Saving Monticello: The NewsletterThe latest about the b...
Saving Monticello: The Newsletter
The latest about the book, author events, and more
Newsletter Editor - Marc Leepson
Volume XXI, Number 7 July 2024
EARLY IMAGES: Twenty-five years ago, I was immersed in doing the research for the bookthat would become Saving Monticello. That research included searchingfor historical images of the house and grounds, along with images of the notablepeople who lived, worked, and visited there. I came across more than two dozen photographsand other images, 19 of which are in the book.
That includes the image on the cover of the hardcover and paperback—theoldest known photograph of Monticello, which dates from around 1870. Taken byWilliam Roads, a Charlottesville photographer, the original photograph is archivedin the Special Collections of the University of Virginia Alderman Library,which is where I found it, along with another of Roads’ images of Monticello takenat the same time. Since then, no older photographs of Monticello have surfaced.
I included old photos of Monticello’s post-Jeffersonowners—Benjamin Franklin Ficklin, James Turner Barclay, Uriah Phillips Levy,and Jefferson Monroe Levy—in the book. And since its publications in 2001, whileputting together this newsletter, I’ve discovered additional images of the Levys,as well as their families and other visitors to the mountaintop, a good numberof which have been digitized since the book came out.
Which brings us to the news of a recently discovered vintagephoto of a prominent and frequent Monticello late eighteenth and early nineteenthcentury visitor, the famed First Lady, Dolley Madison. Earlier this year, afamily found the photograph—a daguerreotype—which was taken in 1847, making itthe oldest photo of a U.S. First Lady. It’s at least 30 years older than theone on the book’s cover
Accordingto newspaper reports, the anonymous family discovered the image earlier thisyear when cleaning a “dead relative’s basement,” sent it to Sotheby’s, and thebig auction house’s experts determined that the image was taken by a Virginia photographer named JohnPlumbe, Jr. in 1847, when DolleyMadison was in her seventy-ninth year. Plumbe sold his photography business thenext year.
The image went to auction earlierthis summer, and the Smithsonian’s National Portrait Gallery snapped it up for $456,000.The photo will go on view at the Portrait Gallery in 2026, as the nationcommemorates the semiquincenntenial (250th) anniversary of thesigning of the Declaration of Independence, after which it will become part ofthe museum’s permanent collection.
“This artifact will providethe Smithsonian another opportunity to tell a more robust American story,” SmithsonianSecretary Lonnie G. Bunch III, said, “and illuminate the vital role women likeMadison have played in the nation’s progress.”
The Portrait Gallery also has in its collection theoldest known photograph of a U.S. president. It’s another daguerreotype, thisone of John Quincy Adams in Washington, D.C., taken in March 1843 by the photographerPhilip Haas, just four years after that photography process which uses copperplates lined with a thin sliver of silver to create images was invented. It hasbeen on display at the D.C. museum since 2018. J.Q. Adams, who served as the sixthPresident from 1825-29, was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives fromMassachusetts at the time.
Both Dolley Madison and her husbandJames, who lived in Montpelier about 30 miles north of Monticello, had strong tiesto Thomas Jefferson and Monticello.
Before James Madisonsucceeded Jefferson as the nation’s fourth president in 1809, his wife helpedthe widowed Jefferson host social events at the White House (then known as thePresident’s House) while her husband was serving in the House ofRepresentatives on the other side of Pennsylvania Avenue.
Dolley Madison soon became famousfor her lively, weekly receptions at the White House for the political andsocial movers and shakers in the Nation’s Capital.
The Madisons also werefrequent visitors and guests at Monticello, before and after Jefferson’spresidency. So frequent that Jefferson’s grandchildren—his daughter Martha Randolph’soffspring—who lived at Monticello named one of the upstairs bedrooms “Mr.Madison’s Room” even though both Mrs. and Mr. Madison stayed there often,sometimes as long as several weeks at a time.
There is no record of John Q.Adams visiting the Mountaintop. However, he did attend dinners and other socialevents at the White House when Jefferson was in office from 1801-09.
And, as I wrote in SavingMonticello, when he heard the news that his father and Jefferson both diedon July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the founding of the nation,J.Q. Adams memorably wrote in his diary that both founding fathers dying on thatnotably day was a “visible andpalpable” manifestation of “Divine favor.”
EVENTS: Just one scheduled this month. On Saturday,July 13, I’ll be speaking about the Civil War Battle of Monocacy andConfederate General Jubal Early’s subsequent attack on Washington, D.C., at theFort Stevens Day event in Northwest D.C. near Silver Spring, Maryland. It’s a commemoration of the 160th anniversary of the fighting that went on there on July 11-12, 1864. It’s freeand open to the public. For more info, go to https://theparksdc.com/event/fort-stevens-day-160-anniversary
I will have more events in the fall andwinter. For details, check the Events page on marcleepson.com/events
COMMERCE: Ifyou would like a new paperback of SavingMonticello, I have a few on hand. To order that book, or the just-publishedhardcover of Huntland, go to this page on my website https://bit.ly/BookOrdering or email me at marcleepson@gmail.com
I also havea few used Saving Monticello hardcovers, and a stack of five of my otherbooks: Flag: An American Biography;Desperate Engagement; What So Proudly We Hailed; Flag: An American Biography; and Ballad of the Green Beret.
