December 2021

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XVIII, Number 12                                                            December 1, 2021

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

 

 ‘THE LEVYS OF MONTICELLO’:  Here’s the latest on the documentary about the post-Jefferson history of Monticello focusing on the Levy family written, produced, and directed by Steven Pressman. The film, which Steve has been working on for nearly two years, is in the final stages of post-production and will be featured in film festivals starting early next year.

To say this is welcome and exciting news is the understatement of the millennium. Since Saving Monticello was published in November 2001, many people have told me that the story would make a great documentary—and I certainly agreed. Over the years, in fact, I have been approached by documentarians who’ve expressed interest in turning the book into a film. Emails were exchanged. Meetings were held. Nothing came of them.

It looked as though a doc was going to happen in 2004 as a partnership between a small Northern Virginia documentary film company and WHRO, the public TV station in Norfolk, Virginia. Funds were raised; I helped write a treatment; and a video promo was produced. Then WHRO backed out and the project died.

Then, in the summer of 2018, I had a call from Steve, an old friend and colleague. We had worked together at Congressional Quarterly in Washington in the eighties and had kept in touch as we both moved on to free-lance writing careers. Steve began making documentaries about ten years ago. He had finished two excellent docs: 50 Children: The Rescue Mission of Mr. and Mrs. Kraus, which was shown on HBO in April 2013; and Holy Silence, which deals with the Vatican and the Holocaust, which came out in 2020, and was aired on PBS stations nationwide. 

Steve had finished Holy Silence, and told me he was seriously considering making a film telling the Levy family’s Monticello story. I readily and wholeheartedly agreed. Then the stars aligned and he went to work. Steve did all the heavy lifting, lining up talking heads, searching for images, writing the script, and a hundred other things, including conducting a long on-camera interview with me. 

I helped him find other folks to interview and provided an introduction to Susan Stein, Monticello’s curator whom I’ve known since I started researching Saving Monticello in 1997. Susan kindly met with Steve to share her extensive knowledge about the Levys and Monticello and also did an extensive interview for the film.   

Steve has just begun working with a film distribution company, Menemsha Films, and has created a terrific trailer for the documentary. You can see it online at https://bit.ly/SMDocTrailer 

I have watched it—about sixteen times.

Stay tuned for more news on The Levys of Monticello soon.

THE STATUE MOVES: Last month I reported on the New York City Council’s decision to remove a larger-than-life statue of Thomas Jefferson from the Council chambers in Manhattan mainly because Thomas Jefferson enslaved more than 600 people during his lifetime. As the Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus put it: the statute was a “constant reminder of the injustices that have plagued communities of color since the inception of our country.” 

The statue was donated to the city in 1833 by then U.S. Navy Lt. Uriah Levy, a NYC resident who had commissioned it from the noted French sculptor Pierre-Jean David d’Angers in Paris. I tell the story in detail in Saving Monticello.

After that vote in October, the Council announced that it was negotiating the details about loaning the statue to The New-York Historical Society. The details, for a 10-year loan, were announced November 15. A week later, the statue was removed from its pedestal, boxed up, and shipped to the Historical Society. It will soon be on public exhibit in its lobby gallery for six months, and then move to the Society’s museum reading room, which also is accessible to the public.

The statue, the Historical Society said in a press release, “will be given appropriate historical context, including details of Thomas Jefferson’s complicated legacy—his contributions as a founder and draftsman of the Declaration of Independence and the contradiction between his vision of human equality and his ownership of enslaved people—and the statue’s original purpose as a tribute to Jefferson’s staunch defense of freedom of religion and separation of church and state.”

The Historical Society’s president and CEO, Louise Mirrer told The New York Times that the statue will be part of an upcoming exhibition focusing on “the principal contradiction of our founding ideals.” From “the start,” she said, “we have seen the opportunity to display the statue as consistent with the ways in which we look at our institution. Jefferson [is] one of those figures that really draws attention to the distance between our founding ideals and the reality of our nation.”

THE JEWISH AMERICAN EXPERIENCE

Dr. Jonathan Sarna is one of the world’s foremost scholars of American Jewish history, religion, and life. A professor of American Jewish History at Brandeis University, he also directs the Schusterman Center for Israel Studies, and—among other things—is a past president of the Association for Jewish Studies and the Chief Historian of the National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.

 Dr. Sarna has written, edited, and co-edited more than thirty books on Jewish American history. They include Lincoln and the Jews: A History; When General Grant Expelled the Jews; and the acclaimed American Judaism: A History.   

His latest book, Coming to Terms with America: Essays on Jewish History, Religion, and Culture (Jewish Publication Society, 430 pp., $45, hardcover; $39.75, Kindle), is an annotated collection of 15 fascinating and illuminating essays Dr. Sarna has written in the last four decades. A longtime subscriber to this newsletter, I have turned to him more than a few times for guidance about Jewish American history.

I was particularly fascinated by the chapter in his new book titled “Subversive Jews and Early American Culture.” It in, Dr. Sarna examines Jewish Americans who were “creators and shapers of the nascent national culture” during the Early Republic. He looks at Jewish Americans—who made up fewer than one-tenth of a percent of the U.S. population—who “cast themselves as critics, subversives, and dissenters.”

 That group includes the “journalist-politician-playwright” Mordecai Noah, and his second cousin, Uriah Philips Levy. Dr. Sarna makes a good case that Levy was a “subversive,” primarily because of the way he fought back against the vicious anti-Semitism he repeatedly faced during his fifty-year Navy career. “Many in the Navy considered him a subversive threat to tradition and order,” Dr. Sarna writes.

 He goes on to present a concise, unvarnished look at what Levy put up with in the Navy, including fighting for the abolition of corporal punishment and his six courts-martial. He also includes an account of Levy’s admiration for Thomas Jefferson, as exemplified by commissioning the Jefferson statue from David d’Angers in France and purchasing Monticello. 

EVENTS: I have two this month, both on Wednesday, December 8. At noon, I’ll be doing at talk on Desperate Engagement, my history of the Civil War Battle of Monocacy and the subsequent attack on Washington, D.C., for the Fairfax City (Virginia) Military History Group. In the evening it’s a discussion with a local history book group on the life of the Marquis de Lafayette, the subject of my 2011 book, Lafayette: Idealist General.

If you’d like to arrange an event for Saving Monticello—or for any of my other books, please email me at marcleepson@gmail.com

For details on other upcoming events, check out the Events page on my website:  https://bit.ly/NewAppearances

GIFT IDEAS:  Want a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello? Please e-mail me at marcleepson@gmail.com  I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover copies, along with a good selection of brand-new copies of my other books: Flag: An American Biography; Desperate Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed; Flag: An American Biography; and Ballad of the Green Beret: The Life and Wars of Staff Sgt. Barry Sadler.

November 2021

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XVIII, Number 11                                                 November 1, 2021

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

 

THE STATUE: On Monday, October 19, Thomas Jefferson and Uriah Levy made national headlines when New York City decided to remove a larger-than-life statue of Thomas Jefferson from its City Council chambers in Manhattan. Said statue was donated to the city in 1833 by then U.S. Navy Lt. Uriah Phillips Levy, a NYC resident who commissioned it from the noted French sculptor Pierre-Jean David d’Angers in Paris. 

The unanimous vote to remove the imposing statue by the eleven-member New York City Public Design Commission came after the City Council’s Black, Latino and Asian Caucus formally requested it mainly because Thomas Jefferson enslaved more than 600 people during his lifetime. The imposing, larger-than-life statue, the caucus said, is a “constant reminder of the injustices that have plagued communities of color since the inception of our country.” 

As I have written in this newsletter and in Saving Monticello, Uriah Levy greatly admired Thomas Jefferson for his dedication to religious freedom. That admiration moved Levy to commission the bronze statue, which depicts Jefferson holding a quill pen in his right hand and an etched copy of the Declaration of Independence in his left. And it was the impetus behind the 42-year-old Navy lieutenant’s decision to buy Monticello in 1834. 

Uriah Levy presented the black-painted plaster model of the Jefferson statue to the City of New York on February 6, 1833. The city gave him a gold snuff box in appreciation. That statue was placed on the second floor of the Rotunda at City Hall in Manhattan, and moved into the ornate City Council Chamber in the 1950s. 

A month after he gave the model to New York City, Uriah Levy presented the original bronze to the United States government. It stands today in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol. A small plaque at the statue’s bases contains these words: “Presented by Uriah Phillips Levy of the United States Navy to his fellow citizens, 1833.”  

New York City’s statue-removal action on October 19 drew negative reactions, with political conservatives leading the way. Republican NYC Councilman Joe Borelli of Staten Island, for example, called it part of “the progressive war on history.” Seventeen historians signed a petition recommending that the Design Commission keep the statue in City Hall, but not in the City Council Chambers. 

After the resolution passed, a debate continued about where the statue should go. It appeared to be destined for the New-York Historical Society’s headquarters building uptown on Central Park West. The Historical Society announced that if it received the statue, it would be prominently displayed with signage that explained Jefferson’s many accomplishments, including serving as Ambassador to France, the nation’s first Secretary of State, the Governor of Virginia, and as Vice President and President of the United States, as well as being the primary author of the Declaration of Independence and the 1786 Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom (below) and a strong proponent of the Bill of Rights—along with the fact that he enslaved 607 people during his lifetime. 

Louise Mirrer, the Historical Society president and CEO, told The New York Times that if the David d’Angers Jefferson statue wound up in its building, it would be displayed on the first floor. And it would contain interpretation explaining the “principal contradiction of our founding ideals,” as well as the “lived experience of many founding Americans, including Jefferson.” The Society doesn’t “bury history,” she said, “We tell history, and history is tough and it’s filled with contradictions.” 

In Jefferson’s case that tough history centers on the fact that he was—at the same time—a passionate advocate for freedom of religion (and freedom of the press and speech) and an enslaver of human beings. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation, which owns and operates Monticello, ascribes to the philosophy of telling the complex and difficult story of Jefferson’s sometimes contradictory work and life. As Monticello’s website puts it, visitors “learn about Jefferson and his vision for America, the realities of slavery on the Monticello plantation, and the mountaintop’s iconic architecture.” 

A visitor to Monticello will learn of Jefferson’s many and varied accomplishments as well as the fact that he was a slaveholder. The Foundation tells the story of how President Jefferson oversaw the purchase of the 530-million-acre Louisiana Territory in 1803 from France, more than doubling the size of the young nation, on the one hand, and also offers a trail-blazing permanent multimedia exhibit on the slavery situation at Monticello. 

*******************

I received several emails before and after the City Council’s action from people who told me they thought the statue’s removal was a slap in Uriah Levy’s face. I do not see it that way. For one thing, Uriah Levy’s name did not come up during the Design Commission debate (or if did, it was not mentioned in the extensive media coverage). The debate centered on Thomas Jefferson’s enslavement of hundreds of human beings, although nearly every media account mentioned that Uriah Levy commissioned the statue and generously donated the plaster model to the city.                           

On October 24 The New York Times published an excellent opinion piece by Jonathan Sarna, headlined “What Jefferson’s Statue Meant to the Jewish Naval Hero Who Donated It.” Dr. Sarna, one of the nation’s top American Jewish history scholars (and a subscriber to this newsletter), did not base his well-reasoned, fact-filled essay on whether or not the statue should have been removed. Rather, he focused on—as he put it—the fact that “amid the debate over race, history, and the statue,” it is of vital importance to understand “the reason Jefferson was placed there in the first place.” 

That reason, in essence, was Uriah Phillip Levy’s profound admiration for Thomas Jefferson’s dedication to religious freedom, including the fact that he “championed the rights of Jews.” 

I mention that fact in Saving Monticello, and also point out that one sterling example of Jefferson’s enlightened attitude about Judaism involved Uriah Levy’s second cousin, Mordecai Manuel Noah (1785-1851), a well-known American diplomat and journalist. In 1818, Noah (below) received what would become a famous letter from Thomas Jefferson expressing his views on freedom of religion and Judaism. 

Mordecai Noah had given a speech at Shearith Israel, the Spanish and Portuguese synagogue in New York earlier that year, a copy of which made its way to Monticello. 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.” (Emphasis added.) 

I agree completely with Dr. Sarna’s conclusion. Noting that “for all of his noble intentions, Mr. Levy also kept enslaved persons at Monticello,” he wrote that statues “can convey multiple messages, as can historical memory. Rather than choosing between the memory of racial injustice and the embrace of religious liberty, let the d’Angers statue serve as a reminder that Jefferson embodied both at once."

One last thought. I was happy to see that Saving Monticello was mentioned in one of the NYT articles on the statue’s removal. Take a look at  https://bit.ly/SavingM

EVENTS: I’ll be doing my first in-person talk on Saving Monticello since before the pandemic started on Saturday, November 13, at the monthly meeting of the Providence DAR Chapter in Fairfax Station, Virginia.  

If other events get scheduled, they’ll be listed, along with all future talks, on the Author Events page on my website, https://marcleepson.com

GIFT IDEA:  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 new copies of my other books.

 

October 2021

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XVIII, Number 10             October 1, 2021

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

 

 ‘ALL IS IN DILAPIDATION AND RUIN’: The cover image of Saving Monticello contains the oldest known photograph of Thomas Jefferson’s “Essay in Architecture.” Taken in the early 1870s, it paints a stark picture of a seriously neglected house in serious disrepair. As readers of the book know, that was the second time Monticello had come close to ruin. The first happened four decades earlier, not long after the July 4, 1826, death of Thomas Jefferson in the early 1830s after James Turner Barclay bought the place from Jefferson’s heirs, Martha Jefferson Randolph and her son Thomas Jefferson Randolph. 

“The first thing that strikes you is the utter ruin and desolation of everything,” John H. B. Latrobe, a prominent Baltimore lawyer, philanthropist, and a founder of the Maryland Historical Society (and the son of the famed architect Benjamin Latrobe), wrote after visiting Monticello in August 1832. That was just eight months after Barclay, a pharmacist who lived in Charlottesville, purchased the property and moved into the house with his wife Julia. (The Barclays in photo below with daughter Sarah in 1856)

Another visitor to the mountaintop that month, William T. Barry, then the Postmaster General of the United States, painted a similarly bleak picture of Monticello. “All is dilapidation and ruin,” Barry said in a letter to his daughter, “and I fear the present owner, Dr. Barclay, is not able, if he were inclined, to restore it to its former condition.” 

Martha Randolph, writing to her daughter Ellen in October 1833, offered more first-person evidence about Monticello’s declining condition during the Barclay years. Mr. Barclay had “cut down the grove”—Jefferson’s 18-acre "ornamental forest" near the house—and “ploughed up the yard to the very edge of the lawn and planted it in corn,” she wrote, and the house’s terrace was “a complete wreck.”

I reported that primary-source evidence, among other things, in Saving Monticello, to make the case that James Turner Barclay had done little or nothing during the four years he lived at Monticello to reverse the physical decline that had begun in Thomas Jefferson’s later years—and that, in fact, that Barclay had made things worse. 

I also cited a campaign beginning in the early 1880s by Barclay descendants to rehabilitate his Monticello reputation with a series of newspaper and magazine articles promoting the idea that he was a devoted steward of Monticello. 

I quoted from a few of those articles in the book, and recently came across one I hadn’t seen in the August 10, 1882, Valley Virginian newspaper of Staunton, Virginia. 

That article reprinted a letter to the editor that appeared in the New York Sun from John Judson Barclay, a son of James Barclay who was born at Monticello in 1834, and who staunchly defended his father’s time there—using, he said, his “personal knowledge.” 

The younger Barclay (in photo, below) wrote that his father—far from letting the place go into ruin—actually “made extensive repairs to the terraces and beautified the grounds, as well as the interior of the mansion….” During his father’s three years at Monticello, his son said, he dispensed “a liberal hospitality, extending a warm Virginia welcome to all visitors.”

Similar thoughts were in an August 10, 1908, article in The Wheeling [West Virginia] Intelligencer, on the occasion of the death of Julia Barclay. That includes the statement that James T. Barclay “took great pride in restoring the serpentine walks, terraces and in planting new trees in the yard, and Mrs. Barclay was a model housekeeper." The article went on to say that it "was often said by ‘Jeff’ Randolph, who was a frequent visitor to Monticello during their stay in his grandfather’s old home, that Mrs. Barclay kept the floors in a far more beautiful condition than they were kept during the lifetime of his grandfather.”  

John Judson Barclay’s wife Decima also took part in the Barclay rehabilitation campaign. “Dr. Barclay never cut down a tree at Monticello that Mr. Jefferson had planted, or that was rare, or of any value whatever,” she wrote around 1900. “He himself planted many trees on the ‘little mountain’ which he loved, as he had always loved and admired the memory of its former owner; and it was his greatest pleasure to embellish and beautify the grounds….” 

A longer version of that scenario is contained in a privately published 1939 book, Sketches of The Moon and Barclay Families, by Barclay descendant Anna Mary Moon. Before “the Barclays took possession,” she wrote, Monticello “fell into neglect.” She went on to say that James T. Barclay “kept gardeners constantly employed renewing the serpentine walks and improving the premises in every way in his power.” He even “built new terraces to the house, which he found in a very dilapidated condition.” 

Historians know that the least reliable form of historical evidence is the family story, and these Barclay Family remembrances certainly fall into that category. Plus, they were written decades after the fact, and seemingly in an effort to refute point by point what the visitors to Monticello and Martha Randolph wrote in 1832 and 1833. Which leads me to think that the family doth protest too much. 

So, did the Barclays wreck Monticello? Or did they take great care of it? It seems likely that the answer lies somewhere between those extremes. But the facts remains that when Barclay sold the place to Uriah Levy in 1834 (the sale didn’t go through till 1836), it was certainly in dilapidation and ruin, and  the Barclay family left there after only four years, sometime in 1835. 

Soon thereafter, James Turner Barclay began a new life as a missionary in the Holy Land. But that's another story.

EVENTS: None schedule October, though it looks like I’ll be getting back to doing in-person talks on Saving Monticello and my other books in November. Details to follow. If other events get scheduled, they’ll be listed, along with all future talks, on the Author Events page on my website, https://marcleepson.com 

GIFT IDEA:  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 new copies of my other books.

The SM Newsletter on Line: You can read back issues of this newsletter at http://bit.ly/SMNewsLtr

September 2021

 

 

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XVIII, Number 9                                                       September 1, 2021

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

 

A LOYAL CITIZEN: Uriah Phillips Levy, who was born in Philadelphia in 1792, was one of ten children. Jonas Phillips Levy, his youngest brother—and the youngest of the ten siblings—came along fifteen years later, in 1807.

Jonas followed in Uriah’s footsteps in two significant ways. First, he made a career as a sea captain—not in the U.S. Navy as his brother did, but in the American merchant marines. Second, he took a strong interest in Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, which Uriah purchased in 1834 when he was a 45-year-old U.S. Navy Lieutenant. 

Jonas Levy—“an extraordinary and strange character,” in the words of the late historian Samuel Rezneck—grew up in Philadelphia. At 16, he ran away to sea, which is what—according to family lore—Uriah did at age 13. Jonas, who had left his family home in Philadelphia and was staying with his cousins in New York City, signed on as a cabin boy for four dollars a month on a schooner called Sygnet heading to New Orleans. 

For the next four decades Jonas Levy (above) “journeyed literally over the seven seas,” as Rezneck put it, as a crewman and later as a ship captain, primarily plying the waters of Central and South America. That included taking part in putting a down rebellion in Peru in 183, and aiding the American cause in Mexico during the U.S. war there in 1848. He sailed to and from nearly all of the seaports on the East Coast, crossed the Atlantic regularly, and spent time in the Caribbean, in England, France, and elsewhere on the Continent. 

Jonas married Frances (Fanny) Mitchell in 1848. When he wasn’t sailing those seas, Jonas, Fanny, and their young children (including Jefferson Monroe Levy, who was born in 1852) lived in New York City. The family moved to Washington, D.C., in 1854, where Jonas was one of the founders of Washington Hebrew Congregation, serving a term as the synagogue’s president. He moved the family to Baltimore in April 1861, shortly after the Civil War broke out. 

All of which is to say that the peripatetic Jonas Levy, as I noted in Saving Monticello, was a born-and-bred northerner. Which puts what he did during the Civil War squarely in Samuel Rezneck’s “strange” category. What he did was move (without his family) to Wilmington, North Carolina, not long after the move to Baltimore. In his memoir, Jonas described that sudden move in his memoir in just one sentence: He left Baltimore, he wrote, “with the intention of going to Mexico; got as far as Wilmington.” 

He stayed in Wilmington for four years until the end of the war. He opened a chandlery there (selling candles and other ship supplies) and a hardware business—and soon offered his services to the Confederate military. 

He did so in letters to the Confederate Congress in Richmond and to several leading officials, including President Jefferson Davis and then Secretary of War Judah P. Benjamin (below). Among other things, Jonas offered to build a 20-gun ironclad ship in Europe and use it to break the Union Navy’s blockade of Confederate seaports. That scheme never came to fruition. 

On April 16, 1862, Jonas presented a petition to the Confederate Congress asking for a “modification” of the South’s sequestration law to allow him, a resident of the Confederacy, to inherit Monticello. The CSA had seized Thomas Jefferson’s house a year earlier by the CSA as it was owned by a northerner—his brother Uriah. 

In that letter he wrote that he was “a loyal citizen of this Confederacy,” and his brother’s only heir who lived in in the Confederate States. The Congress rejected Jonas’ request. 

Uriah Levy had fought the sequestration of Monticello in the Confederate courts; the legal battle continued after his death in 1862. His Charlottesville lawyer lost the case in the fall of 1864. On November 17 the CSA auctioned off the house and Uriah’s property, including 19 enslaved people. 

Jonas Levy—who in another letter to Judah Benjamin spoke of the Confederate rebellion as “the holy cause”—showed up at the auction on the mountaintop. He bid on the house, but it went for a larger sum that he was willing to pay, $80,500 in CSA money, to Benjamin F. Ficklin, a Confederate Army officer. Jonas did come away with a model of his brother’s ship, the Vandalia, and also purchased one of Uriah Levy’s enslaved men, John, who was sold, as a newspaper article put it, “to Capt. Jonas P. Levy for $5,400.” 

In his memoir Jonas Levy did not mention his adventures during the Civil War, and he never explained why he went offered himself to the Southern cause. Not writing about that in the memoir led me to believe that Jonas Levy was not exactly proud of his flirtations with the Confederacy during the war. And I believe that he most likely did so, as I said in Saving Monticello, to gain control of Monticello. He didn’t, but his son Jefferson Levy did—with his father’s strong encouragement—in 1879. 

Jonas Phillips Levy died in 1883. 

EVENTS: None scheduled in September, although I am scheduled to be record an interview in Washington, D.C., on the history of the American flag—based on my book Flag: An American Biography—for a new show airing on PBS stations later this year. Details to follow. 

If other events get scheduled, they’ll be listed, along with all future talks, on the Author Events page on my website, https://marcleepson.com 

GIFT IDEA:  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 new copies of my other books.

The SM Newsletter on Line: You can read back issues of this newsletter at http://bit.ly/SMNewsLtr

August 2021

 

 

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XVIII, Number 8                                                              August 1, 2021

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

 

LEVY TELLS OF MONTICELLO: In October 1914, as the contentious congressional effort to take Monticello from Jefferson Levy sputtered through its third year, the fate of Thomas Jefferson’s “essay in architecture” became a national issue. That’s because Jefferson Levy—who adamantly fought the effort to take the house from him for three years—had surprisingly changed his mind early that month, announcing that he’d sell Monticello to the government. That’s when newspapers across the country, government officials, and patriotic society leaders joined members of Congress and weighed in publicly on what they believed would be best for Monticello’s future. 

The main debate was whether the government or a nonprofit should take over the house. The other bone of contention: exactly what the house and grounds should be used for. Some envisioned it as a restored house museum. Others wanted it to be a presidential retreat—sort of a summer White House. 

We know the upshot: Congress never agreed to buy Monticello from Jefferson Levy, and he sold it in 1923 to the nonprofit Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation. The foundation (now the Thomas Jefferson Foundation) has run it ever since as a world-class house museum. 

But in 1914 there seemed to be strong sentiment for the house to become an official presidential retreat. And it appeared that the Daughters of the American Revolution would run it. Daisy Allen Story (identified in newspapers at the time as Mrs. William Cummings Story) the president-general of the DAR, met with President Woodrow Wilson at the White House in July 1916 and convinced him of her organization’s suitability as Monticello’s future steward.

She then headed to Capitol Hill and testified before a congressional committee making her case that “the custody of this precious shrine” should be “be entrusted to our loving, reverent care,” and that the DAR would operate Monticello as a Virginia home-away-from-the-White-House for the President of the United States. 

Jefferson Levy had owned Monticello since 1879, and it had been in his family since his uncle, Uriah Phillips Levy, bought it in 1834. Not long after Jefferson Levy announced he was amenable to selling Monticello, its surrounding 640 acres, and all its furniture and furnishings to the government (for $500,000), he let it be known that he “abhorred” the idea of the place becoming a house museum. Instead, Levy proposed that Monticello remain a residence as he had maintained it for more than 30 years and that it should become a summer home for Presidents. 

“Make it the home—the Virginia home—of the Presidents of the United States, and maintain it for their occasional occupancy,” Levy said, “and I will be content.” 

Jefferson Levy granted a rare interview on the subject of his ownership of Monticello in Washington, D.C., on October 16, 1914, to Harold R. Johnson, a reporter from the Brooklyn Daily Times. 

In the article headlined, “Levy Tells of Monticello,” Jefferson Levy said that he went to Monticello every Sunday when he was in Washington on a “railroad journey” that “consumes little over three hours.” Monticello’s proximity to Washington, D.C., he said, was one reason it would make sense to use the house and grounds as a presidential retreat. 

“I think it is entirely fitting and proper that I include in the Provisions of the sale a stipulation that it shall be maintained throughout time as a summer home where the President of the United States can spend as much or as little of his time as he desires.” (When Levy sold Monticello to the foundation, there was no stipulation as to its use.) 

The Charlottesville establishment supported the presidential house idea. The “summer house” proposal “has been gaining favor here for some years,” the Charlottesville Daily Progress reported in an October 1914 article headlined “May Become Second Capital If Levy’s Suggestion is Put Through.” The city “should take advantage of this opportunity to secure for itself the publicity which the residence of a President of the United States brings.” 

The article went on to point out that Monticello would be a “natural home” for American presidents. And it noted that small cities with presidential retreats such as Beverly, Massachusetts—President William Howard Taft’s summer home—and Oyster Bay, New York—the long-time home of Theodore Roosevelt (below)—had been “placed on the map.”  

The paper than boldly predicted that Charlottesville might very well become “the second capital of the United States if Levy’s suggestion” that it be “made the summer home of the Presidents is put through.” That never happened, of course, but another of the newspaper’s boosterism predictions did come true. To wit, that “Charlottesville seems destined to become a mecca of tourists.” 

EVENTS: None schedule for August. If other events get scheduled, they’ll be listed, along with future talks, on the Author Events page on my website, https://marcleepson.com 

July 2021

 

Volume XVIII, Number 7                                   July 1, 2021

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

 

THE 1827 AND 1829 AUCTIONS: Last week, on June 29, I watched an excellent livestream on the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s website—a Q&A with two top-notch Monticello staff members: Senior Fellow of African American History Niya Bates and Andrew Davenport, Monticello’s Public Historian and Manager of the Getting Word African American Oral History Project. The topic was what happened to the enslaved people at Monticello after Thomas Jefferson’s death on July 4, 1826.

During the discussion Niya and Andrew covered the January 1827 auction that Thomas Jefferson’s heirs—his daughter Martha and grandson Thomas Jefferson Randolph—held on the mountaintop to try to raise money to pay off the enormous $107,000 debt they had inherited. As I wrote in Saving Monticello, to market the auction, Jeff Randolph in November of 1826 had placed a notice that appeared in the Richmond Enquirer under the headline “Executor’s Sale.” 

Published on January 15, the ad (above) said, “the whole of the residue of the personal property of Thomas Jefferson” would be auctioned at Monticello. That included “130 valuable negroes, stock, crops &c., household and kitchen furniture.” The “negroes” were described as “believed to be the most valuable for their number ever offered at one time in the State of Virginia.” 

The sale began on January 15, and lasted five days, during which about 100 enslaved people were sold—along with a fair amount of Thomas Jefferson’s furniture and furnishings. It’s not clear how much money the auction netted, but we do know that it didn’t put a large dent in that enormous debt—and that Jeff Randolph worked till his dying day to pay the rest of it off. 

Pre-printed Bill of Sale for January 1827 Auction

I only recently learned that as part of that effort the family held a second slave auction two years later. That auction took place at the Eagle Tavern, a hotel (in early 19th century parlance, a “public house”) owned by John G. Wright in downtown Charlottesville at Court Square on January 4, 1829. The tavern often was used as a venue for buying and selling enslaved men, women, and children. 

It appears that 33 people were auctioned off that day, mainly members of the enslaved Granger, Hern, Gillette, and Hubbard families. The purchasers, according to the “The Business of Slavery at Monticello” page on the Thomas Jefferson Foundation’s website, included “University of Virginia professors, local merchants, former Monticello overseers and artisans, and Randolph family members.”

A handwritten accounting (below) lists the sale of thirty “farm negroes” to twenty buyers for a total of $8,390. The buyers included Thomas Jefferson Randolph, who purchased seven people for $935. George Blatterman, a University of Virginia professor, bought Ben and Lilly, presumably a married couple, for $385. He had purchased six enslaved people—including a boy named Marshall—at the 1827 auction for $820.

Dr. Robley Dunglison, the British-born physician who was a member of the original 1819 faculty at the University of Virginia who was Thomas Jefferson’s physician, purchased a man identified as “Wagonier David” for $270. Dr. Dunglison had moved up to Monticello to attend Thomas Jefferson during the last week of his life, and was at his bedside when Jefferson died on July 4, 1826. The Randolphs invited him, his wife Hariette, and their two-year-old daughter to stay at Monticello after Jefferson’s death. They remained there until early in September 1827.          

                         

Only a few of Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved people stayed in Albemarle County. The rest were shipped off to slave owners in other states, primarily in Mississippi, Missouri, Arkansas, and Alabama.

To delve further into the fate of Jefferson’s enslaved people after his death, check out the June 29 livestream, which is archived on Monticello’s website at https://bit.ly/LivestreamMont and the “Business of Slavery" page on Monticello’s website at  https://bit.ly/SlaveryBizMont

EVENTS: I will be appearing on a Voice of America’s Urdu website, https://www.urduvoa.com, on Sunday, July 4, talking about the history of the American flag—in English. 

If other events get scheduled late in July, they’ll be listed, along with future talks, on the Author Events page on my website, https://marcleepson.com 

GIFT IDEA:  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 new copies of my other books.

June 2021

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XVIII, Number 6                                                              June 1, 2021

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

 

JUDGE DUKE: Richard Thomas Walker Duke, Jr.—aka R.T.W. Duke—was Jefferson Levy’s most vocal and effective advocate during the years (1912-1917) when he was battling Maude Littleton in her effort to convince Congress to take Monticello from him and turn it into a government-run house museum. Known as Judge Duke—and to his friends as Tom—R.T.W. (1853-1926) was descended from one of Albemarle County, Virginia’s oldest families, and one that had a long relationship with the Jefferson and Randolph families. 

His father, R. T. W. Duke, Sr. (1822-98) was born in Albemarle County near Charlottesville. He graduated from the Virginia Military Institute in 1944, received a law degree from the University of Virginia in 1850, and then began practicing law in Albemarle, where he also served as the Commonwealth’s Attorney from 1858-69. 

Duke Sr. (below) was as a colonel in a Virginia Infantry Regiment in the Civil War and during Reconstruction won a special election in 1870 to fill a vacant seat in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Colonel was re-elected in 1871, and later served a term year (1879-80) in the Virginia House of Delegates. Like his adored father, Tom Duke Jr., grew up in Charlottesville and studied at the University of Virginia (from 1870-74) where he was a big man on campus—or “the grounds” in U-Va. parlance. Tom Duke edited the University’s literary journal, known in his day as the Virginia University Magazine. Many of his poems appeared in the magazine, which was published by the University’s oldest student organization, the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, and the University’s Washington Society debating club, which began in 1831. 

In his final year at the University Tom Duke (below) studied law. Soon after graduating, he began practicing law in Albemarle County, eventually becoming a partner in his father’s law firm. He was involved in more than a few business ventures in Charlottesville. According to the Dictionary of Virginia Biography, Judge Duke founded the Charlottesville Ice Company and was its president for ten years. He held leadership positions in “various other businesses, including two coal companies, the Monticello Wine Company, the Potomac Electric Power Company, the Washington Railway and Electric Company, and the Albemarle National Bank,” later the National Bank of Charlottesville.

In March 1888, the day after Charlottesville officially incorporated as a city, the Virginia General Assembly named Tom Duke, Jr. the city’s first corporation judge. He served for two consecutive six-year terms and later was elected to the Charlottesville City Council. 

In 1911, the year before he started working with Jefferson Levy on Monticello, he was appointed—as his father had been—Commonwealth’s Attorney for Albemarle County. A fervent conservative Democrat, Duke served as a presidential elector at large during the 1912 election and twice (in 1909 and 1925) reportedly considered running for governor. He chaired the board of the Virginia State Library (now known as the Library of Virginia) from 1923 until his death three years later. 

For the last twenty years of his life Judge Duke edited the Virginia Law Register. His editorials “reveal his skepticism of woman suffrage and of having women serve on juries,” the Dictionary of Virginia Biography reported, as well as his “support for poll taxes and the 1924 Act to Provide for the Sexual Sterilization of Inmates of State Institutions in Certain Cases, and his criticism of Prohibition.” 

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Tom Duke, Jr. met Jefferson Levy in the 1880s soon after Levy gained control of Monticello in 1879. Levy hired Duke to do legal work in conjunction with his extensive real estate holdings in and around Charlottesville. He took up Jefferson Levy’s Monticello cause in April 1912. Sitting at his side during a series of contentious congressional hearings beginning that year, Judge Duke was a forceful presence, grilling Mrs. Littleton and her supporters and otherwise defending his client against the effort to take Monticello from him.  

He said, for example, that stories spread by Mrs. Littleton and her supporters that Uriah Levy underhandedly purchased Monticello and that Jefferson Levy ignored the upkeep of the house and grounds were “a tissue of fable” and “simply absurd.” Jefferson Levy, he later said, “deserves the thanks of all patriotic citizens for the way in which he has preserved the place and for the way in which he has allowed the public access to it, and I am not at all in sympathy with the criticism of Mr. Levy in the public press. I have the highest personal regard for him.” 

JML’S BIRTHDATE: My friend and colleague Steve Pressman was in New York recently doing research for his documentary, “The Levys of Monticello,” and sent me a pic he took of Jefferson Levy’s gravestone at Beth Olem Cemetery in the Cypress Hills section of Brooklyn. 

As you can see in the photo below Levy’s date of birth is listed as April 16, 1853. But when I was doing the research for Saving Monticello, I found that he was born on April 16, 1852. And subsequent research, including my recent discovery of his 1897 passport application, confirmed that the tombstone birth date is incorrect. 

The question is: Was it a mistake or did Jefferson Levy purposely use the date to pretend that he was a year younger than his actual age? Should my future research reveal the answer, I will dutifully report it in this newsletter. 

EVENTS: Just one event on the calendar this month (so far). I’ll be doing a Zoom talk on the history of the American flag, appropriately enough, on Flag Day, Monday, June 14, for Context Conversations. For more info, including how to register, go to http://bit.ly/ContextFlagTalk 

In the hour-long talk based on my book, Flag: An American Biography, I’ll explain—among many other things—when, why, and how June 14 came to be celebrated as Flag Day. The answers might surprise you. 

If other events get scheduled this month, they’ll be listed, along with future talks, on to the Author Events page on my website, https://marcleepson.com 

GIFT IDEA:  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 new copies of my other books.