September 2023

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XX, Number 9                                                          September 2023

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

 

ISABELLA & MARCUS: In my ongoing quest to research the Levy and Nunez families, I recently came across an evocative image I’d never seen before. It’s a circa 1859 daguerreotype displayed on the John L. Loeb, Jr., Database of Early American Jewish Portraits website. It’s identified as a photographer’s studio image of seven-year-old Jefferson Monroe Levy (in curls and the dress-like shirt on the right) and his nine-year-old sister Isabella, and is in the collection of the American Jewish Historical Society in New York City.

Aside from the thrill of seeing what appears to be a photograph of Jefferson Levy as a child, coming across the image also piqued my curiosity about Isabella, whom I mentioned only briefly in Saving Monticello. To wit: that she was known as “Belle,” was the oldest of Jonas and Fanny Levy’s five children, married Marcus Ryttenberg, and often visited her younger brother at Monticello after her son Clarkson Potter Ryttenberg was born in 1881. 

According to the late Malcolm Stern’s authoritative The First American Jewish Families genealogies, Isabella was born on December 12, 1849, in Vera Cruz in Mexico where her peripatetic father, a ship captain, and his wife Fanny were living. Her younger sibling Jefferson Monroe, came along on April 15, 1852, when the family was living in New York City. Two years later, their second son, Louis Napoleon, was born in NYC. Then came Amelia, born in Washington, D.C., on June 1, 1862; and Mitchell Abraham Cass, born 13 months later in New York. 

I have since learned that on January 15, 1879, when she was 30 years old, Belle married Marcus Ryttenberg (mea culpa: I spelled his name incorrectly—Ryttenburg—in Saving Monticello), who was born in Russian-occupied Poland in January 1846 and emigrated to the U.S about 20 years later with his family. The wedding took place in New York City. Just two months later, another Levy family big event took place: On March 29, 1879, Isabella’s brother Jefferson took control of Monticello by buying out his uncle Uriah Levy’s other heirs after a 17-year legal battle over who would inherit the property. 

Marcus and Belle had a son they named Clarkson Potter Ryttenberg in 1881. The family lived in several places in New York City, moving in the nineteen-teens to a large townhouse at 17 E. 37^th Street, between Fifth and Madison Avenues, less than a block from what is today the Morgan Library and Museum, the former home of J.P. Morgan. It also happened to be where Jefferson Levy lived.

It's likely that Isabella moved in with Jefferson Levy (a bachelor) because Marcus Ryttenberg spent most of his time, mainly in the fall and winter, in the small city of Sumter in central South Carolina, about 100 miles northwest of Charleston. Marcus ran J. Ryttenberg & Sons, a flourishing dry goods store in Sumter, along with two other family businesses. 

Marcus, his father Joseph, older brother Harry, and younger brother Abe had fled Poland and settled in Sumter in the late 1860s, mostly likely in 1867, just two years after the end of the American Civil War.

According to an 1889 article in the local newspaper, The Watchman and Southron, Joseph Ryttenberg moved to Baltimore in 1870 and his son Marcus, “the first member of this family to live in Sumter, is credited with beginning the business here.”  

The store, as one of its frequent local newspaper advertisements put it—carried an “elegant line of Dry Goods, Notions, Carpets, Cloaks, Shoes, Clothing and Groceries,” much of it brought in from New York. By 1888, the “mammoth establishment” was “by far,” another ad proclaimed, “the largest business of any house in Sumter.” 

The Ryttenbergs, who worshipped at Temple Sinai, a reform synagogue in Sumter, also owned their own brickyard on the outskirts of Sumter. “Known as the Sumter Brick Yard,” it was “one of the leading industries of the Sumter community in 1890,” the local newspaper article reported. “The brick produced was used by numerous individuals in building the city. The Ryttenbergs shipped their bricks to all points via a railroad which had constructed a branch to the yard in order to expedite the loading of the shipments. The brick yard at one time had nearly one million bricks on hand for sale.” 

One other thing about the Ryttenbergs and Sumter. Researching the family took me to the 1880 U.S. Census, which reported that the Marcus—listed as a Drygoods Merchant—and Isabelle, “Keeping house,” were living in what must have been a large house on Main Street in Sumter, along with two adult servants and the seven-year-old daughter of one of them. Then I saw something shocking. 

As you can see from the image below, the Ryttenberg Family also included an their infant son, whom they named Jefferson L. Ryttenberg after her brother. The boy was born in New York City in November 1879, and there is no trace of him in any Census, genealogy, or other record after 1880, leading to the only conclusion that the child died that year. 

Marcus Ryttenberg died suddenly of a heart attack in Sumter on September 21, 1906. He was 50 years old and the family shipped his body by train to New York City for burial. Isabella died on July 7, 1925, and is buried at Beth Olom Cemetery in Queens, where her brother Jefferson Levy, uncle Uriah Levy and other family members are buried. 

THE PIER MIRRORS: Only a handful of furniture and furnishing in Monticello today have been in the house since Thomas Jefferson’s time. They include the famed seven-day Great Clock framing the door of the Entrance Hall, the ladder Jefferson designed to wind the clock, and the striking pier mirrors also in the Entrance Hall. 

Jefferson purchased the mirrors when he served as U.S. Minister (Ambassador) to France from 1785-89, and had them shipped to Virginia in 1790. They were installed in the Parlor’s Entrance Hall sometime before 1900 and have been there ever since. 

I mention the mirrors several times in Saving Monticello, as visitors throughout the 19^th century and into the early 20^th century often commented on them. They also played a role in the legal wrangling over what conveyed with the sale of Monticello by James Turner Barclay to Uriah Levy in 1834. Barclay claimed the mirrors and the Great Clock were his. Levy sued, saying they should be part of the sale. The matter was not settled until two years later when the sale closed and the parties agreed that clock and pier mirrors would stay in the house. 

I also reported that in 1903, Jefferson Levy told a newspaper reporter in Washington that the architects then in charge of remodeling the White House had asked to buy the mirrors.

“I replied that I did not feel at liberty to part with them, even for so laudable a purpose as letting them go to the White House,” Levy said. 

“I wrote to the architects saying that I had no objection to having the mirrors copied, and I understand that this will be done. The mirrors at Monticello are beautiful specimens of the Louis XVI period, and were purchased by Jefferson in France.” 

The next time you’re in Monticello’s Parlor be sure to stop for a minute and admire those historic mirrors—not to mention the fully preserved and functional Great Clock. 

THE HUNTLAND BOOK: The University of Virginia Press will be distributing and marketing my next book, Huntland: The Historic Virginia Country House, the Property, and Its Owners, which will be coming out the first week of October. 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 visitors (including Lyndon Johnson when he was Senate Majority Leader and Vice President), and a triumphant twenty-first century historic preservation story. Stay tuned for more details.

Here’s the link for the U-Va. Press Fall Catalog with more info about the book: https://bit.ly/U-VaPressHuntland 

EVENTS: I’m still in full-time writing mode on what will be my 11^th book, a slice-of-life biography of Doug Hegdahl, the youngest and lowest-ranking American held as a POW in Hanoi during the Vietnam War. It will be published by Stackpole Books, most likely next fall. As a result, I don’t have any book talks scheduled for September. For details on events later this year, 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.