Historic Shrines of America Part 34

"Monticello is quite a high mountain, in the shape of a sugar-loaf. A winding road led up to the mansion. On the very top of the mountain the forest trees were cut down, and ten acres were cleared and levelled.... I know every room in that house. Under the house and the terrace that surrounded it, were the cisterns, ice-house, cellar, kitchen, and rooms for all sorts of purposes. His servants' rooms were on one side.... There were no negro and other out-houses around the mansion, as you generally see on plantations. The grounds around the house were beautifully ornamented with flowers and shrubbery.... Back of the house was a beautiful lawn of two or three acres, where his grandchildren used to play.

"His garden was on the side of the mountain. I had it built while he was President. It took a great deal of labor. We had to blow out the rocks for the walls for the different terraces, and then make the soil.... I used to send a servant to Washington with a great many fine things for his table, and he would send back the cart loaded with shrubbery."

Jefferson spent most of his time on his estate until his death in 1826, except when he was called away for the service of his country.

Nine years after the beginning of the happy married life in Monticello there was a panic among the servants because of the approach of the British. Because Jefferson was Governor of Virginia, it was thought that of course the mansion would be pillaged. Mrs. Jefferson was put in the carriage and sent to a place of safety, while Mr. Jefferson remained at home, collecting his most valuable papers. Later he followed his family. But when the soldiers reached the estate, the first inquiry of the leader of the party was for the master of the house. When he learned that Jefferson had escaped, he asked for the owner's private rooms, and, on being shown the door which led to them, he turned the key in the lock and ordered that nothing in the house should be touched. This, it was explained, was in strict accordance with the orders that had been given by General Tarleton; their sole duty was to seize the Governor.

A year later, when the Marquis de Chastellux, a n.o.bleman from France, visited Monticello, he was charmed with the house of which Mr.

Jefferson was the architect, and often one of the workmen. He said it was "rather elegant, and in the Italian taste, though not without fault; it consists of one large square pavilion, the entrance of which is by two porticoes, ornamented with pillars. The ground floor consists of a very large lofty saloon, which is to be decorated entirely in the antique style; above it is a library of the same size; two small wings, with only a ground floor and attic story, are joined to this pavilion, and communicate with the kitchen, offices, etc., which will form a kind of bas.e.m.e.nt story, over which runs a terrace."

Another attractive picture was given by the Duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, after his visit to Monticello in 1796. He noted the fact that Jefferson owned five thousand acres, of which but eleven hundred were cultivated.

"I found him in the midst of the harvest," he wrote, "from which the scorching heat of the sun does not prevent his attendance.... Every article is made on his farm: his negroes are cabinet makers, carpenters, masons, bricklayers, smiths, etc. The children he employs in a nail factory, which yields already a considerable profit.... His superior mind directs the management of his domestic concerns with the same abilities, activity and regularity which he evinced in the conduct of public affairs."

Long absence from home and lavish hospitality wrecked the Jefferson fortune, and when the owner of Monticello finally returned home after his eight years as President, he was compelled to curtail his expenses. But still he made guests welcome. It is said that at times there were as many as fifty guests in the house at one time. One of those who sought the Sage of Monticello in 1817 was Lieutenant Francis Hall, who wrote of his veneration as he looked on "the man who drew up the Declaration of American Independence, who shared in the Councils by which her freedom was established, when the unbought voices of his fellow-citizens called to the exercise of a dignity from which his own moderation impelled him, when such an example was most salutary, to withdraw; and who, while he dedicates the evening of his glorious days to the pursuits of science and literature, shuns none of the humble duties of private life; but, having filled a seat higher than that of kings, succeeds with graceful dignity to that of the good neighbor, and becomes the friendly adviser, lawyer, physician, and even gardener of his vicinity."

July 4, 1826, the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, was the day of Jefferson's death. The sale of his estate was sufficient to pay all his debts. To his daughter who was thus made homeless, the legislatures of South Carolina and Virginia each voted as a gift $10,000.

On the stone placed over the grave of the Sage of Monticello was carved the inscription which he himself had asked for: "Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of American Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom, and Father of the University of Virginia."

[Ill.u.s.tration: UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA, CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA.

_Photo by H. P. Cook_ See page 326]

LXXIV

THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA AT CHARLOTTESVILLE

THE CHILD OF THOMAS JEFFERSON'S OLD AGE

When Thomas Jefferson retired from the Presidency he was surrounded at Monticello by his daughter, her husband, and eleven grandchildren.

Daily a.s.sociation with the young people made him more anxious than ever to carry out a plan that was the growth of years. He wanted to see other children as happy as were those in his own home, and he felt that the one thing he could do to increase their happiness would be to see that the State made provision for their education.

During the remainder of his life he never lost sight of his project.

While he did not live to see his system of common schools established in Virginia, it was his joy to see the University of Virginia grow under his hands from an academy to a college and then to a university.

From 1817 he labored for State appropriations for the school. A friend in the State Senate a.s.sisted him n.o.bly. The reader of the published volume of the correspondence between the two men, a volume of 528 pages, will see how untiring was the labor that had its reward when the appropriation of funds made sure the founding of the university.

Three hundred thousand dollars were provided for construction, as well as $15,000 a year for maintenance.

Jefferson himself drew the plans for the buildings and superintended the construction. Sarah N. Randolph, in "The Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson," says that "the architectural plan and form of government and instruction for this inst.i.tution afforded congenial occupation for his declining years.... While the buildings were being erected, his visits to them were daily; and from the northeast corner of the terrace at Monticello he frequently watched the workmen engaged on them, through a telescope which is still [1871] preserved in the library of the University."

Edmund Bacon, the overseer at Monticello, gave to Hamilton W. Pierson, the author of "Jefferson at Monticello," a humorous account of the early days of the project:

"The act of the Legislature made it the duty of the Commissioners to establish the University within one mile of the Court House at Charlottesville. They advertised for proposals for a site. Three men offered sites. The Commissioners had a meeting at Monticello, and then went and looked at all these sites. After they had made their examination, Mr. Jefferson sent me to each of them, to request them to send by me their price, which was to be sealed up. Lewis and Craven each asked $17 per acre, and Perry, $12. That was a mighty big price in those days....

They took Perry's forty acres, at $12 per acre. It was a poor old turned-out field, though it was finely situated. Mr.

Jefferson wrote the deed himself. Afterwards Mr. Jefferson bought a large tract near it. It had a great deal of timber and rock on it, which was used in building the University.

"My next instruction was to get ten able-bodied hands to commence the work.... Mr. Jefferson started from Monticello to lay off the foundation, and see the work commenced. An Irishman named Dinsmore, and I, went along with him. As we pa.s.sed through Charlottesville, I ... got a ball of twine, and Dinsmore found some shingles and made some pegs.... Mr.

Jefferson looked over the ground some time, and then stuck down a peg.... He carried one end of the line, and I the other, in laying off the foundation of the University. He had a little ruler in his pocket that he always carried with him, and with this he measured off the ground, and laid off the entire foundation, and then set the men at work."

This foot-rule was shown to Dr. Pierson by Mr. Bacon, who explained how he secured it:

"Mr. Jefferson and I were once going along the bank of the ca.n.a.l, and in crawling through some bushes and vines, it [the ruler] fell out of his pocket and slid down the bank into the river. Some time after that, when the water had fallen, I went and found it, and carried it to Mr. Jefferson.

He told me I ... could keep it.... When I die, that rule can be found locked up in that drawer.

"After the foundations were nearly completed, they had a great time laying the corner-stone. The old field was covered with carriages and people. There was an immense crowd there.

Mr. Monroe laid the corner-stone. He was President at that time.... He held the instruments, and p.r.o.nounced it square. I can see Mr. Jefferson's white head just as he stood there and looked on.

"After this he rode there from Monticello every day while the University was building, unless the weather was very stormy.... He looked after all the materials, and would not allow any poor materials to go into the building if he could help it."

A letter from Jefferson to John Adams, written on October 12, 1823, spoke of the "h.o.a.ry winter of age." "Against this _tedium vitae_," he said, "I am fortunately mounted on a hobby, which, indeed, I should have better managed some thirty or forty years ago; but whose easy amble is still sufficient to give exercise and amus.e.m.e.nt to an octogenary rider. This is the establishment of a University, on a scale more comprehensive, and in a country more healthy and central than our old William and Mary, which these obstacles have long kept in a state of languor and inefficiency."

In designing the buildings Jefferson acknowledged his indebtedness to Palladio, who guided him in his adaptation of Roman forms. The visitor who is familiar with Rome is reminded of the baths of Diocletian, the baths of Caracalla, and the temple of Fortuna Virilis, while a reduction of the Pantheon, with a rotunda, is the central feature of the group.

The University was opened in March, 1825. Forty students were in attendance, though at the beginning of the second year the number was increased to one hundred and seventy-seven.

The central feature of the collection of buildings, the wonderful Rotunda, was badly injured in the fire of 1895 which destroyed the Annex. The Rotunda was soon rebuilt according to Jefferson's original plan, and the group of buildings is more beautiful than ever.

SEVEN: THROUGH THE SUNNY SOUTH

_The long, grey moss that softly swings In solemn grandeur from the trees, Like mournful funeral draperies,-- A brown-winged bird that never sings._

ALBERT BIGELOW PAINE.

_O Magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! my South!

O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! good and evil! O all dear to me!

O dear to me my birth-things--all moving things and the trees where I was born--the grains, plants, rivers, Dear to me my own slow sluggish rivers where they flow, distant, over flats of silvery sands or through swamps._

_O the cotton plant! the growing fields of rice, sugar, hemp!

The cactus guarded with thorns, the laurel-tree with large white flowers, The range afar, the richness and barrenness, the old woods charged with mistletoe and trailing moss, The piney odor and the gloom, the awful natural stillness (here in these dense swamps the freebooter carries his gun, and the fugitive has his conceal'd hut;)_

The mocking bird, the American mimic, singing all the forenoon, singing through the moonlit night, The humming bird, the wild turkey, the racc.o.o.n, the opossum; A Kentucky corn-field, the tall, graceful, long-leav'd corn, slender, flapping, bright green, with ta.s.sels, with beautiful ears each well-sheath'd in its husk; O my heart! O tender and fierce pangs, I can stand them not, I will depart; O to be a Virginian where I grew up! O to be a Carolinian!

O longings irrepressible! O I will go back to old Tennessee and never wander more.

WALT WHITMAN.

SEVEN: THROUGH THE SUNNY SOUTH

LXXV

THREE OLD CHURCHES IN CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA

ST. MICHAEL'S, ST. PHILIP'S, AND THE HUGUENOT CHURCH, RELICS OF COLONIAL DAYS