Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XIX, Number 8 August 2022
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving,
never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
THE RACHEL PHILLIPS WEDDING: When Uriah Levy bought Monticello from James Turner Barclay in 1834, he never planned to live there permanently. An active duty U.S. Navy Lieutenant, Levy lived in a well-appointed townhouse in New York City when he wasn’t sailing the seas. One member of the Levy family, his mother Rachel, did take up residence in Monticello in 1837, a year after Uriah Levy took possession of the property.
Rachel Machado Phillips Levy (below) was born in New York City in 1769, the daughter of Jonas Phillips (1736-1803) and Rebecca Machado Philips (1746-1831). Jonas and Rebecca Phillips, astoundingly, had 21 children. Several died as infants, including Rachel’s twin sister, Sarah.
Rachel married a young immigrant from Germany, Michael Levy, in Philadelphia in 1787 when she was 18 years old. A description of their wedding—believed to be the first recorded of a Jewish wedding ceremony in the New World—is contained in a letter written on the day of the wedding, June 27, by the famed Revolutionary War patriot and physician Dr. Benjamin Rush (1745-1813) to his wife Julia.
In it, Dr. Rush—a signer of the Declaration of Independence—provided plenty of details about the wedding that ring true, although he mistakenly wrote that Michael Levy was from Virginia. After that faux pas, Rush went on to describe the ceremony. He told his wife that it began with about twenty minutes of prayer in “the Hebrew language,” after which Michael Levy signed the Ketubah, a Jewish marriage contract.
Rush described it as “a small piece of parchment… written in Hebrew, which contained a deed of settlement and which the groom [signed] in the presence of four witnesses. In this deed he conveyed a part of his fortune to his bride, by which she was provided for after his death in case she survived him.”
Next, the Chuppah—the structure under which a Jewish bride and groom take their vows—was put in place. Rush described it as “a beautiful canopy composed of white and red silk in the middle of the floor. It was supported by four young men (by means of four poles), who put on white gloves for the purpose.”
After the Chuppah was ready, the bride, accompanied by “her mother, sister, and a long train of female relations, came downstairs.” Rachel Phillips’ face, Rush wrote, “was covered with a veil which reached halfways down her body.”
Describing the bride as “lovely and affecting,” Rush said he “gazed with delight upon her. Innocence, modesty, fear, respect, and devotion appeared all at once in her countenance.”
Then came more ceremonial wine sipping by the father of the bride, Jonas Phillips, and the bride and groom. After Michael Levy drank his wine, he “took the glass in his hand and threw it upon a large pewter dish which was suddenly placed at his feet. Upon its breaking into a number of small pieces, there was a general shout of joy and a declaration that the ceremony was over. The groom now saluted his bride, and kisses and congratulations became general through the room.”
Rush (below) stuck around after the ceremony to have a slice of wedding cake and a glass of wine. Then he paid his respects to Rebecca Philips, who had fainted “under the pressure of the heat.”
He was about to take his leave when Rebecca Phillips put “a large piece of cake” into his pocket to give to his wife.
Michael Levy and Rachel Phillips Levy had four children in the next five years. (They eventually had fourteen, three girls and eleven boys.). The fourth child, Uriah Phillips Levy, was born in Philadelphia on April 22, 1792.
Flash forward 45 years to 1837, when the then U.S. Navy Lt. Uriah Levy brought his 68-year-old mother with him to Monticello, where she took up residence in the house. Rachel Phillips Levy lived in Thomas Jefferson’s “Essay in Architecture” for two years until she died on May 1, 1839. Her son was at sea at the time, commanding the U.S.S. Vandalia, a 783-ton sloop of war. He apparently did not learn that his mother had died until six months later when he arrived at Monticello after the Vandalia's cruise ended and the ship put in at Norfolk.
Back on the mountaintop in early May the manager of Monticello, Joel Wheeler, had contacted Uriah’s siblings, Jonas and Amelia, and they arranged to have their mother buried near the house. The tombstone (below) Levy later erected included the Hebrew month and year of his mother’s death. It was inscribed:
“To the memory of Rachel Phillips Levy, Born in New York, 23 of May 1769, Married 1787. Died 7, of IYAR, (May) 5591, AB (1839) at Monticello, Va.”
She is the only Levy family member buried at Monticello.
THE DOC: By mid-summer, Steven Pressman reports, his terrific documentary The Levys of Monticello had been shown “at nearly 20 festivals around the country and in Canada, with more than a dozen others on the schedule for later this summer and fall—and many more to come beyond that.”
In answer to an oft-asked question about when the film will be available online, he said: “That will happen at some point in the future, but for now the film will continue to be shown on the festival circuit throughout the rest of the year and into 2023. So for those who haven’t yet had a chance to see the film, hopefully it’ll be coming your way soon.” You can find more info about this award-winning documentary, including the trailer, at https://bit.ly/LevyDoc
EVENTS:
I’ll be doing two Zoom talks for Context Conversations this month. The first,
on Saving Monticello, complete with
scores of historical images, takes place on Monday, August 15, beginning at 5:00 p.m. Eastern time.
The second
is on the July 9, 1864, Civil War Battle of Monocacy and Confederate Gen. Jubal
Early’s subsequent attack on Washington, D.C., based on my book Desperate Engagement. It’s on Monday, August 22, also at 5:00 p.m.
Eastern. For info and tickets, go to https://bit.ly/MonticelloContext
or https://bit.ly/ContextDesperate
If you’d
like to arrange an event for Saving
Monticello or for any of my other books, email me at marcleepson@gmail.com
For details
on other upcoming events, check the Events page on my website: https://bit.ly/NewAppearances
GIFT IDEAS: For a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello, please e-mail marcleepson@gmail.com I also have a few as-new, unopened hardcover
copies, along with a good selection of 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.
The SM
Newsletter on Line: You can read back issues of this
newsletter at http://bit.ly/SMOnline
