Tag: Monticello

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Culture

Crystal O’Connor in the HotSeat

Supplied photo.

Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello is a major historic building in Charlottesville, but its grounds are also an active archeological site, where teams work to uncover the stories of enslaved people and ancestral Monacan in the area. Now, visitors can tour these sites themselves through this year’s Plantation Archaeology Walking Tour. To learn more, we spoke with Crystal O’Connor, an archeologist at Monticello. This interview has been edited for length.

What do you do at Monticello? I’m the archaeological field research manager, so I run and direct all of the archaeological fieldwork that takes place on the property. I’m out excavating, sometimes year-round, and recording layers of dirt that we see, collecting artifacts, and then getting that information back to our lab and our lab staff. 

What makes working at Monticello different than working at some of these other historic sites? I think the landscape is one unique aspect of Monticello that other historic sites don’t have—the ornamental landscape, the agricultural working farm. The Thomas Jefferson Foundation owns half of Jefferson’s original 5,000 acres, so it’s a really unique opportunity to get to learn about the landscape in a way that other historic sites don’t or can’t because there’s subdivisions or housing developments that have gone up around their properties. We also have Jefferson. No other site has Jefferson, and to be able to study his architecture and the buildings that he had constructed is fascinating. And then I think we also have a really unique resource in our cataloging system, which is called DAACS. It’s the digital archaeological archive of comparative slavery. And it’s an online database that we put all of our records that we generate in the field into and all of our artifacts. Monticello gives us a really unique opportunity to learn about slavery in a way that other historic sites just aren’t quite there.

These walking tours that started, is this the first time that these have been available? Or has this been available previously? This is the second year of the archaeology department collaborating with the education department. [The guide team has] taken the materials that we’ve written and have added stories that help paint the picture a little better of what slavery was like here at Monticello during the time of the revolution. The tour ends at a site that dates to the 1770s and 1780s. 

What path does the trail take and what can people look forward to? The walk travels down a historic roadway that enslaved laborers built probably in the early 19th century, and it’s a pretty level path. It’s downslope of Monticello, so the tour doesn’t visit the main house, or the mountaintop. We walk through what are now woods, but were once agricultural fields. This area was occupied by ancestral Monacan prior to European colonization. Slavery is something we’ve interpreted for decades at Monticello, but the pre- contact component is something that we’re hoping we can share with visitors more broadly with a visit to this site. [The Monocans’] ancestral homeland is about an hour south of here in Amherst County. Working collaboratively with them and working collaboratively with descendants through the Getting Word program here at Monticello, descendants of people whom Jefferson enslaved, it’s been a really rewarding experience to make this project and this tour collaborative.

For more information on the tours, which run through November, visit monticello.org.

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Culture Living

PICK: Spring Wildflower Walk

Publicity Photo

About blooming time: All those April showers brought plenty of May flowers to the gardens at Monticello. Peggy Cornett, the estate’s curator of plants, leads the annual Spring Wildflower Walk at TJ’s place. And if the rigorous five-mile hike gave you pause in the past, you’re in luck: This year’s event is virtual, which means you can enjoy the beauty of the grounds from the comfort of home during a 35-minute tour that features Cornett’s extensive knowledge of spring botanicals, and a live Q&A.

Saturday 5/22, $10, 1pm. monticello.org.

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Culture Living

PICK: Black Fiddlers of Monticello

Tracing the music: Get in your steps and a history lesson during David McCormick’s Black Fiddlers of Monticello walking tour, a tribute to the Scott and Hemings family fiddlers. McCormick, a founding performer with the Early Access Music Project, uses recent research as a fellow at the International Center for Jefferson Studies to trace the families’ history on Main Street and in Maplewood Cemetery and other locations we frequently pass. He will perform a short set of music associated with each stop along the one-mile journey.

Through 5/15, $10-20, 2 and 4pm, Maplewood Cemetery, 425 Maple St. earlymusiccville.org.

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Arts Culture Food & Drink

PICK: In The Art of French Brasserie Cooking at Monticello

Publicity Photo

French connections: In his four years as the United States minister to France, Thomas Jefferson came to love all things French, especially the cuisine—and the sophisticated culinary palate he developed is still serving us today. In The Art of French Brasserie Cooking at Monticello, the newly appointed Chef David Bastide teaches us about the fine dining of Jefferson’s time, and its influence on American cuisine.

Friday 3/12, $35, 6pm. Registration required. monticello.org.

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Culture Food & Drink Living

PICK: History in a Glass

Wine diplomacy: If you’re interested in celebrating presidents, pairing them with wine may be the way to go. In a nod to Presidents’ Day, the second installment of Monticello’s History in a Glass series explores Thomas Jefferson’s passion for wine and the influence it had on diplomatic relations and social entertaining at the White House. Author Fred Ryan will discuss his book, Wine and the White House, in a virtual presentation that includes special guests. Participants will also receive a curated selection of Jefferson-era recipes from Monticello’s Farm Table Chef David Bastide.

Wednesday 2/17, $25, 6:30pm. monticello.org.

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Culture Living

Carving out history: Leni Sorensen bridges the gap between kitchen and table at Monticello

Food historian Leni Sorensen highlights the culinary talent of Monticello’s enslaved chefs in her livestream series “Cooking at Monticello.” Photo courtesy Jefferson’s Monticello.

Thomas Jefferson never wrote about the food at Monticello.

His kitchens were stocked with ingredients from around the world—cinnamon from Asia, lemons from the Caribbean, brandies and fine cheeses from Richmond. But in his writing, Jefferson didn’t remark on the fine food that his enslaved chefs prepared for his table. He simply expected its consistent excellence.

More than 200 years later, food historian Leni Sorensen is working in the Monticello kitchen to make sure viewers of her livestream cooking series know, unlike Jefferson, not to take the efforts of those cooks for granted.

“It’s exhausting,” Sorensen says. “You’re in the smoke, constantly in the smoke. Your clothes smell of smoke, and your hair smells of smoke. You burn the hell out of yourself. And all the pans are heavy, except the copper pots on the stew stove. And you’re bending over all the time. So on a lot of levels, while it’s charming to do, I’m really glad I don’t have to do it.”

Sorensen’s cooking demo and Q&A session is part of a series of videos, broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook and available on the Monticello website (monticello.org), that seek to connect guests with the history of the Monticello estate even as the grounds themselves limit visitors.

As Sorensen peels, spices, and prepares an apple compote like the kind Jefferson would have eaten, she uses skills that were once a source of pride for Monticello’s enslaved workers—as well as, at times, a path to freedom. Cooking gave many workers what they needed to move after emancipation, settling into kitchens across the United States to carve out a new life for themselves.

“It was often done under terrible duress and hideous kinds of racism…but they had this skill that they could do that brought in money for their children’s education, to buy a piece of property, to act within their Black community…,” Sorensen says. “It’s quite a marvelous story, that level of independence that being able to cook [gave them].”

Teaching at Monticello is one of many jobs Sorensen has picked up due to COVID curtailing much of her regular work. She’s now selling bulk orders of homemade tamales, a business she first ran in Los Angeles in the ’70s. And in her free time, she plans and executes elaborately themed, socially distanced dinner parties at her Charlottesville home.

At the most recent dinner, her two guests arrived on their way back from a day at Monticello. Even in the time of the pandemic, people are finding a way to connect with Virginia’s past through the estate. And Sorensen anticipates that with potential future cooking livestreams, historic venues like Monticello and Montpelier can continue to create connections between past and present.

“I’m often trying to draw analogies so that we don’t see the enslaved community…as somehow being necessarily different,” Sorensen says. “We all have these incredible commonalities. Often, it’s wonderful to see places where people have bridged those gaps and eliminated those gaps.”

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News

Ash disaster: Local ash trees face their own pandemic

The Van Yahres Tree Company treats ash trees at Monticello to guard against the invasive emerald ash borer. Credit: Van Yahres Tree Company

As if COVID-19 weren’t enough, central Virginia is fighting another plague, only this one—the emerald ash borer—threatens our trees. The beetle may look like a tiny jewel— it’s a bright metallic green, small enough to sit on a penny— but it’s been scything down local ash trees like a malevolent Paul Bunyan. 

“No ash tree is safe,” says Jake Van Yahres, co-owner of Van Yahres Tree Company, which his great-grandfather founded in 1919 during another pandemic. “If you have an ash tree and don’t get it treated, it will die.”

The emerald ash borer, native to northeastern Asia, was first detected in the U.S. in Michigan in 2002, and in Albemarle County in 2017. The beetle lays its eggs in the ash’s bark in spring; when the larvae hatch, they tunnel through the bark and feed on the layer beneath all summer, effectively cutting off the tree’s nutrients. The following spring, they emerge as adults to eat leaves, mate, and lay more eggs—killing the tree in three to five years.  

Katlin DeWitt, forest health specialist with the Virginia Department of Forestry, says ash is a popular landscaping and urban species because it is hardy, fast-growing, and shapely. “After we lost elms, people planted with ash,” she says. Just ask UVA—it has hundreds of ash trees on the Lawn, Carr’s Hill, the East Range, and along Rugby and McCormick roads. 

A tree can be protected by injecting insecticide around its base, but the treatment has to be administered by a certified arborist and repeated every two years. If started in time, treatment ($350-$600 per tree, depending on size) can be more cost-effective than removal. But if the tree is significantly damaged, removing it may be preferable; while living ash trees are strong and hardy, dead ones quickly become brittle and pose a danger if they are near a building, roadway, or public space.

Michael Ronayne, urban forester with the city, says Charlottesville is currently treating 37 trees that are particularly large or well-placed; in 2018, the city spent $8,600 on emerald ash borer protection. Ash trees make up roughly 2 percent of the forest mix in central Virginia, but their noble shape makes them common ornamental trees, and their loss will be felt by even casual observers. One of the city’s largest ash trees stands just behind the Albemarle Charlottesville Historical Society building downtown. “Losing that tree would change the entire block,” says Ronayne.

DeWitt recommends homeowners check their ash trees for signs of infestation: patches of light-colored inner bark exposed by woodpeckers seeking the tasty larvae; canopy die-back; sprouting from the tree’s base; and small, D-shaped holes in the bark where borers have eaten their way out. If you see these signs—or aren’t sure whether it’s an ash tree—hire an arborist to evaluate the damage and outline options.

Infected ash trees can be salvaged as firewood, which should be burned that season before ash borer pupae emerge again in the spring—but to prevent spreading the infestation, don’t sell the wood. Homeowners buying firewood should purchase wood from their immediate area, or make sure it’s labeled heat-treated.

Spending money to protect a tree may not seem to make financial sense, but it’s worth it, say many homeowners. “My parents’ house in Charlottesville has a huge ash tree, hanging over the entire house,” says Van Yahres. “It’s being treated, and it’s still up. If we had to take that tree down, it wouldn’t feel like home.”

Correction: The print version of this story reported that the city spent $86,000 on ash borer treatment; in fact, it spent $8,600.

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Culture Living Uncategorized

PICK: Monticello Fall Plant and Nursery Sale

Sowing the seeds: Take your faith in mother nature to the next level in 2021 with perennials such as rattlesnake master, globe thistle, and Virginia bluebells, courtesy of the Monticello Fall Plant and Nursery Sale. The popular annual event is taking safety precautions that include pre-registration, limited occupancy, and time limits that allow each guest 45 minutes to shop. Plant availability varies.

Free registration, Saturday 9/12, 11am-1pm. Monticello.org.

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Culture Uncategorized

Pick: Monticello’s virtual tours

Connect with people around the world through a live, guided tour (questions taken) of Monticello via Zoom. Getty Images

Viewing the past: Always wanted to visit Monticello but never had the time? And now that you have the time, the front door at TJ’s place is locked. Fear not: Monticello is using Zoom to provide a virtual opportunity to explore one of our country’s most iconic sites and the legacy of Thomas Jefferson. Connect with people around the world through a live, guided tour (questions taken), with reflections on the third president’s philosophies and inventions, and the lives of enslaved people at his Charlottesville plantation.

Ongoing, $10, monticello.org.

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News

Passed down: Descendants of people enslaved at Monticello work to reconnect with their families

Descendants of people enslaved at Monticello share their family stories at Northside Library.

“We were scattered all over the country, never to meet each other again until we were in another world,” wrote enslaved laborer Peter Fossett after his family and friends were sold in Monticello’s 1827 and 1829 estate sales.

Thomas Jefferson died in debt, and soon after his death his family auctioned off the crops, furniture, and people that Jefferson held at Monticello. The 130 enslaved people held there represented 90 percent of the appraised value of Jefferson’s property. 

At the Northside Library on January 13, a collection of descendants of those who had been enslaved at Monticello gathered to share the stories of their families. Niya Bates, Monticello’s director of African American history, moderated the panel.

“I want to thank you for going on this difficult journey with us tonight,” Bates said at the beginning of the event.

“We should not ever memorialize that sale,” said panelist Calvin Jefferson, a retired archivist and descendant of multiple Monticello enslaved families. (Jefferson noted that his surname does not come from Thomas Jefferson.) “The separation of the enslaved was a very tragic thing for the people that were separated.”

But now, the families forced apart in those traumatic diasporas are finding each other once again through painstaking genealogical work. Bates coordinates the Getting Word oral history project, which seeks to catalog the stories of these families and help descendants learn more about their ancestors. 

“It’s moving in a very deep way, the wealth of information that’s been given to us,” said Myra Anderson, a descendant of the Hern family. 

Jefferson has met some of his relatives through this process and found an immediate connection. “I’ve known you all my life, and I just met you,” he said. “It’s astounding. When we talk, it’s like we grew up together.” 

Complete genealogical information for these families often doesn’t exist. But even scant details can be comforting and empowering to descendants. “You know their names. You know what they did. You know they had kids,” said Anderson. “It’s no longer this abstract thought. You know everything about them.”

Anderson told a story about how two of her male ancestors successfully petitioned Jefferson to purchase their wives. She identified with their perseverance and attitude. “I think that spirit of advocacy runs in my DNA,” Anderson said. “That’s something I still do today.”

These tales sat untold for many years, buried by time and the pain of continued discrimination.

Joan Burton said she saw her family name, Gillette, in a book about Sally Hemings, and decided to inquire about a possible connection at Monticello. Indeed, she found that her family were descendants of enslaved people there. “I was totally bewildered by the fact that I had lived here all this time and never knew this,” Burton said.

For Burton, the desire to unearth this history is new. “I cannot say my family talked about their slave ancestors,” Burton said. “The motto was, ‘slavery was awful, and it’s over.’” 

“The pain caused by slavery still lives in many generations and in many ways,” Burton continued. “A lot of what we live with today is a result of slavery. I’m glad that it’s being discussed now because it’s something that everybody needs to know about.”

Nothing about this work is easy. “It’s a slog, looking for your family in property records,” Burton said. “But I won’t give it up.” 

The conference room at the Northside Library was full to the brim—organizers estimated more than 130 people were in attendance. While the Confederate statues still stand, the evening offered another indication that some part of Charlottesville is interested in engaging with this history, at least in a small way. 

“I am very proud to have a relative up at Monticello,” said Deborah Granger, another panelist. “You have to go up there. You have to sit there and feel their presence and what they went through. To me, I felt so overwhelmed, with their spirit going right through me.”

“I have a hard time talking about it, I’ll be honest,” said Burton. “When I go to Monticello, I go to the cemetery, because my fifth-great-grandparents are buried there. I have the feeling that I don’t really want to be there. But I can’t not go there.”

During a question period after the panel discussion, one audience member stood up and said she was an American history teacher. She asked the panelists if they had any advice for teachers trying to communicate this history.

“The answer to your questions is very simple,” said Jefferson. “Tell the truth.”

 

Correction, 1/23: An earlier version of this story referred to Joan Burton as Jill Merton.