Monticello: October 31

On Halloween, we decided to celebrate patriotism rather than ghouls and goblins.  We drove two hours to Monticello, the estate of Thomas Jefferson, in Charlottesville, Virginia.

On the way, we drove through Orange County.  Although it was a nice place, it wasn't our Orange County.  Pine trees just aren't palm trees.  Sometime we will have to stop and see James Madison's estate, Montpelier, but Saturday was all about Thomas Jefferson.

The surroundings at Monticello were gorgeous.  The word Monticello means "little mountain" in Italian.  Here is a picture of the big mountain next door.

Even as a boy, Jefferson and his best friend used to ride their horses up to the little mountain and dream of one day being buried beneath the same tree.  When Jefferson was 25, after purchasing the land, he began leveling the mountain to make way for his house and gardens.

The house, as it appears now, wasn't finished until Thomas Jefferson was 66 years old, when he retired to Monticello after his second term as President. The house is a lot prettier than it appears on the back of the nickel.

We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the house, but we enjoyed seeing the unique home he designed for himself.  Especially his unique study area and greenhouse.  Jefferson spent five years as the American minister to France, where he picked up many of the ideas for the home's architecture and furnishings.

One of Jefferson's favorite parts about Monticello, and one of the highlights of our trip, was the 1,000-foot-long vegetable garden where he experimented with thousands of different vegetable varieties in search of the perfect plant.

Even Olivia thought the garden pavilion would make a beautiful place to spend an afternoon.

One of the things that impressed me was Jefferson's vision of Monticello.  His goal was to draw the visitor's eye continually outward, from the house, to the gardens and orchards, and to the valley below.  By building his house on top of the mountain, by sinking the slave work quarters below ground on either side of the house, and by terracing the gardens, Jefferson was able to achieve his goal.

This is the path from the garden down to the orchard.

This pathway of vines is one of Daniel's dreams for our future yard.  My dream is to have a yard at all.  For the time being, we'll just keep dreaming.

 

We took a tour that focused on the lives of the slaves on Jefferson's plantation.  It was sad to realize that the man who had written the famous sentence, "all men are created equal," was the owner of nearly 600 slaves during his lifetime, without whom the plantation probably would not have been possible.  I was happy to learn that while he worked his slaves from sunrise to sunset, six days a week, the slave women were usually given at least some maternity leave.  I was also happy to learn that to incentivize the slaves, Jefferson paid them for the fish they caught.

 

Olivia was a good sport and really enjoyed being outside for several hours, even though it was chilly.  We were a little jealous of her being all snuggled up in her stroller.

Jefferson and his childhood friend fulfilled their dream of being buried together on the mountain they loved.