June 2019

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XVI, Number 6                                                         June 1, 2019

“The study of the past is a constantly evolving, never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner

DEPREDATIONS: Much of what I learned that formed the heart of Saving Monticello came from a myriad of  first-person accounts about the state of the house and its grounds before, during, and after Uriah Levy and his nephew Jefferson Levy owned Thomas Jefferson’s “Essay in Architecture.”

In the last several years, as oceans of newspapers and magazines, official records, and memoirs have been digitized, I’ve uncovered a small stream of hitherto all-but-hidden primary-source evidence dealing with 19^th century visits to Monticello Mountain.

I’ve learned some new facts from these sources, but they mainly serve to buttress what I concluded and wrote in the book, that the Levy family repaired, preserved, and restored—that is, they saved—Monticello on two different occasions: 1834-1862 for Uriah, and 1879-1923 for Jefferson M.

That’s the case with a new (to me) account I just discovered of a South Carolina newspaper correspondent’s vist to Monticello in the spring of 1896, twenty-four years into Jefferson Levy’s ownership.

Titled “Monticello: Interesting Description of the Home of Jefferson,” the long, detailed article appeared in at least two S.C. newspapers, the Abbeyville Press and Banner on April 29, 1896, and the Edgewater Advertiser on May 20 that year.

It included an evocative line drawing of the house (above) and a sub-headline that jibes with virtually everything else we know about the Levys’ stewardship of Monticello:

“The Historic Mansion Even to the Interior and Furnishings Preserved Almost as the Great Statesman Left It.”

Well, not almost as Jefferson left it. But Jefferson Levy had done a remarkable job of restoring Monticello by 1896, seventeen years after he bought out Uriah’s other heirs and took control of Monticello. which had fallen into terrible condition during seventeen years of legal wrangling over UPL’s will following his death in 1862.

Our unidentified correspondent was impressed with just about everything he saw. He got his “first glimpse” of the house, he wrote, after reaching the top of the mountain and checking in at the old brick Porter’s Lodge. The visitor drove past the lodge and through an open “iron gateway of modern design,” then rang “the old plantation bell, which announces to the people at the mansion that guests are coming.” The “people” in this case were Jefferson Levy’s superintendent Thomas Rhodes, who moved to Monticello in 1889 to oversee the repairs and restoration of the house and grounds—and his staff.

Rhodes, the writer said, “occupies the old overseer's house, a substantial stone structure just opposite the entrance to the great lawn.” His workers at Monticello were “several colored people, one or two of t claiming to be descendants of Jefferson’s servants.” He very likely was referring to the long-time gatekeeper, Willis Shelton (1835-1902), and to Shelton’s grandson Willis Henderson (1885-1966), who was born at Monticello and worked for Jefferson Levy as a cook and house guide.

Arriving at the house, the correspondent reported that the lawns and shrubbery were “admirably kept, the stone walls and fences are radiant with new whitewash, the old quarters of the house servants are as clean and white as paint can make them and the mansion itself is carefully watched and the least evidence of decay repaired at once.”

The interior, he correctly reported, “has never been disturbed in its arrangement by any of the Levy family. On the contrary, so far as possible, they have endeavored to preserve, even in the furnishings of the house, as much of a similarity to the old furniture as possible.”

He then goes on to describe the interior of the house room-by-room, and gives an expansive tour of the grounds. The correspondent ends with a lament for Thomas Jefferson’s dire fiscal straits, which resulted in him passing on nothing but debt to his family when he died.

Despite “all of the magnificence with which he was surrounded, not withstanding the emoluments of his public career, he died, as the world knows, a poor man, and worse than poor, for he was hopelessly in debt.”

EVENTS: I’m continuing my seven-day-a-week writing mode for my next book, and have just a two June events.

The first is on Friday, June 7 in the historic town of Hillsboro, Virginia, where I will be taking part in a 50th anniversary commemoration called “Woodstock in the Gap,” a two-day event including music, food, local beers and wines—and more. My topic: Woodstook and the Vietnam War. I attended the former and took part in the latter. In fact, I had only been out of the Army for about a month when we trekked up to New York for what we thought was going to just another big rock music festival. Info at http://bit.ly/WoodstockHillsboro

On Saturday, June 8, I’ll be doing a talk on Saving Monticello and book signing at the 40^th anniversary luncheon of the Cameron Parish DAR chapter in Reston, Virginia.

Also, I’ll be doing a talk on my Francis Scott Key bio, What So Proudly We Hailed, on Tuesday, July 2, in Washington, D.C. for Pints and Profs at La Pop cultural salon in Adams Morgan. Details to come at http://bit.ly/ProfsJuly2

There’s always the chance that I may have a last-minute talk or signing. For the latest on that, or to check out my scheduled 2019 events, go to the Events page on my website at https://leepsoncalendar.blogspot.com

If you’d like to arrange an event for Saving Monticello, or for any of my other books, email me. For info on my latest book, Ballad of the Green Beret, go to http://bit.ly/GreenBeretBook

GIFT IDEAS:  Want a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello? Please e-mail me at marcleepson@gmail.com  I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover copies, along with a good selection of brand-new copies of my other books.