Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XXI, Number 2 February 2024
“The study of the past is a constantly evolving,
never-ending journey of discovery.” – Eric Foner
TELLING JEWISH STORIES: That’s the title of an enlightening talk that Olivia Brown, a full-time tour guide at Monticello and a Historic Interpretation Fellow at Monticello’s Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies, livestreamed on January 26. It’s archived online at https://bit.ly/JewishStories
In her talk Olivia looked at the history of Jewish people associated with Monticello and in Charlottesville during and after Thomas Jefferson’s time, focusing on their relationship with the area’s enslaved population. Naturally, that included Uriah P. Levy’s ownership of Monticello from 1834 when he purchased the property to his death in 1862.
Olivia devoted the last fourth of her hour-long talk to Uriah Levy and details of his ownership of at least 19 enslaved people. She also mentioned Uriah’s brother Jonas Levy (Jefferson M. Levy’s father), his devotion to the Confederate cause during the Civil War, and his purchase of one of his brother’s enslaved people in 1864—and Uriah and Jefferson Levy’s overseer at Monticello, Joel Wheeler, who also was an enslaver.
“I wouldn’t characterize Uriah Levy as ‘pro-slavery,’” Olivia said, “but he was someone who was participating in and profiting from the institution of slavery. He could, so he did.”
As I noted in Saving Monticello, Olivia pointed out that Uriah Levy purchased his first enslaved person, Aggy Dickerson West, a cook, in 1835 a year after he bought the property from James Turner Barclay, who had purchased Monticello in 1831 from Thomas Jefferson’s heirs, his daughter Martha Randolph and her son Thomas Jefferson Randolph.
As I did in the book, Olivia talked about what Uriah Levy’s much-younger wife, Virginia Lopez Levy, had to say in the 1920s about the enslaved people at Monticello in words that can only be described as patronizing and racist.
Here’s how I put it in the
book: Virginia Lopez Levy “loved spending time at Monticello. ‘How I did enjoy
galloping over those hills around Monticello,’ she said in an interview just
before she died in 1925 in her 90th year.” She went on to refer to the enslaved
people there as “darkies,” including in this anecdote:
“The darkies were very amusing. I remember one day accidentally coming across our cook, Aggy, in the drawing room. She was standing in front of a figure of a woman in bronze, evidently comparing her arm with this figure. Finally, she ejaculated: ‘My arm’s a heap sight prettier dan dat are black woman!’”
Olivia pointed out that no one has uncovered any records indicating how Uriah Levy and Joel Wheeler treated their enslaved people on the mountaintop. But if you look at how enslaved people were treated by others in Virginia, she said, “it’s likely they were being treated in the same way” at Monticello.
Her conclusion on the overall picture of Jews and slavery in Monticello and Charlottesville: “Jewish people owned enslaved people and treated them the same way their non-Jewish counterparts did. It wasn’t because of their Judaism that they owned slaves but despite their Judaism.”
ASKENAZI ON BOARD: In the January newsletter I mentioned—as I did in the book and in countless talks I’ve given on Saving Monticello since it came out in 2001—that Uriah Levy’s great-great grandfather, Dr. Samuel Nunez, and his immediate family came to the U.S. on a ship from London, the William and Sarah, carrying 42 Sephardic Jews. It turns out that I assumed all the emigrants were Sephardic Jews, and you know can happen when you assume.
Sharp-eyed newsletter subscriber Kerry Rosen, who gives tours at Mickve Israel in Savannah, emailed to remind me that there were 34 Sephardic passengers on the ship along with eight Jews “from Ashkenazi backgrounds. We even know their names: Benjamin Sheftall and family, Abraham Minis and family, and a single man, Jacob Yowel.”
Kerry is correct, as I confirmed by reading the famed Jewish-American genealogist Rabbi Malcolm Stern’s article, “New Light on the Jewish Settlement of Savannah,” which appeared in the March 1963 issue of the American Jewish Historical Quarterly and the online guide to the Minis Family papers held at the William Breman Jewish Heritage Museum in Atlanta. This is Rabbi Stern's list of the eight Ashkenazim:
As the Minis Family papers collection notes: “The first generation of the Minis family to come to Georgia shores was Abraham (c.1694-1757) and his wife Abigail (1701-1794) of German origin.
“Records indicate that the Minis family as well as the Sheftalls and one Jacob Yowell were Ashkenazim…. They landed in Savannah July 11, 1733, together with a number of Sephardic Jewish families coming to the colony from Spain and Portugal after a residence in England.”
AMELIA PRESIDING: Levy descendant Richard Lewis recently sent me several images from his grandmother Fran Lewis’ scrapbook, including a rare photograph of Amelia Mayhoff, Jefferson Levy’s sister who frequently acted as her bachelor brother’s hostess at Monticello during his 1879-1923 ownership. The photo (below) is from a September 29, 1907, New York Herald society page article Richard kindly sent that reported that Amelia spent more than half the year “presiding over” Monticello, the family’s “historical residence.”
That society column item illuminates the social scene that Amelia and her brother created at Monticello, which I cover in depth in Saving Monticello. In October 1907, as the article notes, the siblings hosted several events on the mountaintop for the Bishop of London. Among the guests was Frances Evelyn (“Daisy”) Greville (née Maynard), the Countess of Warwick , a well-known Edwardian beauty, socialite, and writer.
The
local Charlottesville Daily Progress,
which often covered social doings on the mountaintop, pointed out that
Jefferson Levy was the countess’ “legal adviser.”
Later
that month, 75 visitors from Brooklyn paid a visit to Monticello on their way
back from the Jamestown Exposition, a seven-month world’s fair-like event held
near Norfolk to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the settlement of
Jamestown in 1607.
EVENTS: I am almost finishing writing my next book, a slice-of-life biography of U.S. Navy Seaman Apprentice Doug Hegdahl, the lowest-ranking and youngest American captured in North Vietnam and held prisoner there during the Vietnam War, which will be published either in late November or early December. So, no events this month. I have talks scheduled for March and later in the year. For details them, check the Events page on my website: marcleepson.com/events
MARCLEEPSON.COM: Speaking of my which, I invite you to check out my recently redesigned and updated website, which was born in 2001 in time for the publication of Saving Monticello. I hope you’ll agree that the new site is streamlined and reader friendly. It also includes a page for ordering autographed copies of my books. The image below is the centerpiece of the new landing page.
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My daughter, Cara Rose Alford, created
the site through her design company, Allegory Art Consulting in Charleston,
South Carolina. I recommend her work! You can learn more at allegoryartconsulting.com
GIFT IDEAS: For a personally autographed, brand-new paperback copy of Saving Monticello or the just-published
hardcover of Huntland, go to the new page on my website https://bit.ly/BookOrdering or email me at marcleepson@gmail.com I also usually have a few used Saving
Monticello hardcovers, and a stack of five 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.
