Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XX, Number 11 November 2023
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving,
never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
FRAN’S YESTERDAYS: The June 2020 newsletter included excerpts about Monticello in the early 20th century from “Fran’s Yesterday,” a short, unpublished memoir that Levy descendant Frances Wolff Levy Lewis wrote in 1960.
Fran Lewis was the second-eldest of the four daughters of Jefferson Levy’s brother Louis Napoleon Levy and his wife Lillian Hendricks Levy. She was born on January 19, 1893, in New York City and married Harold Lewis in February 22, 1916. They had three children, including Harley Lewis, the Levy Family descendant who was a tremendous help to me when I was researching Saving Monticello.
 |
| Fran Lewis at Monticello in 1960 |
Three years ago, Harley’s son Richard Lewis sent me two pages of the memoir in which his grandmother described visiting Monticello as a child with her siblings and parents. A few weeks ago, Richard kindly sent me the entire memoir and a short essay Fran wrote about visiting Monticello in 1908 when she was 15.
What follows are excerpts about the family and Monticello that weren’t in the June 2020 post or in SM. Fran wrote in the memoir that her father, L. Napoleon Levy, “came from a large and colorful family,” noting that one of the most colorful characters was her grandfather Jonas Levy, one of Uriah’s brothers. She was right about the mercurial Jonas Levy, who spent most of his adult life, as Fran put it, as a sea captain. She went on describe what the peripatetic Jonas Levy (1807-83) did after running away from the family home in Philadelphia at 13 and showing up in New York City where his mother, Fanny, was visiting other family members.
Fanny Levy didn’t take kindly to her young son making his way from Philadelphia to New York and “boxed his ears,” as Fran put it. So young Jonas abruptly left, but didn’t go back home. Instead, as family lore had it, he signed up as a cabin boy, Fran wrote, on “a sailing boat bound for S. America and was not seen by his family for 7 years.”
Fran Lewis then went on to describe her Uncle Jeff in not exactly flattering words. For one thing, she said that the lifelong bachelor had little use for his young nieces during visits with their parents. When the family showed up at Jefferson Levy’s large townhouse on East 34th Street, she said. “I don’t think he was at all interested in greeting” us, Fran remembered. And although her uncle was “a very wealthy man in those days, we never received anything of value from him or any gifts on birthday days.”
She pointed out that Uncle Jeff was “entirely different from my father,” even though the brothers practiced law together and were real estate investor partners. One example: L. Napoleon Levy thrived in the New York real estate business, while his brother, a boom-and-bust speculator, died about $2 million in debt.
Fran went on to say that she’d heard that her father wrote most of Jefferson Levy’s speeches during his three terms as a Congressman from NYC, and that Uncle Jeff’s grammar was “poor.” She said he always “gave the impression of being a [VIP], which he probably was. Especially in the Waldorf Astoria, where he was well known and where he gave many lavish parties.”
***************
Fran Lewis wrote an essay she called “The Approach to Monticello” when she was a student at the all-girls Jacobi School on the Upper West Side, founded in 1896 by Laura Jacobi, now known as the Calhoun School.
 |
| Jacobi School for Girls Class of 1915 |
In the essay she evocatively describes what happened after she and her family arrived by train in Charlottesville from New York City for a visit to Monticello in June 1907.
As the train pulled “slowly out of the Charlottesville station,” young Fran wrote, “a large phaeton, drawn by a pair of fine beautiful horses,” pulled up to take them to Monticello. The family piled in and the open carriage made its way through the town (or “village,” as Fran put it) of Charlottesville and then onto a “very rough, muddy road” on the outskirts of town. Writing in the present tense, she noted that the carriage “rattles and jolts over the ruts and stones.”
A few miles later, as the sun was setting over the Blue Ridge Mountains, the carriage began to climb up to Monticello. Just as they started up the steep road, the carriage crossed a “quiet and peaceful” small creek and Fran remembered times when it was “a roaring torrent, carrying great trees and small huts along with it.”
The road was better that day, but “very steep” and a “heavy pull” for the “strong Virginia horses.” On the way up, they encountered a hay cart drawn by a pair of oxen driven by an older African American man who smiled and tipped his cap as they passed.
The horses soon grew “tired and thirsty,” she wrote, so the carriage stopped and they drank the “clear, cold water coming form a natural spring” on the side of the mountain.
The Levys soon reached Monticello’s “pretty brick” Gate House, tended by Eliza Toliver Coleman, whom Fran called “Aunt Liza,” and who swung “back the great gates for us to pass through.”
Then came a scary ride up a “curved and steep” road aside “a seemingly bottomless ravine” on the way to the house. Eliza had rung the large Gate House bell, “telling travelers on the top of the mountains not to go down,” Fran said, “as it is very dangerous for two vehicles to pass on such a narrow road.”
 |
| Eliza Coleman and a child at the old Monticello Gate House |
As they neared the Jefferson Family cemetery (visitors then drove up to the house the opposite way they do now; that is, passing by the small graveyard before driving along Mulberry Row). silence “dropped over everything,” Fran wrote, “never have I heard such stillness. The echo of the horses’ hoofs on the stony road and the occasional cry of a peacock are the only sounds.”
They passed the graveyard, where the headstones “looked white and ghostly” in the twilight. Then the refreshed horses ran “quickly across the lawn” heading for the East Front of the house. “Through the windows the soft light of the lamps seems to welcome us,” Fran wrote.
“We go on past the rustic [long gone] fence, and the sweet scent of the honeysuckle which is twined around it, is blown gently towards us. We give a long whistle. The dogs begin to bark and an answering whistle comes back. On we go around the large lawn.
“The
carriage stops in front of the great mansion; we are quickly helped to alight
and taken up the long lawn. The doors of the house are thrown open, showing the
Great Hall inside, and we enter amid the barking of the dogs and hearty greetings
of the family.”
Fran Lewis, her sister Agnes, and their cousin Monroe Levy
on the West Lawn during an earlier visit, circa 1902
DR. KAMENSKY: The Thomas Jefferson Foundation announced in October that Jane Kamensky will become the organization’s next president, starting January 15 next year. Dr. Kamensky, a Harvard history professor who also directs Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America at Harvard Radcliffe Institute, is just the second historian to lead the nonprofit that has owned and operated Monticello since 1923, and the second woman to hold that position.
Dr. Kamensky taught at Brandeis University and Brown University before joining Harvard’s History Department.
Dan Jordan, a former history professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, headed the Foundation from 1985-2008; Leslie Greene Bowman succeeded Dr. Jordan and resigned in April. Gardiner Hallock has been serving as interim President since then.
“We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Kamensky, who shares our belief that Monticello plays a pivotal role in illuminating the enduring ideals and contributions of Thomas Jefferson and telling the stories of those who built and worked at this incredible World Heritage Site,” said Tobias Dengel, who chairs the Foundation’s Board of Trustees. “Dr. Kamensky brings more than 30 years of deep expertise as a distinguished academic at some of the world’s leading institutions and has displayed a continued commitment to civic education and engagement to bring people together.”
We hope to have an interview with
Dr. Kamensky (below) in next month’s newsletter. It’ll focuse on her take on the history
of the house after Thomas Jefferson died—not coincidentally, the topic of Saving
Monticello.
 |
HUNTLAND: My new book, Huntland: The Historic Virginia Country House, the Property, and Its Owners, has just been printed and copies are being shipped to the University of Virginia Press, which will begin marketing and distributing the book by the end of the month. My tenth book, it’s my second house history, along the lines of Saving Monticello.
Huntland, in Middleburg, Virginia, was built in 1834, and has lots of history, memorable owners and visitors (including Lyndon Johnson when he was Senate Majority Leader and Vice President), and a triumphant 21st century historic preservation story.
The book will be available
online at U-Va. Press’s website and through local bookstores. Meanwhile, here’s
the link for the U-Va. Press Fall Catalog with more info about the book: https://bit.ly/U-VaPressHuntland
EVENTS: Still hard at work on my next book, the slice-of-life biography of Doug Hegdahl, the lowest-ranking and youngest American captured in North Vietnam and held prisoner there during the Vietnam War. So, no events this month. For details on future talks, 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 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.
