Monticello

Thursday, August 25, 2022

Today, we left the campground a bit before 9 am and arrived early for our 10 am tour of Monticello. We presented our tickets and were scanned at the Rubenstein Visitor Center from which we took a short bus ride up to Monticello or “Little Mountain”, the self-designed and self-constructed home of Thomas Jefferson from 1770 until his death in 1826. We were able to take advantage of being early and walked around the entire building admiring its exterior, the magnificent grounds, and the beautiful views with only a few other visitors onsite. The guided tour started in the first floor entrance hall where various interesting articles were on display including items collected by Lewis and Clark on their expedition commissioned by Jefferson. One interesting feature of the entrance hall was the Great Clock designed by Jefferson. It had one face (with only an hour hand) on the outside portico and another face (with minute hand included) inside. A large weight powering the seven-day clock was in a corner of the room with a wall scale marking each day as the weight dropped. But the room’s height only allowed for six days so the weight passed through the floor into the room below to accommodate a seven-day week.

From the public entrance hall we proceeded into a suite of Jefferson’s private rooms, including his library, cabinet (study), and bedroom. Like most of the other beds in the house, his bed was built into an alcove but had open walls on two sides. Inexplicably, the bed he designed was actually a few inches shorter than his height. We then proceeded through the parlor into the dining room equipped with a large dumbwaiter for servants to serve food and hidden “wine-waiters” on each side of the fireplace to transport bottles from the wine cellar. We also visited the first floor octagonal bedroom that was used by the Madisons on their frequent visits to Monticello. We then ascended up a narrow staircase and explored other private quarters on the second and third floors including the Dome Room.

Access to Monticello is through this Visitor Center

The East-facing Front of Monticello

North Side

The South-facing Garden Side

Weight for the Great Clock in the Entrance Hall

Our Guide and Thomas Jefferson’s Alcove Bed

The Parlor

Under the Dome

After the inside tour of Monticello, we took the outdoors Slavery at Monticello Tour. Monticello was an operational Southern plantation dependent on hundreds of enslaved people. The domestic servants were provided cramped housing in small rooms dug below the north side of the house, enslaved skilled laborers (carpenters, blacksmiths, etc.) were housed and worked along Mulberry Row to the north of the house, and ground (field) workers lived in the valley where the crops were grown. Our tour guide walked us along Mulberry Row where an example of living quarters and the Storeroom (blacksmith and nail factory) had been restored. She gently and articulately described the poor plight of the enslaved population who contributed so much to Monticello and the Jeffersons. Jane left this tour a little early to join the Botanical Tour. I lingered and absorbed more info along Mulberry Row before walking to the south side of the house and briefly waiting for Jane at an outdoor table.

We then walked down the little mountain via a woodsy path to the Visitor Center stopping at the Jefferson family cemetery along the way. At the Center, we ate a late lunch at its restaurant and then toured the museum (with film) and gift shop before departing.

The Storeroom

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“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” – United States Declaration of Independence

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Thomas Jefferson was the primary author of the U.S. Declaration of Independence and is credited with penning its famous first sentence (above). He also served as Secretary of State under George Washington, Vice President under John Adams and as the third President of our country for two terms. He served as the U.S. Minister to France and was a designer, self-taught architect, botanist, meteorologist, philosopher, prolific writer, and much more. One dark underlying theme of our visit to Monticello that was acknowledged and discussed by our guides, was the contradiction between his lofty words and his actions as a slave owner and father of six children from one of them, Sally Hemings. Jefferson wrestled with this incongruity of his lifestyle versus the morality of owning enslaved people. Over his lifetime, Jefferson owned more than 600 slaves but only freed seven of them. Only decades after his death, the same conflict almost tore our country apart and indeed today racial issues remain problematic here and worldwide. From today’s perspective, it’s hard to justify the slavery at Monticello and I wonder what impact freeing them would have had on Jefferson’s and the country’s future.

After departing Monticello, we drove aimlessly for awhile before finding Three Notch’d Brewing Co. (named after the blaze used on the colonial route from Richmond to the Shenandoah Valley), where we enjoyed a beer. One of our servers, an articulate young local, informed us that were were only a few blocks from the Historic Downtown Mall and encouraged us to see it. So, we walked from the brewery to the mall which was a pedestrian-only area with brick streets. We walked the entire mall taking in the sites of its unique shoppes, restaurants, and drinkeries. We decided to have dinner at a French eatery, Brasserie Saison; it was a good choice. We enjoyed a great meal including beer, an appetizer and dessert while discussing the significance of what we had learned at Monticello. After dinner, we walked back to the brewery parking lot and returned to the RV for the evening.