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.
