July 2024

 

 

Saving Monticello: The Newsletter

The latest about the book, author events, and more

Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson

 

Volume XXI, Number 7                                                         July 2024 

 

EARLY IMAGES: Twenty-five years ago, I was immersed in doing the research for the book that would become Saving Monticello. That research included searching for historical images of the house and grounds, along with images of the notable people who lived, worked, and visited there. I came across more than two dozen photographs and other images, 19 of which are in the book.

That includes the image on the cover of the hardcover and paperback—the oldest known photograph of Monticello, which dates from around 1870. Taken by William Roads, a Charlottesville photographer, the original photograph is archived in the Special Collections of the University of Virginia Alderman Library, which is where I found it, along with another of Roads’ images of Monticello taken at the same time. Since then, no older photographs of Monticello have surfaced. 

I included old photos of Monticello’s post-Jefferson owners—Benjamin Franklin Ficklin, James Turner Barclay, Uriah Phillips Levy, and Jefferson Monroe Levy—in the book. And since its publications in 2001, while putting together this newsletter, I’ve discovered additional images of the Levys, as well as their families and other visitors to the mountaintop, a good number of which have been digitized since the book came out. 

Which brings us to the news of a recently discovered vintage photo of a prominent and frequent Monticello late eighteenth and early nineteenth century visitor, the famed First Lady, Dolley Madison. Earlier this year, a family found the photograph—a daguerreotype—which was taken in 1847, making it the oldest photo of a U.S. First Lady. It’s at least 30 years older than the one on the book’s cover 

According to newspaper reports, the anonymous family discovered the image earlier this year when cleaning a “dead relative’s basement,” sent it to Sotheby’s, and the big auction house’s experts determined that the image was taken by a Virginia photographer named John Plumbe, Jr. in 1847, when Dolley Madison was in her seventy-ninth year. Plumbe sold his photography business the next year. 

The image went to auction earlier this summer, and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery snapped it up for $456,000. The photo will go on view at the Portrait Gallery in 2026, as the nation commemorates the semiquincenntenial (250th) anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, after which it will become part of the museum’s permanent collection. 

“This artifact will provide the Smithsonian another opportunity to tell a more robust American story,” Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, said, “and illuminate the vital role women like Madison have played in the nation’s progress.” 

The Portrait Gallery also has in its collection the oldest known photograph of a U.S. president. It’s another daguerreotype, this one of John Quincy Adams in Washington, D.C., taken in March 1843 by the photographer Philip Haas, just four years after that photography process which uses copper plates lined with a thin sliver of silver to create images was invented. It has been on display at the D.C. museum since 2018. J.Q. Adams, who served as the sixth President from 1825-29, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts at the time. 

Both Dolley Madison and her husband James, who lived in Montpelier about 30 miles north of Monticello, had strong ties to Thomas Jefferson and Monticello. 

Before James Madison succeeded Jefferson as the nation’s fourth president in 1809, his wife helped the widowed Jefferson host social events at the White House (then known as the President’s House) while her husband was serving in the House of Representatives on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue. 

Dolley Madison soon became famous for her lively, weekly receptions at the White House for the political and social movers and shakers in the Nation’s Capital. 

The Madisons also were frequent visitors and guests at Monticello, before and after Jefferson’s presidency. So frequent that Jefferson’s grandchildren—his daughter Martha Randolph’s offspring—who lived at Monticello named one of the upstairs bedrooms “Mr. Madison’s Room” even though both Mrs. and Mr. Madison stayed there often, sometimes as long as several weeks at a time. 

There is no record of John Q. Adams visiting the Mountaintop. However, he did attend dinners and other social events at the White House when Jefferson was in office from 1801-09. 

And, as I wrote in Saving Monticello, when he heard the news that his father and Jefferson both died on July 4, 1826, the 50^th anniversary of the founding of the nation, J.Q. Adams memorably wrote in his diary that both founding fathers dying on that notably day was a “visible and palpable” manifestation of “Divine favor.” 

EVENTS: Just one scheduled this month. On Saturday, July 13, I’ll be speaking about the Civil War Battle of Monocacy and Confederate General Jubal Early’s subsequent attack on Washington, D.C., at the Fort Stevens Day event in Northwest D.C. near Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s a commemoration of the 160th anniversary of the fighting that went on there on July 11-12, 1864. It’s free and open to the public. For more info, go to https://theparksdc.com/event/fort-stevens-day-160-anniversary 

I will have more events in the fall and winter. For details, check the Events page on marcleepson.com/events 

COMMERCE: If you would like a new paperback of Saving Monticello, I have a few on hand. To order that book, or the just-published hardcover of Huntland, go to this page on my website https://bit.ly/BookOrdering or email me at marcleepson@gmail.com 

I also 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.