Fredericksburg, Virginia, built a small museum commemorating his remarkable life on the property where
his law office used to stand. Furniture and memorabilia are original, but the
books are editions of similar books that he and his family had owned. A dress,
a couple of his outfits, his daughter’s rusted out ice skates and his wife’s
gold and precious jewels decorated with large amethysts, aquamarines, and
citrine stones, are also part of the exhibit.
James Monroe was born in Westmoreland County, Virginia on April 28, 1758, to Spence and Elizabeth Monroe. Spence was a farmer and cabinet maker. James had four siblings, a sister and three brothers, and the family lived in Monroe Hall on the banks of Monroe Creek, a tributary to the Potomac. At the age of 16, after his father died, James inherited the family’s land which he owned until 1780 when he sold it.
In the summer of 1774, the revolutionary fever hit Williamsburg and law student James Monroe was entirely preoccupied by his disdain for the British monarchy, his studies taking second place.
On June 24,
1775, the 18-year-old James Monroe and 23 of his fellow students, under the
command of Theodorick Bland Jr., raided the Governor’s Palace in Williamsburg.
They seized 200 muskets and 300 swords and turned them over to the Williamsburg
militia. There was no bloodshed as the palace had been abandoned and all the
vestiges of British rule were gone with Lord Dunmore. A Committee of Safety
took control of the city and Monroe and his uncle Joseph Jones who were part of
this committee, became the city’s ad hoc government.
James and
his friend John Mercer decided to enlist in the spring of 1776 in the third
Virginia Infantry, commanded by Colonel Hugh Mercer, a friend and neighbor of Uncle
Joseph Jones. According to archives, “James Monroe made the long trip from
Williamsburg to his uncle’s home in Fredericksburg in order to enlist.”
One of the original documents in the museum is a Valley Forge furlough signed by nineteen-year-old Major James Monroe, aide-de-camp to Major General William Alexander (Lord Stirling), on February 23, 1778, to Second Lieutenant John Wallace of the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment. This infantry unit was encamped at Valley Forge.
During the
Battle of Trenton in 1776, James Monroe was wounded in the shoulder and carried
the bullet in his body for the rest of his life. There is a famous painting, Capture
of the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton, by John Trumbull, which depicts James
Monroe lying on the ground wounded in the left center of the painting.
In 1782
James Monroe was selected to represent King George County in the Virginia
Assembly. In 1783 he was appointed to
the delegation which represented Virginia at the Confederation Congress in
Annapolis. In 1784 he was present during the ratification of the Treaty of Paris
which ended the American Revolution and recognized the United States as a
nation.
He left
Congress in 1786 and set up his law practice in Fredericksburg. He met the 16-year-old
Elizabeth Kortright in New York in 1785 and married her in 1786 at Trinity
Episcopal Church in Manhattan. She was the daughter of a rich New York merchant,
a strong but interesting marriage if you consider his humble upbringing, a
farmer’s son.
They settled
in Fredericksburg, in a house rented from his uncle, Joseph Jones. Monroe
started his law practice in a small building on Charles Street, on the lot
which today houses the museum. The home where the Monroes lived is on Caroline Street and still stands today, privately owned.
Mrs. Monroe, at the age of 18, gave birth to the couple’s first child in Fredericksburg, a daughter named Elizabeth. The second child, James Spence, was born in May 1799, but the boy died the following September. In April 1802, the Monroes’ last child was born, Maria Hester.
The Monroes’ first born, Eliza Monroe Hay (1787-1840), was educated at a boarding school in Paris where she met Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine's daughter and Napoleon’s stepdaughter, and eventually Queen of Holland. They became life-long friends and Eliza named her daughter Hortensia, in her honor. Eliza had married George Hay, a successful lawyer and James Monroe’s confidant.
Eliza’s
formal education was superior to most women in Washington society. She provided
the supporting role of hostess at the President’s House when her mother was not
well. Eliza and George lived in the executive house during Monroe’s two terms
as president. Eliza planned her younger sister’s wedding in 1820 and was criticized
for not making it into a lavish public event. When Eliza lost her husband and
mother in 1830 and then her father in 1831, she traveled a lot to Europe. She
settled in France at a convent and died there in 1840. She is buried in Pere La
Chaise cemetery in Paris.
Maria Hester
Monroe Governeur (1802-1850) was sixteen years younger than her sister Eliza.
When Monroe became president, she was 14 years old. She decided to attend boarding
school in Philadelphia until 1819 rather than live in the President’s House
with her family.
Maria
married her first cousin, Samuel Governeur, in 1820 and they had four children,
two daughters and two sons. The first child, a daughter, died in infancy. The
second child, a son, was born deaf. Most of the Monroe memorabilia in the
museum in Fredericksburg came from Maria and Samuel’s children.
There were
strained relations between Maria and Eliza, and Samuel and George did not get
along either. During an extended visit with his daughter’s family in New York,
following his wife’s death, James Monroe fell ill and died soon after. Maria passed away at Oak Hill’s family estate
in 1850.
In 1787 James
Monroe was elected to the House of Delegates for Spotsylvania County and in
1788 he was nominated to the Virginia Convention to ratify the new
Constitution. Monroe and “antifederalists” were able to win two concessions – a
Bill of Rights and 20 amendments to be included in the Constitution.
The Monroes
left Fredericksburg in 1789. James bought 800 acres of land near
Charlottesville, near Albemarle County, and a townhouse one block away from the
courthouse in the city. The plantation house, eventually known as Monroe Hall, began receiving guests by the
summer of 1793. Monroe sold these 800 acres eventually and the land became the
site of the University of Virginia.
Monroe became
a U.S. Senator (1790-1794) at the age of 32, backed by Thomas Jefferson and
George Mason.
James Monroe
was appointed ambassador to France in 1794 by George Washington. The family
lived in Paris for three years in a very opulent villa called Folie de la
Bouexiere on the fashionable Rue de Clichy. This French home was lavishly
decorated in order to keep up appearances at the French court. The furniture
purchased was brought back to the U.S. in 1797 and was used in the White House.
Unfortunately, the house in Paris no longer stands today.
The
ambassadorship was demanding - he had to walk a
difficult path during the strained Franco-American relations. He reassured
France of American support but kept the U.S. neutrality and out of any
involvement with France’s war with England. During the French bloody
revolution, many Americans and French aristocrats were imprisoned in harsh
conditions. Monroe was able to secure the release of Thomas Paine. Ill from his
imprisonment, Monroe brought Paine to his home where he recovered for more than
a year. Thomas Paine had radical revolutionary views and a lot of disdain for
the administration in Washington.
While in
France, James Monroe’s diplomatic endeavors managed to free Madame de Lafayette,
the Marquis de Lafayette’s wife, from prison. The Marquis was imprisoned in
Austria while his wife was in Paris, awaiting beheading. Monroe sent his wife
in the brightly colored carriage that everyone in Paris recognized as belonging
to the American ambassador, to the jail where Madame de Lafayette was held.
Crowds gathered to see his gracious and beautiful wife Elizabeth who spent time
with the prisoner and assured her that she would be released. The French
government was embarrassed that the much admired “La Belle Americaine,” Mrs.
Monroe, had to visit such an awful place to see an old friend whose husband was
a hero of the American Revolution. The eventual public clamor resulted in
negotiations with Ambassador Monroe. The French government released Madame de
Lafayette in short order and she and their children joined the Marquis in
Austria.
TO BE CONTINUED
Note: Did you know that Monrovia, the capital of Liberia, is named after James Monroe? He supported the American Colonization Society's work to create a home for freed African slaves in Liberia.
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