May 2020

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

Volume XVII, Number 5                                                                     May 2020

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

LEVY LAUNCHING: The United States Navy considers Uriah Levy a genuine hero. And rightfully so. Uriah Phillips Levy joined the Navy in 1812 at age twenty. He served with distinction during the War of 1812 as assistant sailing master of the USS Argus, which wreaked havoc with British shipping in the English Channel, capturing and burning more than two dozen ships.

He went on to have a fifty-year career in the Navy, the first Jewish American to do so. He rose through the ranks to become a Commodore, the Navy’s then-highest rank, becoming the first Jewish American Navy Commodore.

Uriah Levy also was primarily responsible for abolishing flogging in the U.S. Navy. He began a campaign to do so in the 1840s, which led to congressional action abolishing that antiquated, brutal punishment.

The Navy first formally recognized Uriah Levy—who owned Monticello from 1834 until his death in 1862—during World War II by naming a newly commissioned Cannon-class destroyer escort the USS Levy in 1943.

The USS Levy at sea in the Pacific during World War II

The Levy, dubbed a “sub-killer,” was launched at 1:45 in the afternoon of March 28, 1943, at the Port Newark Yards in New Jersey. “The swift and deadly ‘sub-killers’ are nearly as large as destroyers,” the New York Herald Tribune reported, “but of simpler construction and less heavily armed. They [weigh] 1,300 tons each and cost about $3.5 million each.” Their “armament includes guns heavy enough for surface engagements with submarines, anti-aircraft batteries, depth charges and torpedo tubes.”

Twenty years ago, while researching Saving Monticello, I discovered that Jefferson Levy’s sister Amelia Mayhoff, (and Uriah’s niece), hosted (“sponsored” in Navy parlance) the ceremonial launching. But I just learned some other facts about the ship and the Levy family from an article that Levy descendant Tom Lewis recently ran across and kindly sent to me.

The article, in the Long Branch, N.J., Record, reports that the idea to name a ship in honor of Uriah Levy came from a veterans service organization, the Jewish War Veterans of the United States, which lobbied the War Department to do so. It also notes that Tom Lewis’ grandmother Frances Lewis (referred to as “Mrs. Harold L. Lewis”) represented the family at the ceremonies.

The Levy went on to perform well during World War II. The ship served in the southern and central Pacific from August 1943 through the end of the fighting. Among its accomplishment of note, the Levy supported the invasion of the Marianas in the summer of 1944, and its officers hosted the surrender ceremonies of the Japanese Navy in the southeastern Marshall Islands at Mili Atoll.

  

BABBLING BROOKE: Sometimes during my talks on Saving Monticello I take a brief detour when I get to Maude Littleton—who led the 1911-18 campaign to take Monticello from Jefferson Levy—to talk about her husband, Martin Wiley Littleton.

A prominent lawyer and one-term Democratic Congressman from Long Island, New York, Martin Littleton (1872-1934) was a noted figure in his own right. His notoriety derived primarily from his skillful defense of the playboy millionaire Harry K. Thaw in the 1908 second round of the first media-celebrated American “trial of the century.”

Shaw had shot and killed the renowned architect Stanford White on the rooftop of Madison Square Garden. That sensationally sordid affair—the subject of E.L. Doctorow’s novel (and the film and Broadway show) Ragtime—centered on White’s affair with Mrs. Shaw, the famed model and actress Evelyn Nesbit known as “The Bird in the Gilded Cage” because her husband kept her away from society.

Knowing most post-Baby Boomers likely don’t know the name Evelyn Nesbit, I used to explain that she was the “Madonna of her time.” That’s given way to the Kim Kardasian or the Lada Gaga of her time.

Evelyn Nesbit, "The Bird in the Gilded Cage"

I flashed back to Evelyn Nesbite when I recently learned of a connection between Jefferson M. Levy and Frances Evelyn “Daisy” Maynard (1861-1938), another beautiful, flamboyant early 20^th century woman. Born into British high society, she later became Lady Brooke and then the Countess of Warwick after her husband, Francis Grevile, Lord Brooke, became the 5^th Earl of Warwick. Rumor had it that Lady Brooke inspired the popular song “Daisy Bell (Bicycle Bult for Two),” which burst on the scene in 1892 when she was 31 and one of London’s most famous and active socialites. Her media nicknames included “The It Girl,” “My Darling Daisy,” and “Babbling Brooke.”

Lady Brooke’s flamboyant lifestyle included open love affairs with several rich and famous Englishmen, including Lord Charles Bereford, a renowned British Navy admiral and member of Parliament. She had a ten-year affair with Albert Edward, the Prince of Wales, who later acceded to the British throne as King Edward VII in 1901, ushering in the Edwardian Era.

Lady Brooke

What’s Lady Brooke’s tie to Monticello? Well, in 1907, at the height of her celebrity, she journeyed to the United States for a whirlwind of high-society activity. Lady Brooke spent most of that time in New York City, where she stayed with none other than Jefferson M. Levy, the big real estate and stock speculator—and very eligible bachelor—whom the Charlottesville Daily Progress described as her “legal adviser.”

In October, the Countess decided to make a trip to Monticello, her legal adviser’s country home in Virginia. Later that month Levy—a pre-jet jetsetter who hobnobbed with royals and other upper-crusters on two continents—hosted a dinner for the Bishop of London at Monticello. Among his guests was his house guest, the Countess of Warwick.

That’s the extent of our knowledge about the relationship between one of Europe’s most flamboyant socialites and one of America’s richest men. I will continue to search for more.  

EVENTS: Just one event in May. On Sunday afternoon, May, 3, I did a Zoom talk as a fund-raising benefit for the nonprofit Mosby Heritage Area Association, a historic preservation group that focuses on “preservation through education” in the Northern Virginia Piedmont where I live.

My scheduled live events for the spring and summer have been canceled or postponed due to the pandemic. To check out my scheduled late 2020 events, go to the Events page on my website at http://bit.ly/Eventsandtalks

Doing the Zoom talk in the shadow of the Bull Run Mountains

If you’d like to arrange an event for Saving Monticello, or for any of my other books, feel free to send me email at marcleepson@gmail.com  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.  I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover copies, along with a good selection of brand-new copies of my other books.