 703-503-3384.

• Tuesday, June 24 – On the official publication date of What So Proudly We Hailed, I’ll be speaking about the book at the annual brunch of the DAR National Chairman’s Association in Washington, D.C. during that organization’s annual national meeting—called Continental Congress—in the Nation’s Capital.

• Thursday, June 26 – A talk on What So Proudly We Hailed and book signing at the National Archives of the United States at 12:00 noon. The talk, which is free and open to the public, will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater at the Archives, 700 Pennsylvania Ave., NW in Washington, D.C.

• Sunday, June 29 – A talk on the Key book for a fundraising event for the Mosby Heritage Area Association at historic Oak Hill, the home of President James Monroe, in Aldie, Virginia. Seating is limited. For info, call 540-687-6681 or go to www.mosbyheritagearea.org/events.html

What So Proudly We Hailed is the first full-length Francis Scott Key biography in more than seventy-five years. You can get a preview at the book’s Amazon page at http://amzn.to/1imbiKD  Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event for that book—or for any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on my speaking events for 2014, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XI, Number 5                                                              

          May 1, 2014

  

Thomas Jefferson’s Birthday: It happened once before, in 2010. The folks at the Thomas Jefferson Foundation asked me to represent Monticello at the annual commemoration of Thomas Jefferson’s birthday on April 13 at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington, D.C. I felt honored presenting Monticello’s wreath that day. It was a memorable occasion, held inside the memorial on a rainy, blustery day.

                                       Looking out over the Tidal Basin from the Jefferson Memorial

In late March this year Leslie Bowman, the head of the Foundation, asked me to lay the wreath again on the 13th. Again, I gratefully accepted. This year’s Thomas Jefferson’s birthday turned out to be a gorgeous, brightly sunny Palm Sunday so the ceremonies took place outside on the steps facing the Tidal Basin.

The famed D.C. cherry blossoms were in full bloom. Thousands upon thousands of tourists and local people streamed to the Tidal Basin area that morning to see them. The ceremonies began at 11:00. Nineteen organizations presented wreaths. The presidential wreath had been laid earlier in the morning. At around 10:45 the Color Guard from the Military District of Washington marched in. A three-piece Army band played patriotic airs.

Paul Hays of the Washington, D.C., Sons of the American Revolution chapter emceed, as he has done for many years. He announced the names of the organizations and their representatives. We went up the memorial steps one at a time. Three fourths of the way up, I met a member of the military color guard who did the not-so-heavy lifting, putting the wreath in place as I ceremonially touched it. Then a moment of silence before I walked back down to podium area.

The following photographs, taken by my wife Janna, show me standing behind the wreath after the ceremonies and walking up the steps to place the wreath.

  

The Slavery Exhibit: The latest stop for the “Slavery at Jefferson’s Monticello” exhibit is the National Constitution Center in Philadelphia. The exhibit, a co-production of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture and the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, opened on April 9 and runs through October 19.

The exhibit was first shown at the Smithsonian’s Museum of American History in Washington, D.C. in 2012. The Foundation maintains an excellent on-line version of the exhibit at www.monticello.org/slavery-at-monticello

Events:  Here’s a rundown on the events I have scheduled this month:

• Saturday, May 17 - I will be moderating two panels and sitting on a third at the Biographers International Organization’s 5th Annual Compleat Biographer Conference on the University of Massachusetts Boston campus. This will be my third BIO Conference. I’ve enjoyed taking part in the first two—and learned a few things, as well. I was elected to the BIO’s Board of Directors last year. For info, go the BIO website. 

• Thursday, May 22 - I will be doing a talk at the annual meeting of the Friends of the Chesterfield Country Public Library in Chesterfield, Virginia, on the Marquis de Lafayette. Details: http://bit.ly/ChestLibrary

I am setting up talks and book signings for my next book, What So Proudly We Hailed, the first full-length Francis Scott Key biography in more than seventy-five years. It will be published on June 24. You can get a preview at the book’s pre-pub Amazon page at http://amzn.to/1imbiKD

Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event—or an event on any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on my speaking events for 2014, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Volume XI, Number 4                                                      

April 1, 2014

  

An Ethical Question: I’m a regular reader of “The Ethicist” column by Chuck Klosterman in The New York Times Magazine. In the March 9 issue the first question The Ethicist addressed had to do with something that Uriah and Jefferson Levy were very familiar with during their 1834-1923 ownership of Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello.

The question—which is at the heart of Saving Monticello—was: “Does a person who buys a home of historic or architectural significance have a different relationship to the public than a person who owns a home of no significance?”

Klosterman answered that “sharing a privately owned historic home with the public” is not “ethically reasonable.” People will want to see the home, he said, but owners “don’t have to be complicit in this process, and they’re certainly not obligated to allow trespassing.”

On the other hand, Klosterman said, he believed that the owner of “a home of considerable significance” has ‘a different relationship to the public.’” If, for example, he argued, “a noteworthy historical figure died in one of the home’s bedrooms, historians and interested parties should be allowed to see the bedroom for academic purposes (at the owner’s convenience).”

The bottom ethical line, according to The Ethicist: “Basically, if you own something with unique cultural substance, you should electively allow the rest of the culture to share the experience—but not at the public’s discretion. Regardless of its beauty or fame, it’s still a private residence, and the people living inside it are still private citizens.”

                                                                Jefferson M. Levy

As I make clear in Saving Monticello, that is “electively sharing” Monticello is exactly what Uriah and Jefferson Levy did during the nearly ninety years they owned it. Both Levys allowed the public to visit the grounds, and on a fairly regular basis invited guests inside Jefferson’s Essay in Architecture for receptions, dinners, and other gatherings.

Rare Images: SM Newsletter subscriber Stephanie Lipscomb has kindly given me permission to reproduce several images from the collection of her mother, Barbara Graves, of family memorabilia. Barbara Graves is the great granddaughter of Eliza Coleman, who worked for many years—as I noted in Saving Monticello—as gatekeeper at Monticello when Jefferson Levy owned the place and when Thomas Rhodes was superintendent.

The Gatehouse - Thomas Jefferson Foundation photo

One is a postcard from around 1910. It is written to Rhodes’ son Fred. The family lived at Monticello when the elder Rhodes was in charge of overseeing the repairs and restoration of Monticello from soon after Jefferson Levy bought out Uriah Levy’s other heirs in 1879 until several years after Levy sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in 1923. The image on the card, “Monticello Lodge,” is of the old gate house where Eliza Coleman worked.

The other is a photograph below was taken around the same time. Monticello employees Robert Samson, William Page, and Benjamin Carr are standing with Thomas Rhodes the West Portico steps.

If you would like to see the images, I can send you the emailed version of this newsletter. To do so, please email me at marc527psc@aol.com

Events:  Here’s a rundown on the events I have scheduled this month:

• Saturday, April 12, a talk on Francis Scott Key at the annual Luncheon Meeting of the Daughters of Colonial Wars in Washington, D.C.

•  Sunday, April 13, Thomas Jefferson’s birthday, I will be representing the Thomas Jefferson Foundation (and Monticello) at the annual wreath-laying ceremony at 11:00 a.m. at the Jefferson Memorial in Washington.

• Tuesday April 15, a talk on Saving Monticello at the monthly meeting of the Southern Fauquier Historical Society in Bristersburg, Virginia. For info, go to www.fauquierhistorylive.org

• Wednesday, April 16, a BBC radio interview (for later broadcast) for a documentary on the “The Star-Spangled Banner,” the National Anthem, and its relationship with the American flag.    

I am now setting up talks and book signings for the my next book, What So Proudly We Hailed, the first full-length Francis Scott Key biography in more than seventy-five years. It will be published on June 24. You can get a preview at the book’s pre-pub Amazon page at http://amzn.to/1imbiKD Please email me if you’d like to arrange an event—or an event on any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on my speaking events for 2014, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter 


               Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XI, Number 3                                                                                      March 1, 2014

POTUS at Monticello: There were at least three firsts at Monticello on Monday, February 10, when President Obama and French President François Hollande paid a visit to Thomas Jefferson’s house during Hollande’s official state visit to the United States.

The first first: No French president ever had visited the home of one of the nation’s earliest and most fervent Francophiles. As the Thomas Jefferson Foundation put it: “President Hollande was no doubt the most distinguished French visitor to the mountaintop since Jefferson welcomed his old comrade, the Marquis de Lafayette, in 1824.”

The second and third firsts: It was President Obama’s first visit to Thomas Jefferson’s Essay in Architecture and the first time that a sitting U.S. President came to the mountain with the head of another nation.

After the tour with Foundation head Leslie Greene Bowman (above), President Obama—alluding to the crucial French support of the American Revolution (including the service of the Marquis de Lafayette) said that Monticello symbolized the “incredible history between the United States and France,” and the “incredible bond and the incredible gifts that France gave to the United States.”

Jefferson’s house also represented the “complicated history of the United States,” President Obama said, as well as the “complex relations” between Jefferson and the institution of slavery. For France and the United States, he said, Monticello is “a reminder that we’re going to continue to fight on behalf of the rights of all peoples.”

Edgar Bronfman, 1929-2014 : Edgar M. Bronfman, the philanthropic former chairman of the Seagram Company and one-time president of the World Jewish Congress, died December 21 of last year at age 84.

As I noted in Saving Monticello, Mr. Bronfman (below) played an important role in the June 7, 1985, ceremonies that were held at the newly refurbished gravesite of Rachel Levy along Monticello’s Mulberry Row—ceremonies that recognized the Levy family’s invaluable stewardship of Monticello.

Bronfman, who at the time owned a large estate not far from Monticello in Albemarle County, made the principal address during the ceremonies. In his remarks, he focused on Thomas Jefferson and Uriah Levy.

Monticello, Bronfman said, “was rescued from destruction by a Jewish-American naval officer whose own fiery independence led him through a highly successful but storm-tossed career in the service of his country.”

Natural Bridge Sold: As I mentioned in Saving Monticello, in 1774 Thomas Jefferson bought a beautiful and unique piece of property in the Shenandoah Valley from King George III of England: a 215-foot-tell limestone arch called Natural Bridge and the 157 acres surrounding it. Jefferson paid twenty shillings for Natural Bridge, believing he would make money from travelers who came there to see the spectacular natural rock bridge formation. Jefferson took the first step in that direction in 1803 by building a two-room log cabin on the site.

As with so many of his other business ventures, however, Jefferson’s Natural Bridge money-making plan foundered. Centuries later, however, other entrepreneurs did turn Natural Bridge into a profitable tourist attraction.

The latest news from Natural Bridge is very good. The site will become a Virginia state park under the terms of an innovative real estate transaction finalized early in February. Natural Bridge’s owner, Angelo Puglisi, donated the property to the newly established Virginia Conservation Legacy Fund, which will run the state park. Puglisi received millions in conservation tax credits, along with $8.6 million for the 1,500 acres he owned near Natural Bridge. The entire property is estimated to be worth some $20 million.

“This is truly a historic day for a very special place,” Faye Cooper, executive director of the Valley Conservation Council, told the Roanoke Times newspaper. “Everyone acknowledges the historic value with Jefferson having owned it. But it has special significance as a rather large property with a great variety of conservation values—scenic ecological, underlying caverns, rare forest connections—ad the geological features are truly extraordinary to tell the history of the region.”

The Levy Lions at Cheekwood: In the last two SM newsletters we’ve chronicled the history detective work of Rebecca English of Charlottesville, who has been trying to track down the four “Levy lions” that once graced Monticello under Jefferson Levy’s stewardship.

Two of the lions are at the Cheekwood Museum in Nashville. SM newsletter reader Lorrie Mills kindly sent a close-up picture (below) that she took of one of the two ball-footted lions (with its tail missing) when she visited Cheekwood in 2010. For more on Rebecca English’s quest to find the four lions, including several other photos, go to: http://bit.ly/LevyLions

Events:  With the next book—What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life—completed, I am turning my attention to talks and other events. I have several in March. On Saturday, March 8, I’ll be doing a talk on Lafayette for the Old Dominion DAR Chapter in Alexandria, Virginia. On Monday, March 10, I’m speaking about Saving Monticello to a group of high school social studies teachers in Washington, D.C., who are in town with the nonprofit Close-Up Foundation.

On Thursday, March 13, I’ll also do a talk on Saving Monticello at the monthly meeting of the Mount Vernon DAR Chapter, also in Alexandria, Virginia. On Sunday, March 16, I’ll be in Richmond, Virginia, to speak about Lafayette at the annual meeting of the Descendants of Peter Francisco in the Old House Chamber of the Virginia House of Delegates at the Virginia State Capitol—the building that Thomas Jefferson designed.

On Wednesday, March 26, I’ll be back in Daleville, Virginia, to do a talk on Desperate Engagement at the Glebe Retirement Community. And on Friday, March 28, I’ll be taking part once again in the Reading Between the Wines fundraising event for the Loudoun Literacy Council at Sunset Hill Vineyards in Purcellville, Virginia. For info on that, go to www.loudounliteracy.org

I am now working on setting up talks and book signings for What So Proudly We Hailed, the first full-length Key biography in more than seventy-five years—which will be published on June 24. You can get a preview at the book’s pre-pub Amazon page at http://amzn.to/1imbiKD

Please email me if you’d like to arrange a talk on any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com For more details on my speaking events for 2014, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XI, Number 2 February 1, 2014

The Levy Lions (con’t): Rebecca English of Charlottesville, inspired by reading Saving Monticello, has continued her research into the fate of the four “Levy Lions” that once adorned Monticello. A tenacious researcher, Rebecca recently discovered several additional images of the lions that I’d never seen. 

To recap: Jefferson Levy placed four marble lions on the grounds probably around the turn of the 20th century. Two of them—with their front paws holding a shield containing a stylized letter “L”—sat beside the steps leading up to the house from Mulberry Row. 

The other two lions, which stood on either side of the West Front entrance, didn’t have shields. The distinguishing feature was a ball under the left front paw. The photo above is a close-up of one of the latter pair. Those are the lions that made their way onto the image of Monticello that appeared on the back of the 1928 two-dollar bill.

As I reported in Saving Monticello, the two ball-footed lions left Charlottesville sometime after the Thomas Jefferson Foundation bought Monticello in 1923. They reside today in the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville.

Doing research at U-Va’s Alderman Library and at the Albermarle-Charlottesville County Historical Society library, Rebecca found out that a woman named Josephine Henderson bought those two lions from the Foundation probably in 1928 when all of Jefferson Levy’s Monticello furniture and furnishings were auctioned, and gave them to her sister who lived in Nashville.

“Hence,” Rebecca writes in her blog, Forsythia Hill Finds, it was “the future fate of two of the four lions to reside in Nashville. I’m concluding that this was the same Mrs. Mark (Josephine) Henderson who owned Michie Tavern and coordinated its move, board by board, from Earlysville [Virginia] to its present location down the road from Monticello.” 

It appears that Mrs. Henderson shipped the lions to Belle Meade Plantation in Nashville. Rebecca English interviewed John Lamb, Belle Meade’s curator, who told her that the plantation’s owner subsequently donated the lions to Cheekwood Gardens. Lamb provided Rebecca with a color picture (above) taken in the 1940s of those lions at Belle Meade Plantation.

As I reported in the December SM newsletter, Rebecca had thought she found one of the ball-footed lions on Canterbury Road in Charlottesville. She took a picture of it, but realized it was a different statue after comparing it to photos taken of the lions in 1912 at Monticello. 

And what of the fate of the shielded lions? She’s still working on tracking them down. The photo at left shows one of them in 1912.The link for Rebecca’s blog is http://forsythiahill.blogspot.com

Also of interest: While reading through old microfilmed copies of the Charlottesville Daily Progress in Alderman Library Rebecca found an advertisement (below) that appeared in the November 16, 1928, issue. It was placed by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation to announce the auction that would be held the next day to sell off furniture and furnishings that Jefferson Levy conveyed to the Foundation when he sold Monticello in 1923. I had not seen this piece of Monticello history before. The image that appears below is a shot Rebecca took of the ad on the microfilm screen.

GW Digital Encyclopedia:  Early last year the folks at Mount Vernon introduced the Digital Encyclopedia of George Washington, an on-line, interactive resource  containing entries that are linked to primary source materials and objects from Mount Vernon’s collection. 

The entries are written a group of historians, including yours truly. The editors asked me to contribute two entries, on Lafayette and George Washington and on Lafayette at Valley Forge.   

The link to the former is http://bit.ly/GWLaf and the latter is http://bit.ly/LafValleyForge

Appearances:  This week I will finish going over the galley proofs of my next book—the first full-length biography of Francis Scott Key in more than seventy-five years. It will be published by Palgrave Macmillan on June 24. The title is What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life. You can look at the book’s pre-pub Amazon page at http://amzn.to/1imbiKD

I am working on setting up talks and book signings for the Key bio. Feel free to email me if you’d like to arrange one—or for a talk on any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on all of my upcoming events go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Gift Ideas:  If you would like a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello, e-mail me at Marc527psc@aol.com 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson  Volume XI, Number 1                                                              January 1, 2014 

 Jefferson’s Books: Although Saving Monticello begins, in essence, on July 4, 1826, the day Thomas Jefferson died, I go back in the first chapter to 1809, when the nation’s third President finished his second term, left Washington, and came to Monticello to live out his days. There was a not-insignificant fly in the ointment, however: Jefferson’s debts—about $11,000—which dated back to before the American Revolution.

The Sage of Monticello planned on paying off those debts with his farming and business ventures back home in Virginia. He was wrong.

Jefferson’s debts only increased during the last seventeen years of his life. When he died on July 4, 1826, the debt his heirs inherited had soared to $107,000.

As I note in the book, Jefferson was so strapped for cash that in 1815, a year after the British burned the congressional library (and other government buildings) in Washington, during the War of 1812, Jefferson offered his entire library of more than 6,000 volumes (the largest collection in the young United States) to the nation.

After a spirited debate Congress (by a small majority) agreed to buy the Jefferson collection of 6,487 books for $23,950. Because of his generous (if self-preserving) offer to expand the library, Jefferson has been known as the father of the Library of Congress, which had started in 1800 and had consisted of some 3,000 volumes before the disastrous British burning.

I did a fair amount of research for Saving Monticello in the Library of Congress in 2000. In a happy coincidence, the LOC had just mounted an impressive exhibit on Jefferson, which included a replica of the library he sold to the nation in 1815. It filled twenty, twelve-foot high bookcases.

In the intervening fourteen years the rare book folks at the LOC have done a great deal of work trying to find copies of the books that Jefferson sold to the nation—books that were lost in another fire, this one accidentally set in 1851. In that conflagration two-thirds of the books that Jefferson had donated burned to ashes.

An excellent article by Anthony Brandt in last month’s Town and Country magazine gives a good recap of what’s gone into this effort. Jefferson’s amazing collection of books, Brandt wrote, “included the Greek and Roman classics, both in translation and in the original languages, which Jefferson read fluently.” It also included a good number of architectural books, as well as hundreds of political tracts and pamphlets (in English, French, Italian, Spanish, and German), and books on winemaking, gardening, and American and world history.

“He owned a set of Diderot’s great Encyclopedie,” Brandt noted, “one of the most magnificent achievements of the Enlightenment, and, of course, the books of many other philosophes, many of whom Jefferson knew personally from the five years he spent in Paris as the U.S. minister to the French court.”

Brandt writes that the exhibit of Jefferson’s books is the LOC’s most popular attraction, drawing more than a million visitors a year. Today, it contains more many more volumes (more than 6,000) than it did in 2000. “Jefferson’s original library,” Brandt noted, “has been almost completely reconstituted—not the burned books themselves, obviously, but duplicates, the same editions, published by the same publishers in the same years, in the same cities. The story of how this was done stands as the greatest feat of bookmanship in our time.”

He goes on to describe the work of the LOC rare book specialists who have been responsible for the “bookmanship”: curator Dan DeSimone; Mark Dimunation, who heads the Rare Book and Special Collections division; and E. Millicent Sowerby, who started the work of cataloging Jefferson’s books in 1942. The work has been funded in recent years by large private donations, including a significant amount from Gene Jones and her husband Jerry Jones, the controversial owner of the Dallas Cowboys.

You can read the entire article on line at http://bit.ly/JeffBooks

More on the Levy Lions: Last month I took note of Rebecca English and her recent quest—spurred on by reading Saving Monticello—to discover what happened to the two sets of “Levy Lions” that adorned the grounds of Monticello during Jefferson Levy’s stewardship (1879-1923). In doing her research Rebecca found several great photos I had never seen of the lions at the Library of Congress’s Prints & Photographs Division page on line.

The photo above is my favorite of the lot, a pic of the two lions with shields with the cursive letter “L,” which stood on  beside the steps leading up to the house from Mulberry Row. I especially love the hand-lettered sign on the tree, which says: “Visitors Allowed in the Grounds Twenty Minutes. Do Not Pull or Break the Shrubbery. No Lunching on the Grounds.”

For more on Rebecca English’s quest to find the four lions, including several other photos, go to: http://forsythiahill.blogspot.com

FSK:  We are almost at the bound-galley stage with of my next book, a biography of Francis Scott Key—the first full-length Key bio in more than seventy-five years—which will be published on June 24. The title is What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life. You can get a preview at the book’s pre-pub Amazon page at http://amzn.to/1imbiKD

I am now working on setting up talks and book signings for the Key bio. Please email me if you’d like to arrange one—or for a talk on any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

For more details on my speaking events for 2014, go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume X, Number 12                                                             December 1, 2013

The Levy Lions: As I point out in Saving Monticello, historic preservationists are indebted to the Levy family not just for repairing, restoring, and preserving Jefferson’s house and property, but also for not adding onto or doing any kind of remodeling of  the house.

One of the few things that Jefferson Levy (who owned Monticello from 1879 until he sold it to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation in 1923) did to alter the appearance of the place was to put two large white marble lions with the letter “L” carved on their chests on the brick retaining walls beside the steps leading up to the house from Mulberry Row.

Levy also had a second pair of large lions—without the “L”—installed on either side of the West Front entrance (see photo above). He also displayed three marble statues of Venus, Apollo, and Jupiter on the lawn. 

All four Levy lions were auctioned off by the Foundation—along with all of the furniture and furnishings that Levy had conveyed with the property—on November 17, 1928. Coincidentally, that year the U.S. Treasury Department came up with a new design for the two-dollar bill. The front featured a portrait of Thomas Jefferson. The design on the back (below) centered around an engraving of Monticello by J.C. Benzing, in which the Levy lions may be seen sitting on either side of the West portico steps. 

The newly designed two-dollar bills were printed and distributed for the first time in 1929. On July 12, 1929, Gene Oglivie, the manager of the University Branch of the Charlottesville's People's National Bank, made the front page of the Charlottesville Daily Progress, with the news that he was the first person to discover what the article called a “defect, or at least a discrepancy in the recently introduced two-dollar bill.” Oglivie, the newspaper said, pointed out that the Levy lions “were not on the grounds at Monticello [in 1929]. Nor were they there during the regime of Jefferson.”

The Treasury Department denied that the bill contained any sort of defect or error. The Treasury’s Bureau of Engraving and Printing in Washington announced July 17 that the engraving was intended to represent Monticello as it appeared in the early 20^th century, not in Jefferson’s time. The design, a Treasury official said, was copied from a photograph of Monticello taken before the bill’s design was started—in other words, before the Foundation auctioned off the Levy lions in 1928.

The two-dollar bill was modified slightly in 1953 and 1963, but the Levy lions remained on the back. In 1976, the back of the bill was completely redesigned. A scene depicting the signing of the Declaration of Independence replaced Monticello.

As for the actual Levy lions, one of the ones without the letter “L” sits in front of a private house on Canterbury Road in Charlottesville. The whereabouts of its matched pair is unknown. The large lions adorned with the letter “L” were acquired by the family of Mrs. Meredith Caldwell and donated to the Cheekwood Botanical Garden and Museum of Art in Nashville where they are on display today.

Thanks to the Forsythia Hill Blog, which included the photo of the Canterbury Road lion, inspired to do by Saving Monticello. As the blog’s creatore posted recently:

“I was fascinated to read in the book that one of the lions was still in Charlottesville on Canterbury Road (which just happens to be my favorite neighborhood in C’ville) so I decided to take a drive to see if it was visible. I was so surprised to find the Levy Lion!

“This fascinating book reveals that without the Levy family there might have not been a home standing at Monticello for the Thomas Jefferson Foundation to preserve. This estate, which has so much meaning to so many, could have been lost forever.”

To read the entire post go to: http://bit.ly/ForsythiaHill

The Nickel: Speaking of Monticello and money, there’s a succinct article on the evolution of the Jefferson nickel in the current on-line issue of “Coin Week.” by Charles Morgan. The U.S. Mint, Morgan writes, “frustrated by wear and die issues related the Indian Head nickel, wasted no time replacing the design once the statutory 25 year production period came to a close” in 1938.

The winning design, featuring President Thomas Jefferson on one side the image of Monticello on the other, was chosen after a national competition. Many coin experts, Morgan notes, “were not impressed… One point of contention was the head-on architectural motif (Monticello) that served as the reverse design. Some felt that architectural motifs were beneath the dignity of our national coinage.”

Still, Morgan points out, “Monticello remains on the reverse after all these years, and many other buildings and monuments have adorned American coinage since.”

Appearances:  I have just finished going over the copy edits for next book, a biography of Francis Scott Key—the first full-length Key bio in more than seventy-five years—which will be published on June 24, 2014. The title is What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, a Life. You can look at the book’s pre-pub Amazon page at http://amzn.to/1imbiKD

I am now working on setting up talks and book signings for the Key bio. Feel free to email me if you’d like to arrange one—or for a talk on any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

As for this month, On Friday, December 6, I’ll be taking part in the Friends and Family Open House event from 2:00 p.m to 7:00 at the Library of Virginia Shop in the Library of Virginia in Richmond. I’ll be among a group of other Virginia authors signing our books. In my case, it’ll be Saving Monticello, Lafayette, Desperate Engagement, and Flag. The Virginia Shop is located on the ground floor of the Library of Virginia at 800 East Broad Street, downtown Richmond. For info, call 804-692-3524.

On Saturday, December 7, I’ll be doing a talk on Lafayette at the monthly meeting of the Freedom Hill DAR Chapter in McLean, Virginia. The following Saturday, December 14, I’ll do the talk for the Providence DAR Chapter in Fairfax Station, Virginia.

On Monday, December 16, I’ll be speaking on Lafayette at the Winchester Book Gallery bookstore in Winchester, Virginia at 6:00 p.m. and signing books till 8:00. For more info, call, 540-667-3144.

For more details on all of my upcoming events go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Volume X, Number 11                                                             November 1, 2013

Publick Thanksgivin: As I point out in Saving Monticello, Jefferson Levy, who owned Thomas Jefferson’s Essay in Architecture from 1879-1923, did not live there full time. The New York City resident did, however, spent good amounts of time at Monticello, including many summer weekends; he also made it a point to be there on the Fourth of July. Levy also often celebrated Thanksgiving on the mountain outside Charlottesville.

Thomas Jefferson, it turns out, had a hand in the evolution of the official Thanksgiving holiday. It happened in 1779 when the 36-year-old Jefferson was serving his first of two years as Virginia’s governor during the American Revolution.

Jefferson followed the direction of the Continental Congress, which notified all the state governors that it would be a good idea to set aside a day of public thanksgiving that fall. Jefferson forwarded the directive to the Virginia House of Delegates, which came up with an official proclamation. Jefferson signed it on November 11, 1779. The proclamation called for a day of “Thanksgiving and Prayer” on December 9, 1779.

Ten years later, in 1789, the first Congress of the United States passed a resolution asking that the President proclaim a national day of thanksgiving. President George Washington responded by issuing a proclamation naming Thursday, November 26, 1789, as a “Day of Publick Thanksgivin.” After that, Washington’s successors issued their own Thanksgiving Proclamations.

During Jefferson’s eight years as the nation’s President (from 1802-09), however, he wasn’t exactly a fan of the Thanksgiving proclamation. His main objection was tying Thanksgiving with prayer. Responding to a request in 1808 from Reverend Samuel Miller, a Presbyterian minister, that the government set aside a national day of fasting and prayer, Jefferson wrote a long letter in which he strongly argued for the separation of church and state and strongly defended states’ rights.

The Constitution, Jefferson said prohibited “intermeddling” of the government and “religious institutions, their doctrines, discipline, or exercises.”  This comes from, he said, “not only from the provision that no law shall be made respecting the establishment, or free exercise, of religion, but from that also which reserves to the states the powers not delegated to the U.S.”

No “power to prescribe any religious exercise” or “to assume authority in religious discipline,” Jefferson said, “has been delegated to the general government. It must then rest with the states, as far as it can be in any human authority.”

He went on to say that he did not believe that it was “for the interest of religion to invite the civil magistrate to direct its exercises, its discipline, or its doctrines; nor of the religious societies that the general government should be invested with the power of effecting any uniformity of time or matter among them.”

Fasting and prayer, he said, “are religious exercises; the enjoining them an act of discipline.” Jefferson concluded with these words: “Every religious society has a right to determine for itself the times for these exercises and the objects proper for them, according to their own particular tenets; and this right can never be safer than in their own hands, where the Constitution has deposited it.”

You can read the letter in its entirety at http://bit.ly/Churchstate

By the way, the nation didn’t begin commemorating Thanksgiving regularly on the last Thursday of November until 1863 when President Abraham Lincoln’s T’giving Proclamation that dark Civil War year called for the holiday to be celerbated that day.

One Beautiful House: Jon Meacham, the historian and author of Thomas Jefferson: The Art of Power (among other books), has an article in the current issue of House Beautiful magazine called “The Jefferson Ideal: A Closer Look at Life at Monticello.” Written with the help of Susan Stein, Monticello’s long-time head curator (who also helped me immeasurably with Saving Monticello), the article—like Meacham’s book—has only good things to say about Thomas Jefferson and his Essay in Architecture.

“President and philosopher, patriot and intellectual, aesthete and architect, Thomas Jefferson is the Founder who charms us most,” Meacham enthuses. “His mind was always in motion, his curiosity always roaming.”

The goes on to look at Monticello, where Jefferson “most fully modeled the art of living to his countrymen in the new nation…. He and his Monticello were a little like the sun itself: at the center of the universe.”

Meachum gives us a room-by-room rundown on Monticello’s furniture and furnishings and what life was like when Jefferson lived there.“He believed in dining well,” Meachum says. “He had cooks trained in the arts of French cuisine after 1784 and thought of wine as ‘a necessary of life.’”

You can read the illustrated article on line at  http://bit.ly/1dzcp3W

Thanks to two SM Newsletter subscribers—David Nachman, Levy descendant; and my cousin-in-law Ellen Tamaroff—for letting me know about the article

Appearances:  I’m all but finished with my next book, a biography of Francis Scott Key—the first full-length Key bio in more than seventy-five years—which will be published on June 24, 2014. I am now working on setting up talks and book signings for the Key bio. Feel free to email me if you’d like to arrange one—or for any of my other books, including Saving Monticello. Marc527psc@aol.com

I have two events in November. On Thursday, November 7, I will be the guest speaker at the Veterans Day Program held at the U.S. Government Printing Office in Washington, D.C. I’ll be doing a talk on the fighting that took place on July 11 and 12, 1864, outside Washington, when Confederate Gen. Jubal Early attacked the nation’s capital. It’s the subject of my book, Desperate Engagement. GPO employees picked up weapons and helped defend Washington during the fighting.

On Saturday, November 23, I will be going back to Gray Ghost Vineyards & Winery in Amissville,Virginia, to be part of their 11^th Civil War Author’s Day. I’ll be signing copies of all of my books from 11-5:00 p.m., and doing a short talk on Desperate Engagement at 2:30. I’ll be drinking wine, too. Gray Ghost’s address is 14706 Lee Highway, Amissville 20106. That’s Route 211, south of Warrenton, Va. For info, call 540-937-4869 or go to http://www.grayghostvineyards.com/

For more details on all of my upcoming events go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume X, Number 10
                                                                                            October 1, 2013

Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge: One of highlights of researching Saving Monticello was poring over the treasure trove of Jefferson family letters at Alderman Library at the University of Virginia. One of the best things about that the collection of family letters is the fact that one of Thomas Jefferson’s granddaughters, Ellen Wayles Randolph, married Joseph Coolidge, Jr. of Massachusetts in May of 1825, and the young couple then set up housekeeping in Boston.

Since well-educated women of the day such as Ellen wrote lots of letters, that meant a steady stream of correspondence between Ellen—whom the family called Eleanora—and her mother, grandfather, and siblings who had been living at Monticello since 1809. A good number covered the years I was interested, from the time of Thomas Jefferson’s death in 1826 to the sale of Monticello to Uriah Levy in 1834.

I quoted liberally from those letters in the book Here’s one example, a line from a letter from 22-year-old Mary Jefferson Randolph wrote to her older sister late in 1826, describing the family’s eminent move from Monticello: “You may suppose how unwilling we are to leave our home in a few weeks, perhaps never to return to it and how much we… prefer lingering here till the last moment.”

And this, from a January 1827 letter from Mary to Ellen describing what happened at the auction of Monticello’s furniture and furnishings: “During five days that the sale lasted, you may imagine what must have been the state of our feelings, such a scene playing out actually within sight [and with people] bringing us fresh details of everything that was going on….” It is better, Mary said, “to submit to any personal inconveniences, however numerous and annoying they may be, than to live in a state of society where such things as trade are of daily occurrence…”

Joseph Coolidge, Jr., a prosperous businessman, traveled extensively. Ellen met him in London in 1838 and stayed there for nine months. The full text of her journal from that stay recently was published for the first time in a University of Virginia Press book, Thomas Jefferson’s Granddaughter in Victorian England, edited by Ann Lucas Birle of the International Center for Jefferson Studies and Lisa A. Francavilla, the Managing Editor of The Papers of Thomas Jefferson Retirement Series.  

The journal offers Ellen’s perceptive thoughts on the early days of Queen Victoria’s reign, about world-class art she saw in public and private collections, and conversations she had with luminaries such as Thomas Carlyle.

The GW Library : I was invited to attend the Grand Opening Ceremony on Friday, September 27, for the George Washington Presidential Library at Mount Vernon—officially, the Fred W. Smith National Library for the Study of George Washington.

It was quite an event. I’d say about 400-500 people were there for the outdoor ceremony, which began at 11:00. The U.S. Army Band played patriotic airs, then the Army’s Fife and Drum Corps took to the stage in colonial garb and played more music. The Army’s Continental Color Guard presented the colors, then came the Pledge of Allegiance led by a group of local elementary school children and the Star-Spangled Banner beautifully sung by the Army Band’s soloist, Sergeant First Class Leigh Ann Hinton.

Sometimes at these types of events the speakers tend to go on too long. Not this day. No one did, and most had insightful things to day. The august list included the new President of Mount Vernon, Curtis Viebranz; Virginia’s two Senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine; Ann Bookout, who heads the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association (which owns and operates Mount Vernon); Fred W. Smith, the major donor to the library; Douglas Bradburn, the just-appointed Library Director; and David McCullough, the eminent historian. McCullough gave a terrific Keynote speech in which he focused on what George Washington read and how it had an impact on the momentous occasions in his life—of which there were more than a few.

Appearances:  Later this week I will be sending the final edited version of my biography of Francis Scott Key to my editor at Palgrave in New York. The book—the first full-length Key bio in more than seventy-five years—will be published next July 1.

I’ve now scheduling events for that book (starting next June) as well as my other books. I have two events this month. On Saturday, October 12, I’ll be the guest speaker at the annual Yorktown Luncheon at the Ft. McNair Officers Club in Washington, D.C., for the D.C. American Revolution Roundtable. I’ll be speaking on the Marquis de Lafayette and his important role in the Revolution.  

The following day, Sunday, October 13, I’ll be signing copies of Lafayette, Desperate Engagement, Flag, and Saving Monticello at Common Grounds, a great coffee shop in Middleburg, Virginia, where I live. The address is 114 W. Washington Street. I’ll be there from 1:00 to 3:00. Second Chapter Books, our local bookstore, will be doing the vending. For info, call 540-687-7065. The website is www.middleburgcommongrounds.com

For more details on all of my upcoming events go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com  

Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. If you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. Go to http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson Volume X, Number 9           September 1, 2013 Mordecai Noah: Uriah Phillips Levy, one of the two main characters in Saving Monticello, wasn’t the only direct descendant of Dr. Samuel Nunez (who fled the Spanish Inquisition in 1733 and became one of the founders of Savannah, Georgia) to make a name for himself in the first half of the 19th century. One of Levy’s cousins, Mordecai Manuel Noah—the son of Zepporah Phillips, one of UPL’s grandfather Jonas Phillips’s daughters—was one of the era’s best-known figures. Noah wore many hats: diplomat, author, playwright, journalist, and patriot. He also was an outspoken, prominent Jewish lay leader in New York, and one of the best known Jewish-Americans in the Early Republic. Mordecai Noah was born in Philadelphia, on July 19, 1785, seven years before his cousin Uriah Levy came into this world in the City of Brotherly Love. His mother died when Noah was a small child and he was raised by his grandfather Jonas Phillips, who also had a strong influence on his grandson Uriah Levy. Phillips, as I note in Saving Monticello, was a German-Jewish immigrant who came to America in 1756, became a naturalized citizen in 1771, and in 1778 joined the Philadelphia Militia to fight against the British. He inculcated love of country among his many grandchildren, including Mordecai Noah and Uriah Levy. Mordecai Noah came under his grandfather’s patriotic spell. Noah didn’t join the Navy at age 20 as his cousin did, however. Instead, Noah moved to Charleston, where he studied the law and got into politics. He wrote a series of patriotic newspaper articles in which he strongly supported the Madison Administration and the War of 1812. That led to an appointment to become U.S. Consul in Tunis in 1813. Noah then moved to New York City, where he remained active in journalism writing for The National Advocate, which was published by his uncle, Naphtali Phillips, later becoming its editor. He also wrote several books, including a one detailing his travels in Europe and service as U.S. Counsel in what were known then as the Barbary States. In 1818, Mordecai Noah gave a speech at Shearith Israel in New York that centered on the long history of Jewish persecution. A copy of that speech made its way to Monticello. Thomas Jefferson wrote to Noah on May 28, 1818, saying he had read the speech “with pleasure and instruction, having learnt from it some valuable facts about Jewish history which I did not know before. “Your sect by its sufferings has furnished a remarkable proof of the universal spirit of religious intolerance, inherent in every sect, disclaimed by all while feeble, and practised by all when in power. Our laws have applied the only antidote to this vice, protecting our religious as they do our civil rights by putting all on an equal footing, but more remains to be done.” Mordecai Noah later gained fame for working to have the State of New York set aside a parcel of land on Grand Island on the Niagara River as a Jewish homeland. That never came to pass, but Noah, working with a group of Masons and Christian Zionists, raised enough money to buy a good deal of the island in 1825. He tried to start a Jewish colony there called Ararat, but it never came to fruition. He later came to believe that the best place for a Jewish homeland was Palestine, and lectured and wrote widely on that topic. He died in 1851. Appearances:  As I near the completion of my biography of Francis Scott Key—which will be published by Palgrave Macmillan next July 1—I have begun scheduling speaking events.This month, I’ll be doing at talk on my book Flag: An American Biography on Saturday, September 14, for the For Harrison SAR in Harrisonburg, Virginia. And o Saturday, September 21, I’ll be signing copies of Saving Monticello and Lafayette at the Museum Shop at Monticello from around noon to 5:00. If you’re in the Charlottesville area, come on by—you don’t need to get a ticket to tour the house to visit the shop. Events: I am now available to do talks on all of my books—including Saving Monticello, Lafayette, Flag, and Desperate Engagement. I’ll be speaking about Francis Scott Key after July 1, 2014. For more details on all of my upcoming events go to http://bit.ly/SMOnline That is the “Author Events” page on my website, www.marcleepson.com Facebook, Twitter: If you’re on Facebook, please send me a friend request. I’m also on Twitter to let folks know about my public events, media appearances and the like. So, if you’re on Twitter, I’d love to have you as a follower. The page is: http://bit.ly/MarcTwitter