The
hilltop estate of Monticello is not easy to reach. The current owners allow
foot traffic but most visitors prefer buses. When clouds cover the sky, access
is denied for fear of lightning strikes. The lush vegetation and old majestic trees
seclude the manor, making it invisible from the bottom of the mountain.
The
winding roads and highways to Charlottesville are flanked by beautifully-manicured
farms that appear to grow nothing other than luscious green grass on which riding
horses graze lazily. The occasional vineyard bears witness to the rich soil
soaked with the blood and sweat of thousands of Americans encamped in Virginia or
crisscrossing the land during the Civil and Revolutionary Wars. Several
battlefields are clearly marked but far away from the road unless a die-hard amateur
historian does not mind stepping in knee-high grasses and muddy ditches.
Thomas
Jefferson, the builder of Monticello, was a remarkable Renaissance man with a
resume that nobody can match today. The principal author of the Declaration of
Independence (1776), first Secretary of State (1790-1793) under President
George Washington, second Governor of Virginia (1779-1781), third President of
the United States (1801-1809), diplomat (U.S. Minister to France, 1785-1789),
Continental Congress delegate representing Virginia, second Vice President
(1797-1801) under President John Adams, Thomas Jefferson oversaw the purchase
of Louisiana from France (1803) and sent the Lewis and Clark expedition
(1804-1806) to explore the new west.
Although President Jefferson signed into law a bill in
1807 that prohibited the importation of slaves into the United States, he owned
hundreds of slaves at Monticello, Shadwell, and Poplar Forest. None is more
famous than
Sally
Hemmings (1773-1835) who, at the age of 14, was daughter Mary’s maid and accompanied
her to Paris. Sally’s duties were to care for Jefferson’s chamber and wardrobe,
his children, and to do light work such as sewing. A newspaper reported in 1802
that Jefferson had a “concubine” named Sally. Based on “documentary,
scientific, statistical studies and oral history,” many historians believe that
Thomas Jefferson was the father of Sally Hemmings’ children, years after his
wife’s death. Sally lived as a free person in Charlottesville after Jefferson’s
death.
Thomas
Mann Randolph, Jr. (1768-1828), married Jefferson’s daughter Martha. He loved
botany and agriculture as much as his father-in-law. He helped Jefferson run the
plantation business and the often-mismanaged Shadwell mill.
On
the Shadwell side of the Rivanna River, Jefferson had built two mills beginning
in 1796, in the transition from farming tobacco to growing wheat. The project
took ten years and $20,000 for a canal, a dam, and the two mills. One ground
grain for home use and the other one was rented out to millers to grind wheat
for the market. The commercial mill had the most modern machines in existence
at the time for automated milling. The Rivanna River traversed the plantation
and transported agricultural products to market and brought other necessary
goods to the plantation.
Jefferson
had a life-long friend, Adrienne-Catherine de Noailles, countess of Tesse
(1741-1814) and aunt to marquis de Lafayette, with whom he shared his love of
botany. They exchanged letters long after he left France. Packages containing
magnolias, tulip poplars, mountain laurels, red cedars, sassafras, persimmons,
and dogwood were sent to her estate in France. She reciprocated with a
golden-rain tree (Koelreuteria paniculata) for Monticello.
Thomas
Jefferson thought agriculture to be “the most useful of the occupations of
man.” He said in 1787,”Agriculture… is our wisest pursuit, because it will in
the end contribute most to real wealth, good morals and happiness.”
Jefferson
owned four farms, Shadwell, Lego, Tufton, and the Monticello home farm.
Overseers supervised 30-40 enslaved men and women who lived near and worked in
the fields, at first cultivating tobacco and then switching to wheat.
Tobacco
was the staple of farming in the 18th century Virginia. It began to
shift to wheat towards the end of the century due to soil depletion and changes
in European markets.
Wheat
cultivation was more difficult than tobacco; it required crop rotation,
machinery such as threshers, fertilizers, draft animals, mills, and plowing. The
change did not deter Jefferson who was an innovator and enjoyed a challenge.
Thomas
Jefferson was determined to have an American wine production and struggled over
many years to plant and replant imported and native vines. He started two
vineyards on the south-facing slope below the garden terrace in order to have a
Monticello wine. In 1807 he planted 287 rooted vines of 24 of the European
table grapes (Vitis vinifera). His incursion into viticulture is evidenced by
his desire to have an American winemaking industry. “I am making a collection
of vines for wine and for the table.” (1786)
To
succeed, Jefferson brought Philip Mazzei (1730-1816), an Italian merchant and
horticulturist, and laborers to Virginia in 1773 to help with the cultivation
of grapes, olives, and other Mediterranean fruits. The venture failed and
Mazzei returned to Europe after a stint in the Revolutionary War effort. They
remained lifelong friends.
The
daily fresh vegetables came not just from the Monticello’s experimental
gardens. Jefferson, but especially the women in his household, his wife,
daughter, and granddaughters, often paid cash to slaves for “garden produce,
poultry, and eggs” raised by slaves on their own time. Monticello account books
show that “Enslaved gardeners sold cucumbers, potatoes, melons, cabbages,
simlins (patty-pan squash), apples, tomatoes, and salad greens.” Slaves used
underground pits to store hardy produce which they later sold to the main house.
The
longest overseer at Monticello was Edmund Bacon (1785-1866) who was responsible
for leveling of the beautiful garden terrace, bursting with vegetables, delicate
flowers, and aromatic spices. “No occupation is so delightful to me as the
culture of the earth, and no culture comparable to that of the garden.” (Thomas
Jefferson, 1811)
Through
his 82nd year, Jefferson attempted to grow plants from around the
world. He stayed in touch with botanists, nurserymen, and fellow gardeners,
farmers in Virginia and abroad. “The greatest service which can be rendered any
country is to add a useful plant to its culture.”
Wormley
Hughes (1781-1858) was the trusted gardener who planted seeds, bulbs, and
trees. He cared for both the flower and vegetable gardens. Martha Jefferson
Randolph freed him upon her father’s death but his wife and eight children were
sold at the 1827 dispersal sale.
Even
though Jefferson applied the latest knowledge and technology to all his ideas
and business efforts, allowing slaves to acquire a variety of skills, to have a
self-sufficient farm, the plantation was never profitable. He accumulated so
much debt throughout his life that the family was forced to sell the land, the
house, the household contents, and the enslaved families upon his death.
The
5,000 acres Monticello plantation, covering the big house on top of the little
mountain to Mulberry Row and other outlaying farms, necessitated the labor of
enslaved field workers, craftsmen, domestics, free overseers, and members of
the Jefferson family who had specific daily duties.
Jefferson
supplied food, clothing, blankets, and occasional cash payments to enslaved
tradesmen. Enslaved people purchased other belongings from local merchants with
earnings from growing and selling garden produce, craft items, cash from additional
tasks, and gratuities from visitors.
When
he married Martha Wayles Skelton (1748-1782), she brought with her wealth,
slaves, and possessions. She was in charge of all domestic activities at
Monticello. During her marriage to Jefferson, she gave birth to six children,
but only two survived to adulthood. Thomas Jefferson described their marriage
as “ten years of unchequered happiness.”
One
of Martha’s most valued house help was Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings (1735-1807)
who came to Monticello after the death of Martha’s father, John Wayles. Wayles
was thought to be the father of one of Betty’s six children. The daughter of an
English sea captain and an enslaved African woman, Hemings was the head of the
largest enslaved family at Monticello. Hemings’ 70 descendants lived in bondage
at Monticello as servants and craftsmen.
Jefferson
inherited 3,000 acres at Shadwell from his father Peter, a surveyor, county
justice, and member of the Virginia House of Burgesses. Shadwell was located
across the Rivanna River from Monticello, the mountain in the sky. Growing up at
Shadwell afforded Thomas Jefferson an educated childhood surrounded by wealth,
books, scientific and drafting instruments, time for curiosity and exploration,
travel, and contact with the elite society of those times. His mother, Jane
Randolph Jefferson was the daughter of one of Virginia’s most prominent
families.
During
his five year diplomatic mission to France (1784-1789), Jefferson paid careful
attention to technology, commerce, agriculture, and the arts. “I am constantly
roving about, to see what I have never seen before and shall never see again.”
He would take a month long “botanizing excursion” in 1791 through New England
with James Madison and other trips with his 12 year old daughter Martha to
visit the northeastern communities that he would be representing in France.
Jefferson
studied classical architecture for inspiration to build and remodel his
Monticello home. Each room is an example of the five orders of symmetry as written
by Andrea Palladio (1508-1580). Andrea Palladio published his treatise on the
history of architecture, I Quattro Libri
dell’Architettura (The Four Books of
Architecture), in 1570, with beautiful illustrations of the Tuscan, Doric,
Ionic, Corinthian, and Composite styles, including his own versions of Italian
country homes and estates. Jefferson studied them and used them as inspiration
for Monticello.
“…It
may be said that Mr. Jefferson is the first American who has consulted the Fine
Arts to know how he should shelter himself from the weather.” (Francois-Jean de
Beauvoir, Marquis de Chastellux, 1782)
Jefferson
rented a townhouse in Paris, the Hotel de Langeac, with a main floor for
entertainment and separate private spaces for his family’s bedrooms. Infatuated
with the elegance of Parisian homes, he built Monticello in that style, adding
Palladio’s Corinthian order. Chastelleux noted that the ground floor at
Monticello was “chiefly a large and lofty salon,” decorated entirely in the
antique style.
Monticello
was initially a six-room home with a parlor, dining room, and chamber on the
main floor and a study and two bedrooms on the second. In 1775 Jefferson
changed the plan, adding “bow” rooms to the north and south and an octagonal
bay to the parlor. Ever the innovator and inventor, Jefferson designed a roof
that would improve “water shedding.” Benjamin Henry, an architect, credited
Jefferson with the innovation called the “zigzag” roof.
Jefferson
became the architect and builder of his home. He made the drawings, the
detailed list of materials, the quantities needed, and hired 69 brick makers, brick
masons, carpenters, joiners, painters, blacksmiths, and other skilled
craftsmen. Nine months of the year he served his country and then he tended to
his labor of love, his beloved Monticello.
Many
letters record the construction process entrusted to James Dinsmore, the
principal joiner, an Irishman from Philadelphia whom he hired in 1798. Dinsmore
taught his trade to enslaved joiner John Hemmings who created much of
Monticello’s fine woodwork. Dinsmore and John Neilson (1805-1809) worked on
James Madison’s Montpelier and the University of Virginia after Monticello was
completed in 1809.
John
Hemmings (1776-1833), the son of Elizabeth (Betty) Hemings, became such an
accomplished craftsman, he replaced Dinsmore as head joiner and trained other
slaves. Hemmings “could make anything that was wanted in woodwork,” fine
furniture, a landau carriage, and much of the interior woodwork at Poplar
Forest. John Hemmings was freed in Jefferson’s will and received all the tools
of his shop but he continued to “live and work for Jefferson’s family for
several more years at Monticello with his wife, Priscilla.”
Monticello
was hard labor for many people, including the enslaved workers who harvested
raw materials from the surrounding plantation and fashioned them into building
materials. “They dug red clay for making bricks and quarried limestone to make
lime for mortar and plaster. They also felled trees, oak, pine, tulip poplar,
black locust, cherry, beech, and walnut, that were hewn and sawn into lumber
for framing and woodwork.” The names of the workers, freed or enslaved, were
found in documents, letters, and account books.
We
will never know the true cost in planning, preparing, time, money, materials,
hard labor, sweat and tears that built Monticello, a witness to our past. We
are grateful that this important piece of history still exists today to teach valuable
lessons in perseverance, dedication, love of the land, botany, agriculture, viticulture,
American ingenuity and entrepreneurship, success, failure, bondage, and of
human foibles.
Source:
Visit to the Monticello Plantation and Museum
