I have been able to travel to four of the first five president's homes, each one completely unique from the next. No cookie cutter homes here, despite all being built in the same relative time frame. These first five presidents laid much of the ground work for how our country was run for generations. I enjoy the colonial and early republic history a great deal, it was my specialty when I got my history degree and worked on my masters. Therefore, I also find their homes to be interesting extensions of who they were and the things they valued and prized. A glimpse into their lives you might say, and of all those homes, Jefferson's Monticello exceeds them all.
While I greatly respect Jefferson, and agree with some of his policies, I believe in that day and time I would have been a Federalist not a Democratic-Republican, so my appreciation of his home isn't based in his politics, but in his unique personality and force of will. Like pretty much all of our founding father's Thomas Jefferson was a self taught man. He was interested in a great variety of subjects and so he collected books and wrote letters to learned men and thereby taught himself a range of complex subjects. He is often held up as one of the best examples of homeschooling, in those circles because he had a love of learning and was a passionate, life-long, self-taught individual.
He was passionate about so many subjects that it would be impossible to list them all, but I'm going to share a few with you. Thomas Jefferson as we all know was passionate about politics and shaping our own country into something that preserved freedom for all. As such he read extensively about the ancient Greeks and Romans planning what government should look like. He read Edmund Burke and other men of the previous generation to determine how to best protect our individual rights. He then refined and enshrined these ideas in documents such as the Declaration of Independence, the Virginia state constitution, and the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. It aided him in his work as a diplomat to France, and as our nations first Secretary of State, before becoming our third President.
Furthermore, he loved agriculture. He was constantly studying the newest technology on the market and experimented with various practices to making farming both more efficient and increase yields. This really made him a man ahead of his time. To help him in determining what did and didn't work, he kept meticulous journals when at home and required detailed reports when he was away, recording the temperature, weather, crops used, field rotations, types of soil enhancers trialed. He had both field crops, an extensive vegetable garden, lovely flower gardens, and a greenhouse. This is another area in which he wrote to men of the age who specialized in cutting edge farming practices to improve his own trials.
Additionally he had a great love of architecture. He was completely self taught in this regard, famous for studying and sketching buildings where ever he went he kept running lists of features, materials, and artisans who engaged in work that he appreciated. He then combined these features, and over a period of 17 years, he made changes in the blueprints until he decided on and built the current Monticello.
This has long been an area of history that I've wanted to let the kids get personal with. So our trip to the area was a perfect time. Most of where we have lived has been in what would have been the western frontier of the time period so I have had to be creative in getting them interacting with colonial and the early republic history. Once we even designed a Minecraft experiment where they needed to build log cabins and barns and begin farms which they grew to plantation status. They had to survive winter without crops, and fight off Indian attacks. Meanwhile, I built George Washington and Thomas Jefferson's homes for them to explore.
On the first day of our trip, we loaded up and first stopped at Michie's Tavern which was relocated from several miles away to the foot of the mountain which Monticello sits on. We had a great colonial, southern style lunch with pulled pork, fried chicken, all sorts of sides and a choice of a apple cider, non alcoholic punch from the time period, or sweet tea. The kids loved the food and then we strolled through the log buildings of the time period getting a glimpse into the average family's life of the time period. We then continued up the road to Jefferson's home.
Upon entry there is a large receiving room, a first of it's kind for a private home, complete with chairs and a variety of artifacts from the Lewis and Clark travels. The room was intended to allow unexpected guest and visitors to pass the time and learn something until they could be received by Jefferson. In that day and time, a president was much closer to the people than today. It wasn't uncommon for people to just drop by a former president's home and expect an audience with the president, or for travelers to stop in for the night when passing through. This room also contains a clock that Jefferson invented that not only tells the time but the day of the week. A clock that he constructed and stored before finishing the blueprints of the home. Ultimately the clock was bigger than the space that he allotted, and therefore the chains and weights descend through the floor into the basement space. It is open to the second story around which on one side runs an open balcony style hallway connected the upstairs wings.
As you continue to the left of the receiving room you have Jefferson's personal wing which consists of his library and study as well as his bedroom. They have a number of Jefferson's personal books behind glass on the bookshelf, and the books that had been sold off or distributed through the family they have collected again. These books from that time period were gathered based on his personal inventory lists. Additionally my favorite piece in this room is a writing desk of Jefferson's own design that allowed him to write a letter and make a handwritten copy of it next to the original at the same time. He created this to speed up his correspondence, so that he had both a letter to send and one to file in his own filing system for later reference. His bedroom was designed to save space by placing his bed in the wall. He could get up on the left side of the bed into his bedroom, or the right side of the bed into his study. Above the bed there were stairs climbing to his closet complete with three large windows lined up to catch the light from the skylight above. Just two glimpses at his ingenuity.
Next behind the receiving room is the parlor, for intimate guest and the extended family. This is the room where the family would gather and spend time together in the evenings. They had a pianoforte, a European chess set, along the walls were countless pictures of men that Jefferson had worked with such as George Washington, and bust of others such as Alexander Hamilton. There were also floor to ceiling tri paned windows in this room as there were throughout the house, allowing them to be opened for the maximum air flow in the summer and serving as an additional set of doors. As his daughter and her husband and their children also lived with Jefferson there was a bustling household much of the time in addition to visitors.
Passing from there into the opposite wing of the house is the dining room, rather than using a large table he chose to dine in the French style, having several small tables with intimate seating to encourage discussion of ideas in small groups. Surrounded by large windows the room is a bright and cheery yellow the same shade that Jefferson initial chose for the room. Built into the side of the fire place is even a dumbwaiter before their were dumbwaiters to allow wine and other items to be sent up without disturbing the flow of the conversation.
From the back of the home there is a large half circle drive and lawn area including trees that were planted by Jefferson himself. It is a gorgeous view. This would have been the front drive in Jefferson's day. It is in this area that slavery on the plantation was discussed. Including Sally Hemmingway, her brother, and her children. We weren't able to explore the gardens and the slave quarters because we were there so late in the day, but it did give us alot to talk about on the way back to the hotel. The kids love the musical Hamilton, and it has given them a whole new interest in this my favorite area of history. They were a bit disappointed to not see a purple coat anywhere in the house, but were thrilled to get a picture with Jefferson.
We had a great time and I would still love the opportunity to go on the extended tour and see the upstairs for myself, they had it closed for repairs when we went in 2007. But as the tickets have gotten insanely expensive, I can't say that we will be taking the kids again. However it is an experience like no other and a look into the life of one of America's founding fathers. The tour guides are deeply knowledgeable on both the artifacts in the house and the man. So I would say the trip is worth it to do once. For another option there is an online virtual tour for free. If you'd like to make a trip the address to Monticello is 1050 Monticello Loop, Charlottesville, Virginia 22902. They're open nearly year round, though hours vary with the season. Of course, you can always call for more information at 434-984-9800.
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