We were on our way to Monticello, and what pops up but the home of Earl Hamner, the author of "Walton's Mountain" that the TV series, "The Walton's," was based on. There's a little museum there and his childhood two-story home. It's only six miles off the main road so, what the heck, we'll take a little side trip. What I found most interesting on the way was how many place names were used in the TV series. Wow! That stuff Hamner wrote about was for real (mostly.)
NOW can we go to Monticello? I've only been trying to get there since we arrived in Virginia!
Monticello is (of course) gorgeous architecturally and very innovative. Cool things before you even get in the house are the weather vane on the roof that is connected to a compass in the ceiling of the port o'coche. That's so you don't have to walk fifty feet out into the yard to see which direction the vane is pointing. (By the time you do that, who needs a weather vane to tell which direction the wind is coming from - just check your hair!) And a huge wall clock above the front door that is a mirror image of the one in the entry hall. There's a good story about that clock, but I can't remember all the details now... you'll have to visit on your own to find them out!
The entry hall is decorated with things he acquired over the years - like maps made by Lewis and Clark on animal skins. Stuff like that can't be kept by presidents nowadays, so I think that's pretty special. (That and, again, I love historic relics. I'm gettin' pretty close to bein' one myself you know!)
Jefferson never got up on the wrong side of the bed because his bed was in a niche connecting his office with his bedroom. The side he got out of depended on what he had on his mind.
Monticello was located on the top of a small mountain, and in fact, Jefferson had to have that top shaved off so he could build there. Being on top of the mountain gave him a 360 degree view. So as to not block that view, he had all of what would have been necessary outbuildings built into the hillside at right angles to the house and out of sight. Hmmm. I guess you could say he built the first mini-mall because all of these were along hallways, and you could get to them from the basement of the house without going out into the weather: the laundry, the ice house, horse stalls, etc. That included the kitchen, and he had the food and wine brought up on dumb waiters so he and his guests could dine in private. He learned that trick from the Cafe Mechanic (say it with an accent) in France!
There were walls of books, but these were acquired AFTER he donated 7,000 volumes to Washington City (now known as Washington, D.C.) after the British burned the White House in the War of 1812. (That's when Dolly Madison saved the original Declaration of Independence and George Washington's portrait from burning.) That's a lot of books - but I think the Adams' have him beat. (Go back to one of my earlier posts about Connecticut.)
I was also sort of surprised to discover that he surrounded himself for the last ten or fifteen years with all of his grandchildren. They loved him and loved to crawl over, under, and around him. Given the amount of knowledge he had to share with them, I think I'm kinda jealous of those grandchildren!
There is a huge amount of things to see at Monticello. I highly recommend it - but plan on a whole day just to hit the high spots, two days if you want to do it right.
You leave Monticello by a different drive than when you arrived. That's when we discovered that James Madison's home, Ashland, was just a very few miles away. The Jefferson's and the Madison's were good family friends. We knew we wouldn't have time to tour Madison's place, but we did do a drive through. It's not nearly as magnificent as Monticello - but I would have loved to have gone through it, too.
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