Poplar Forest, Virginia

On the same day we went to Lynchburg, we visited Poplar Forest, Thomas Jefferson's plantation house which he designed and treated as a private retreat. Jefferson built this house as a place to escape the hordes of visitors at Monticello and seek the "solitude of a hermit". He worked on the house continuously from 1806 until he died 20 years later, and once wrote in a letter, "It is the most valuable of my possessions". In 1773 Jefferson inherited this land, 4800 acres in all, from his father-in-law John Wayles. The property was eventually bequeathed to Jefferson's grandson who sold it in 1828 to move to Florida. Over the years, and under the influence of many different owners, the house underwent numerous alterations and the plantation's area was incrementally reduced to 50 acres before being taken over by the Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest. The house is in part now surrounded by suburban subdivisions. By 2014 over 600 acres of the original plantation was purchased back by the corporation to provide a landscape easement for the house from further subdivision encroachment. During our visit we were led on a guided tour of the inside of the house which is undergoing a complete restoration to return the plantation to the same conditions that existed during Jefferson's time. This even includes using the same construction techniques that were used in that era, and as you can imagine, this is a very long term project. Although not as magnificent as Monticello, his primary residence in Charlottesville, this was nonetheless a worthy visit and another glimpse into the private life of Thomas Jefferson. 

Monticello, Virginia

Our visit to New York (the state, the capital (Albany), and New York City) wrapped up our summer adventures of touring New England and New York. Come mid September, it was time to start our slow meander south, to eventually end up in Florida, this year's winter home. Our first stop along the way was Ashland, Virginia, a small town 15 miles north of Richmond. Although we spent time in Richmond in 2011 for our capital visit, there were other reasons (being close to a small airport for a flight to California in October) and other attractions in this part of the country we wanted to come back to see.

First on our list of attractions was a visit to Monticello, the primary plantation and residence of Thomas Jefferson located just outside Charlottesville. Jefferson designed the house himself (he called this his "essay in architecture"), and the name 'Monticello' means "little mount" in Italian, a fitting descriptor since it sits atop the summit of an 850-foot high peak.  For the price of admission, we were welcome to stroll the beautiful grounds on our own, in addition to attending several docent-led tours of the inside of the house, the gardens, and slavery on the plantation. We opted to attend the tour of the house, although no photography was allowed inside, and we also wandered around the forested and beautiful acreage on our own.

Of special interest to us were the meticulously kept gardens, including a producing vegetable garden, and a number of flower gardens, all recreated to mimic what grew during the time Jefferson occupied Monticello. Jefferson was very interested in experimental horticulture and tried his hand at exotic (for the times) vegetables, fruit orchards, vineyards, and grafting. But there was much more than gardening going on at Monticello. An area tagged Mulberry Row was the industrial hub of Jefferson's 5,000 acre enterprise. It was the center of work and domestic life for dozens of people - free whites, free blacks, indentured servants, and enslaved people - who worked as tinsmiths, nailers, sawyers, carpenters, joiners, charcoal-burners, spinners, weavers, hostlers, and domestic servants. The work of dozens of men, women, and children supported Jefferson's elite household, which allowed him to build and renovate his house, and carry out agricultural and industrial activities.

Although I have mixed feelings about all that was able to be accomplished at Monticello, because it relied so heavily on slave labor, I did learn many things about Thomas Jefferson that I didn't know before. He was an educated man and a scholar; he could read in six languages; he founded the University of Virginia in Charlottesville; he was a prolific reader, writer, inventor, and builder. But with all of all his accomplishments he himself was least impressed with being the third president of the United States. In fact, as he requested, his tombstone reads: "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". As for the presidency, he referred to this as a "splendid misery".