Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XX, Number 6 June 2023
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving,
never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
IN HALLOWED REPOSE: Visitors to Monticello who take in the fenced-in Jefferson family graveyard about 2,000 feet from the house often presume that the small cemetery conveyed with the property when Jefferson’s heirs sold Monticello. But that is not the case.
The graveyard, containing Thomas Jefferson’s gravesite and plots of many of his descendants and their families, was retained by the family after they sold Monticello to James Turner Barclay in 1831, five years after his death. The family continued to maintain and preserve the graveyard after Barclay sold Monticello to Uriah Levy in 1834, when Jefferson Monroe Levy took control in 1879, and when he sold the property to the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in 1923.
Which brings us to a bit of drama surrounding Thomas Jefferson’s grave that I just learned about—although it happened in 1882. I discovered it while searching the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America historic newspaper archive, which contains hundreds of thousands of searchable digitized images of newspapers (mainly, but not exclusively, small and medium-sized city newspapers) from 1770-1963.
As I was searching for potential material
to use in this newsletter, I happened upon a few articles about a kerfuffle instigated
in 1882 by Thomas Jefferson’s oldest surviving grandchild, Septimia, so named because
she was the seventh (and last) daughter of Thomas Jefferson’s daughter Martha
Randolph and her husband Thomas Mann Randolph.
Septimia Anne Randolph, was born on January 3, 1814, and grew up at Monticello. Not
long after Thomas Jefferson died in 1826, she moved to Boston with her mother
and younger brother George where she continued her education at the home of her
older sister Ellen, who had married Joseph Coolidge and moved north with him to
Massachusetts.
Septimia
spent the next ten years living with relatives and family friends back home in
Virginia, in Washington, D.C., Louisiana, Florida, and in Havana, Cuba. While
in Havana, she met a Scottish doctor, David Scott Meikleham. They married on
August 13, 1838, at the Randolph family’s Edgehill Plantation near Monticello,
then moved to Havana.
The couple
settled in New York City, where Dr. Meikleham practiced medicine until his
death on November 20, 1849. His early demise was a financial burden to Septimia
and her four children. To make ends meet, she ran a boardinghouse, then left New
York to return to Edgehill, and then moved to Washington, D.C., where she lived,
as one newspaper reported, with three of her “middle-aged” children “in a
humble cottage” in Georgetown, “which rents for $20 a month.” She died in Washington
at age 73, on September 14, 1887.
Septimia Meikleham (in portrait below) made national headlines in the spring of 1882 when she announced that, as Jefferson’s oldest direct descendant, she’d decided that her grandfather’s remains should be disinterred from the family gravesite on the mountaintop in Charlottesville and reburied in Glenwood Cemetery in Northeast Washington, D.C. Glenwood, not far from the present-day Washington Hospital Center, is the site of the early 19th century Clover Hill Farm, which became a cemetery in 1854 and remains one today.
The reason for the move, Septimia said, was that the Monticello graveyard had “passed out of control of the family” three years earlier, in 1879, when Jefferson Monroe Levy settled a family lawsuit over Uriah Levy’s will and took ownership of the property. That simply was not true as the graveyard never conveyed with the property and remained in the hands of the descendants of her brother, Thomas Jefferson Randolph. Nevertheless, the Glenwood Cemetery Board of Trustees agreed to accept Jefferson’s remains at its June 1882 annual meeting.
The backlash came a few days after the meeting
when the heirs of Thomas Jefferson Randolph (who had died in 1875), the
co-executor of his grandfather’s will, hired an attorney to oppose the move.
The heirs “will not allow Jefferson’s remains to be moved to another cemetery,”
the attorney wrote to the Glenwood board. He also pointed out that the
graveyard did not convey with the sale of Monticello, and that T.J. Randolph’s heirs—not
Septimia—owned and managed the site.
To his credit, Jefferson Monroe Levy spoke out forcefully against Septimia Meikleham ’s proposal. He was quoted at length in several newspapers giving the history of the graveyard and making it clear he strongly opposed moving the Thomas Jefferson’s remains from the place where he let it be known he wanted to rest in peace.
“The spot where Jefferson was buried was
selected by himself,” Levy said, “and there are peculiar reasons why his wishes
should be respected. When Jefferson and [his close friend and brother-in-law]
Dabney Carr were young men, they made an agreement that whichever of them should
die first should be buried by the survivor under a certain oak tree at
Monticello, which was a favorite with them both.
“Dabney Carr died in France, in the time of
the Revolutionary War, and after the war was over, Jefferson, in accordance
with his agreement, had the body of Carr brought to this country and buried
under the oak. When Jefferson died, he expressed in his will his desire to be
buried in the same secluded spot beside his friend. He also left directions as
to the monument to be erected over him.
“His wife and children were buried in the same spot of ground. The Randolph family has used it as burying ground ever since.”
Newspapers throughout the country agreed
with the other descendants and with Jefferson Levy, and editorialized against
the move, some of them intimating that Septimia pushed for the move for
financial gain. The St. Paul (Minnesota) Daily
Globe, for example, editorialized on June 18, 1882, that Thomas Jefferson had
“the wish that his remains might rest forever undisturbed, and it was only left
for modern, mercenary ghouls to prepose to desecrate the hallow burial lot at
Monticello.”
The editorial concluded: “Would it
be anything short of sacrilege to remove from ground so hallowed, selected by
himself, for any purpose, and especially for a mercenary one, the remains of
the venerated patriot, philosopher and statesman? Let the remains rest
undisturbed, in hallowed repose, ‘until the last syllable of recorded time.’”
The Glenwood Board took the hint and
dropped the matter.
HOUSE HISTORY NO. 2: If you
go to the University of Virginia Press Fall 2023 catalog online and scroll down
the left side, you’ll get a preview of my next book. Huntland: The Historic Virginia Country House, the Property, and Its
Owners, which will be coming out in August. It’s my tenth book and my
second house history, along the lines of Saving
Monticello. Huntland, in Middleburg, Virginia, was built in 1834, and
certainly has lots of history, memorable owners, and a triumphant 21st
century historic preservation story. Stay tuned for more details.
Here’s the link for the U-Va. Press Fall Catalog; https://www.upress.virginia.edu/fall23.pdf
EVENTS: Just one in June, a talk on my only Civil War book, Desperate Engagement, the story of the little-known but crucial July 11, 1864, Battle of Monocacy near Frederick, Maryland, and Confederate Gen. Jubal Early’s subsequent attack on Washington, D.C., that takes place on Saturday, June 17, for the Alexandria (Va.) Civil War Roundtable.
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.
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