April 2023

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XX, Number 4                                                          April 2023

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

 

URIAH LEVY’S BUSINESS DEALINGS: People often ask me how Uriah Levy, a U.S. Navy lieutenant, had the means to buy Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello in 1834, and then oversee repairing and restoring it, and then run the house and plantation until his death in 1862. The short answer is that Levy, who was born in 1792 and started his Navy career in 1812, made a small fortune mainly through savvy real estate dealings in New York.

As I wrote in Saving Monticello, when the 35-year-old Navy lieutenant (in uniform, in the painting below, circa 1815) moved to New York City in January 1828, he began investing in real estate. That year he bought three rooming houses in Greenwich Village, two on Duane Street and one on Greenwich Street. Levy subsequently purchased seven additional rooming houses in the Village and elsewhere in lower Manhattan.  It was a propitious time to do so. 

Greenwich Village experienced a growth spurt in the 1820s. As the old farming village’s streets were paved and sidewalks flagged, the area’s population increased, property values rose and hundreds of new businesses opened. It became home to carpenters, masons, painters, stonecutters, and other blue-collar workers, soon followed by middle-class merchants and tradesmen. 

Levy amassed a not inconsiderable fortune through his New York City real estate holdings. In 1855, he was listed as one of the wealthiest men in Manhattan in Moses Y. Beach’s The Wealth and Biography of the Wealthy Citizens of the City of New York. Beach estimated Levy to be worth $500,000. He and August Belmont (1816-90), the German-born banker and diplomat, were the only Jewish people on Beach’s list.

That was the extent of my knowledge about Uriah Levy’s business dealings—until a few weeks ago. That’s when I received an email from Lori Kimball, a historian and archivist who specializes in the history of Loudoun County, Virginia—where we both live. 

Lori told me that in her work in the Historic Records Room at the Loudoun County Courthouse in Leesburg she and her colleague Eric Larson had come across two documents that showed that Uriah P. Levy had other business dealings aside from those in New York City. 

One was a May 17, 1834, Deed of Trust, in which Uriah Levy “in the Navy of the United States,” his cousin Mordechai Noah, and a man named James Monroe (not the President, who lived in Loudoun, but had died in 1831), “both of the city of New York,” loaned $6,000 to a prominent Loudoun County citizen, George Rust, and his wife Maria Clagett Rust. 

The Rusts put up three piece of property as collateral for the loan: Rockland, his 503-acre country home outside Leesburg, a parcel of land in the town of Leesburg, and a 44-acre tract on the Potomac River. They made the semi-annual 7 percent interest payments on the loan for nearly six years. Then, as a February 3, 1840, Deed of Release (in the above image) showed, George Rust paid back the principal four years later, and Levy and company released the properties. 

This fairly high-level business deal led me to two questions. Was Uriah Levy in the habit of lending money? And did he venture to Loudoun County in May 1834—about a month after he purchased Monticello? Going through my research materials accumulated over the last 25 years, I was unable to find the answer to either question.

My supposition is that it’s unlikely this was the only such loan Uriah Levy made and that he could have been in Loudoun at this time as we know that he was in Albemarle County about a hundred miles south of Leesburg in the spring of 1834. 

But that’s conjecture, and I will continue to look for evidence of Levy’s other business dealings and his travels to the northwestern part of Virginia. Stay tuned. 

Postscript: On the signature page of the Deed of Trust, as you can see in the image above, Uriah Levy (barely legibly) signed his name, “U.P. Levy of Monticello.”  

THE RIMONIM, PART II: Last month I reported on the two ornate eighteenth century silver Torah finials called Rimonim that had been at the center of a dispute between Congregation Shearith Israel in New York and Touro Synagogue in Newport, Rhode Island. I mentioned that they had been on loan to the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and illustrated the posting with a generic image of Rimonim. Then I learned, through emails from attentive newsletter subscribers, that the finials are still on display at FMA, and that the Museum’s website includes a photo (below) of them, along with excellent interpretation, which provides more details about the unique—and valuable—objects. 

The Rimonims’ finial bells make “festive sounds when they are carried around the synagogue,” the museum notes. “Their Hebrew name ‘Rimonim’ means pomegranates, because of the round shape recalling the biblical symbolic fruit.

“This splendid pair, on loan from Congregation Shearith Israel in New York (est. 1654), is an exceptionally rare example of colonial American Judaica. They were made by Myer Myers, a Jewish silversmith who led the market in 18th-century New York.” Myers “produced luxury silverware for both domestic and religious use for [his] Jewish and non-Jewish clients.

“These finials hold a very special place in Jewish American history…. They were … probably in the Newport synagogue during George Washington’s famous visit on August 18th, 1790. Today the New York congregation uses the beautiful Rimonim during the High Holidays.” 

The U.S.S. LEVY: As I reported in Saving Monticello, the first time the United States Navy honored Uriah Levy’s exceptional 50-year naval career came during World War II when a destroyer escort was christened the USS Levy.

That ship, one of the first of its kind in the Navy, served in the southern and central Pacific from August 1943 through the end of the war two years later, seeing action in many engagements, including the two-month Battle of the Philippine Sea in the summer of 1944. 

In August and September 1945 the ship’s officers took part in surrender ceremonies of the Japanese Navy in the southeastern Marshall Islands. They negotiated and accepted the surrender of Mille (sometimes spelled Mili) Atoll on August 21 and witnessed the surrender of Jaluit Atoll later that month. On September 4, the Japanese officially surrendered Wake Island to Marine Corps Brig. Gen. Lawson. H. M. Sanderson aboard the Levy.

Not long after Saving Monticello came out in November 2001, my friend Julie Coles told me that her late father, Daniel F. Evans, had served as a 22-year-old gunnery officer on the ship during the war. And that he took part in the surrender ceremonies. Then, just last week, she sent me the image at left that her father kept in his scrapbook. 

That’s Daniel Evans with the binoculars around his neck, saluting one of the three Japanese officers who came on board on August 21, most likely Navy Capt. Masanori Shigaone 

Julie told me that her father said that he and Lt. Cmdr. William Clarenback (to Evans’ left) were chosen to greet the Japanese officers because they were tall men and their commanding officer Capt. Harold B. Grow wanted them there to tower over and humiliate the Japanese. 

She also said her father told her that after the picture was taken the officer committed ritual suicide. 

You can find more info on the U.S.S. Levy during World War II on two excellent, well-illustrated web sites:  https://bit.ly/USSLevy and https://bit.ly/4USSLevyPhotos  

THE DOC: Steven Pressman’s great documentary, “The Levys of Monticello,” which was inspired by Saving Monticello, continues to appear at film festivals across the country. 

On Wednesday, April 19, there’ll be an in-person screening at the Center for Jewish History at the American Jewish Historical Society in New York City. For details, go to: https://bit.ly/AJHSLevys 

We had a screening on March 14 at The Hill School in Middleburg, Virginia, where I live, sponsored by our town’s library friends group, the Middleburg Library Advisory Board. It was a great event, after which I took questions from the audience and then signed copies of the book at the best book-signing table I’ve ever had, which was set up by a local shop, Crème de la Crème. Yes, that’s a lamp, a potted plant, and two table cloths adorning the table.

EVENTS: Here are details about my four events in April:

·        Sunday, April 2, talk on Saving Monticello, and book signing at Congregation Beth Am Israel in Penn’s Landing, Pennsylvania.   

·        Tuesday, April 11, talk for the Sons of Confederate Veterans Camp, in Winchester, Virginia, on my only Civil War book, Desperate Engagement

·        Saturday, April 15, talk at historic City Tavern in Washington, D.C. on the life of Francis Scott Key, sponsored by the City Tavern Preservation Foundation. This is a free event and is open to the public, with registration required through Eventbrite at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/551699807977 

·        Sunday, April 16, talk on Desperate Engagement for the Washington, D.C., chapter of the Daughters of the Union Veterans of the Civil War

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.