Thomas Jefferson
Jefferson was the most versatile and enigmatic of the Founding Fathers, with a broad range of interests that ranged from horticulture and architecture to science and politics, while keeping many of his personal thoughts private.
His home at Monticello atop a small mountain near Charlottesville gives a look at the personal Jefferson and his innovative mind.
“We want visitors to know more than the house, more than what is on the nickel,” said Alyson deBondt, reservations manager.
“He wanted to maintain a lifestyle here,” said guide Jessica Hoffa. “The house was noisy and full of children all the time; more than 20 family members lived upstairs.”
Jefferson started the house in 1769 and continued working on it for the next 40 years, adding and renovating what he called his “essay in architecture.”
“He was an innovator, not an inventor,” said Hoffa. “He was a very practical man, on the cutting edge of technology.”
You see examples of this throughout the house, from the polygraph machine he used to copy letters he was writing to a revolving book stand that allowed him to read more than one book at a time. His unusual alcove bed opened on both sides to his study and his bedroom, and small dumbwaiters in the side of the dining room fireplace led to the wine cellar.
The new visitors center and museum at the foot of the mountain provides further insights into Jefferson. Among the items I found fascinating were the small notebooks he kept with detailed architectural drawings and measurements for the ever-changing Monticello.
James Madison
James and Dolley Madison, who were frequent overnight visitors to Monticello, lived about 30 miles away in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains at Madison’s boyhood home, Montpelier. An extensive five-year, $25 million restoration removed 20th-century additions, which included pink stucco that covered the exterior brick, and restored the house to the way it was when the Madisons lived there in retirement.
“We wanted to take it back to the way Madison left it in the 1820s to 1830s,” said Sterling Howell, chief of the interpretive team.
“We try to focus on Madison the man,” said Christy Moriarty, the site’s tourism coordinator. “We give more of an educational experience, and not a tour of architecture or decorative arts. We focus more on Madison and his accomplishments.”
Howell said a recently restored upstairs room that Madison used as a library “is the most important room in the house. You could say it’s one of the most important in the country. It’s where Madison did most of his work. This is where he began to form his own political philosophy.”
Madison, who is considered the father of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, tirelessly researched ancient and modern forms of government in the room in the months leading up to the Constitutional Convention.
Howell said one of five specialized tours offered at Montpelier gives “a sense of his character, who he was, what made him tick”; another looks at the five generations of slaves that lived at Montpelier.
“I want people to come away from here knowing Madison’s contributions to the Constitution and to also know that he was a slave owner, and not turn him into a saint,” said Howell. “These were real people in the context of the times they lived.”
All of the Virginia Founding Fathers owned slaves, and all grappled with their conflicted feelings about slavery. Each of the four home sites I visited deals frankly with the issue. Slave quarters at Mount Vernon, Monticello and Ash Lawn-Highland have been restored or reconstructed and have been furnished to provide a look at the way slaves there lived.
A portion of a recent $10 million grant will enable Montpelier to complete reconstruction and furnishing of a small complex of slave cabins near the house.
