96: THE EFFECTS OF ‘JEFFERSON FEVER’ WAS CONTAGIOUS!

The ringing of the alarm clock in our Charlottesville, Virginia motel room was nearly muffled by the sound of rain against the window. When my photographer opened the curtains to that window, I couldn’t believe how gloomy it looked outside. Weather-wise, Sunday May 12, 2019 likely wouldn’t find us basking in rays of sunshine; even though it was Mother’s Day. My spirits weren’t dampened, however, even by the large water droplets that peppered the window. At 6:00am, I was only three hours from venturing inside one of the most historic homes in America – Monticello. And unless we saw Noah’s Ark floating past, no amount of water was going to stop the three of us from venturing up to Jefferson’s mountaintop.

But before we headed towards Monticello, Tom and Bob had two other stops to make – and the first had nothing to do with Presidents. My companions decided to stop at a local Walmart where they purchased two inexpensive umbrellas. At first, I was disappointed that my photographer didn’t buy a small umbrella for me, which was likely due to the fact that he’s cheap. But then again, it may have been because Tom knows that I stay dry inside the camera bag.

From Walmart, we had about a two-mile drive to get to the second stop of the day – the University of Virginia. Once Tom found a place to park, which wasn’t easy nor close to our intended target, the three of us hiked across the UVA campus. Since we needed to be back to the Acadia and headed to Monticello by 8:15am, we had roughly a 45-minute window to complete our task of photographing the University of Virginia’s Rotunda – which was a beautiful building that was designed by Thomas Jefferson and inspired by the Pantheon in Rome. In Jefferson’s mind, the Rotunda represented the “authority of nature and power of reason” and kept to his ideals of the separation of church and education. Construction of the Rotunda began in 1822 and was completed shortly after Jefferson’s death in 1826. Once we had arrived in front of the Rotunda, the steady rain that had fallen during our walk had tapered-off to a light sprinkle.

Since it was Sunday, we couldn’t get inside the Rotunda; and we likely didn’t have extra time to spare anyway. But as I stood near the statue of Thomas Jefferson that was located directly in front of the Rotunda, I couldn’t help but envision the university’s founder as he dined in that unfinished building with James Madison and Marquis de Lafayette on November 5, 1824. When Jefferson toasted the French leader, he talked about LaFayette’s role in America’s Independence: “In truth, I only held the nail. He drove it.”

We spent a little more time at the Rotunda than anyone had anticipated, which forced my photographer and Mongo to walk at a fast pace during their return trip to our vehicle. Once we were on the road to Monticello, it took roughly ten minutes to make the 3.5-mile drive up to the historic plantation house. Upon our arrival, a shuttle bus transported the three of us from the Visitors Center to the front of the majestic mansion where we were dropped off. I couldn’t believe my eyes; there it was in front of me – Jefferson’s Monticello. We had about a half-hour before our “Behind the Scenes” tour of the interior began, which gave my photographer some time to capture a handful of images of me near the building. The first thing we did was walk around to the “Nickle Side”, which was the west side of Monticello that was engraved on the reverse-side of a Jefferson five cent coin. Although the rain had stopped, haze was evident all around the mansion; which disappointed my camera guy. But not me. I thought the haze made the house appear antiquated and it was as though I could see the third President as he silently and secretly peered out of a first-floor window while I stood nearby on the west portico.

At exactly 9:00am, the tour guide arrived on the eastern porch of the mansion. It was at that time when our group was informed that photography was prohibited inside Monticello; but that was no surprise as my cameraman had been denied permission about a month earlier. When Bob saw the elderly gentleman, I heard him whisper to my photographer: “Oh no, that’s the guy who caught me taking pictures through the windows a few minutes ago. When he saw my camera up against the glass, he came towards me waving his arms hysterically as though he was being swarmed by bees. I managed to get a few pictures of Jefferson’s belongings, but I thought the poor guy was going to have a stroke.” As my companions laughed at Mongo’s story, I was transported back in time to the 1820s as soon as I was carried across the threshold. Nearly every piece of furniture in the home was original to Jefferson and I was awestruck from the moment we set foot inside the Entrance Hall where I saw some of the President’s personal collections and inventions. After we visited the Family Sitting Room, I was carried into the Library where Jefferson conceived the design for the University of Virginia. The Cabinet Room was cool as it featured some of Jefferson’s scientific apparatus, as well as his polygraph; a device used for copying written letters.

The moment of truth came when we stepped into Jefferson’s Bed Chamber, which was furnished with silk curtains, marble-topped tables, and upholstered armchairs from his house in Paris. While those pieces of furniture were cool, I couldn’t take my painted eyes off Jefferson’s Alcove bed. That bed was where Thomas Jefferson had died at 12:50pm on July 4, 1826 at the age of 83. It was the 50th anniversary of American Independence; and by coincidence his friend and colleague John Adams died about five hours later; also on the Fourth of July. Adams’ son, John Quincy, was President and was quoted as saying after his father and Jefferson had died on the historic anniversary: It was “visible and palpable remarks of Divine Favor.” As my photographer carried me around Jefferson’s bedroom, I could feel my resin heart pound in my chest. At that moment I wondered if I would see Mongo fake a seizure; a simple distraction so I could pose alongside the bed for a quick photo? One by one the group followed the tour guide into the Parlor; which gave us the opportunity of a lifetime. Tom focused the camera on the bed; he held me up into the air; and I heard a click. We did it; and I knew that Thomas Jefferson was smiling at us. Then out of nowhere we heard the words: “You know, photos are not allowed inside the house. If you want a picture of the bed, they sell books and videos at the gift shop.” My photographer turned to see who had just scolded him – it was a homely woman who he and Mongo had already recognized as the most annoying person in our tour group. She reminded Tom of a hag who fell out of an ugly tree and hit every branch on the way down. “Thank you very much for letting me know – I had no idea that I couldn’t take photos inside here and I appreciate your concern.” As my photographer’s sarcastic words still echoed around the bed chamber, Tom once again held me aloft near Jefferson’s bed as he captured a second image. He wanted to be guaranteed that at least one of the photos turned out well. Bob nearly laughed out loud with the way everything played out; and he shook Tom’s hand after the successful mission was accomplished. As we headed into the Parlor, I heard my photographer say to his friend: “The only reason I didn’t jump down that (C U Next Tuesday’s) throat with a verbal assault was because I thought she would ‘rat me out’ to our tour guide. We’re only halfway through the tour and I didn’t want to take the chance of getting booted out of the house before we had a chance to go upstairs.”

During the rest of our time on the lower floors, we visited the Dining Room and Tea Room before we made our way to the guest bedroom at Monticello. It was nicknamed the “Madison Room” because it was used a lot by James and Dolley Madison during their visits to Jefferson’s home. As a matter of fact, TJ’s grandchildren called it “Mr. Madison’s Room” because of the frequent stays by the Madison’s. As we prepared to ascend the steep and narrow staircase to the third-floor Dome Room, the tour guide asked for a volunteer to “bring up the rear to make sure everyone makes it up the stairs.” Our eagle-eyed ‘gorgon’ couldn’t raise her hand fast enough, which didn’t surprise the three of us. When Thomas Jefferson drew up the blueprints for Monticello, he didn’t like to waste space with “useless” things like staircases; instead, he designed them steep and very narrow. So narrow, in fact, I wasn’t quite sure if my rotund photographer would fit up the staircase. I thought I caught a whiff of burning denim as we ascended the stairs, likely from Tom’s hips as they rubbed along the walls. Once we made it upstairs, I thought the design of the Dome Room was very impressive; even though the well-lit room featured no furniture. The circular windows, which reminded me of portholes, offered a unique view of the Monticello outbuildings and grounds. The tour guide mentioned that no one knew for sure what the Dome Room was used for during Jefferson’s lifetime. It may have been a bedroom for one of his married grandsons; or perhaps it was a playroom for all of his younger grandchildren. All I knew for certain was photography was allowed there and I couldn’t pose for pictures fast enough.

After the bed chamber incident, Tom had held his composure very well. Even though he scowled at the woman every chance he had, he never said a word to her; nor did he engage in any type of retaliation. That was until their paths crossed in the Dome Room. As the ‘two-bagger’ walked towards us, Tom lowered his shoulder and nearly knocked the woman to the floor. I heard a grunt come out of her mouth, but she never uttered another word to us; maybe because her lungs were void of air. I laughed to myself because my photographer never missed a beat during our photoshoot, and he acted as though nothing happened. It was revenge at its sweetest and I loved it!

When the interior tour of Monticello was finished and we were once again outdoors, I heard my photographer ask Mongo: “Do you know where that woman went? I need to get her name so I can accurately describe who the most annoying person on the tour was.” The hag in the blue sweatshirt and black sweatpants had vanished, which made my companions believe that she may have been an incognito accomplice of the tour guide who had been planted to keep an eye on tourists like Moldenhauer and my photographer.

With me in the camera case, Tom and Bob headed along a pathway that took us along the South Terrace to an outbuilding known today as the “Honeymoon Cottage”. A short distance west of the cottage and situated in the shade of a large oak tree, was the oval-shaped Fishpond. Jefferson designed and built the pond in an effort to store water as water was always an issue on the mountaintop. It’s also believed that Jefferson stored live fish in the pond as well, which would provide fresh fish for dinner. For photographers, the Fish Pond served as a “must-see” location on the Monticello property as it offered a mirror-like image of Jefferson’s mansion. As I posed along the banks of the Fish Pond, with Monticello rising up behind me, it once again began to rain. And although it didn’t rain hard, the drops still disturbed the water and its mirrored surface.

We had been at the Monticello estate for just over two hours, and as hard as it was to depart Jefferson’s beloved “Little Mountain”, the three of us began our downhill hike towards the Jefferson family burial ground and the grave of our third President. The family cemetery, which Jefferson himself had laid-out, was surround by a tall, iron fence that featured an ornate gate directly in front of the President’s gravesite. The first person buried in that cemetery was Thomas Jefferson’s boyhood friend and brother-in-law Dabney Carr who died on May 16, 1773. During their hikes up the mountain that later became the site of Monticello, Jefferson and Carr sat under a huge oak tree. While there, they made a pact that both would one day be buried beneath that tree. Following President Jefferson’s death on July 4, 1826, he was buried the following day next to Carr and beneath “their” tree. A stickler for detail, Thomas Jefferson designed his own tombstone and its inscription that listed his greatest accomplishments; at least in his mind. The gates to the private family cemetery were locked, which meant my photographer held me between the iron bars where I posed near the granite obelisk that marked Jefferson’s grave. Tom had reached out to the Monticello Association weeks before our trip as he sought permission to get into the burial ground; but his request was denied. I chuckled to myself when I heard my photographer tell Bob exactly what he told Jefferson’s heirs when he received the rejection email: “When they denied us access, I wrote back and said, ‘Would you have let me in had my last name been Hemmings?’ And I left it at that!”

I was placed back into the protective camera case for our journey down the path towards the Visitors Center where we would finish our Monticello experience at the museum. Near the entrance to the museum, Tom saw a life-size statue of our third President and he decided that I needed to pose with it. As he carefully removed me from the case, I heard him say: “Oh no, his leg is broken again. How in the heck does that keep happening?” Even though I didn’t feel any pain during our hike from Jefferson’s grave, my photographer was right – the gaping gash in my left ankle had once again exposed my stainless steel “bone” and I knew that surgery was in my future. Once we made our way into the museum, I posed with a small handful of Jefferson’s personal artifacts. Although those items were cool and were all used by our third President, nothing compared to standing alongside his bed inside Monticello.

As we left the mountaintop home of Thomas Jefferson, it was as though we had left an old friend behind. Although the three of us had contracted “Jefferson Fever”, it was an illness that I had hoped would never be cured. Even as Monticello faded from our vehicle’s rearview mirror as we headed southeast, our third President had made the one-hour trek with us – or at least it seemed that way. At roughly 1:00pm, we pulled into the driveway of Tuckahoe Plantation that was located near Manakin, Virginia. The wooden two-story H-shaped house had been built by the Randolph’s around 1733. A month earlier, my photographer had purchased reservations and was granted permission by Lyndee Zeller to take photos inside the house; something that had been prohibited by the owners of the private residence. The annual Mother’s Day Peony Picnic that had been slated to start at noon was cancelled due to the inclement weather that hit the area that morning. By the time we had arrived, the sky was overcast; but the rain had stopped. It seemed as though the uncertain weather kept the number of tourists down as well, which made it easier for my photographer to capture unobstructed images of me inside and outside of the home.

Once Tuckahoe was completed in 1740, William Randolph III and his wife Maria had three children. Maria died in 1744; and just before William’s death a year later, he added an amendment to his will that stated his good friend, Peter Jefferson, and Peter’s wife Jane would become guardians of the orphaned Randolph children. Upon William’s death, Peter and Jane moved from their Shadwell Plantation near Charlottesville to the Tuckahoe Plantation with their three daughters and their two-year-old son Thomas Jefferson. The Jefferson’s lived at Tuckahoe until 1752 when the eldest Randolph child was old enough to care for his siblings. The future President not only lived in that house until he was nine years old, he also received his first formal education in the original one-room schoolhouse that was still located next to the plantation house.

We began our home tour at 1:30pm and luckily for us, there was no one else inside the house – except for our incredible tour guide. We walked from room to room on the first floor and I posed for numerous photos. During our short stay in each room, I had envisioned the young Thomas Jefferson sitting there as he played with a toy or read a book; or perhaps he simply played with one of the Randolph kids. Due to the wet grounds, we were prohibited from walking up the ornate staircase to the bedrooms on the second floor. But because there was no one else in the house, our gracious host bent the rules and led us up the stairway where we saw one of the bedrooms. Although there was no way of knowing for sure, our guide mentioned that it was believed that the bedroom was once used by Jefferson when he lived in the house.

When we were finished inside, our guide led us to a small building that was located several hundred feet from the historic boyhood home. The small, white outbuilding had windows on three sides and a set of wooden steps that led up to the door on the fourth side. Although the building appeared to be a storage shed, the sign on the door gave away its identity as a ‘School House’. But it wasn’t just any schoolhouse; it was the one-room schoolhouse where Thomas Jefferson first learned to read and write. When I was carried into the primitive classroom, I had “Jefferson Fever” so bad that I could barely stand on my base. As my photographer placed me on the original floorboards in the schoolhouse, my resin-filled mind was flooded with emotion. This was the actual place where the future Sage of Monticello learned to read, spell words, and to write. I imagined in some strange way that the phrase he penned in 1776 while in Philadelphia was spawned in that small schoolhouse – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” Standing on that floor, I envisioned a young, gangly red-headed lad who had a thirst for learning and an appetite for creating; and “when in the course of human events” the time continuum engulfed Tuckahoe, true greatness began to flow from his mind; through his pen; and onto his early paperwork. In my own resin-filled mind, this was where the Declaration of Independence was born.

My experience inside that small, unassuming, one-room building was something that I will never forget. One of America’s greatest minds was shaped inside those four walls; and sadly, not many people realize that it even exists. We bid farewell to our tour guide and headed for the front of the Tuckahoe main plantation house where I posed for some photos. As I stood there, it was hard to keep my head still because of my enthusiasm. Thomas Jefferson and his family lived in that house; and as a boy, Jefferson played and worked in that yard. There was no doubt in my mind that Tuckahoe Plantation was one of the most amazing hidden gems that I’ve ever had the pleasure of visiting.

It was roughly 2:30pm when we headed down the dirt, tree root-lined driveway back to our vehicle. We had been fortunate that the rain held off; and we were equally as lucky that the Peony Picnic had been cancelled as well. Even though there were a few other tourists on the property, the three of us virtually had Tuckahoe to ourselves – and that worked well in our favor. We began our day at the college that Jefferson had founded and designed. Then we spent a couple of hours at his beloved Monticello where our third President had lived, died, and was buried. And shortly after noon, we toured Jefferson’s boyhood home and the place where his education took root. As a Thomas Jefferson bobble head, I may be biased, but he was the most amazing President we’ve ever had and he’s my favorite by far. I never lose sight of the fact that Jefferson was a southern plantation owner in the late 1700s and early 1800s and he had some faults; but his contributions to our country; to the world; and to our way of life even today; far outweigh those shortcomings. That’s the wonderful thing about history: if we learn from the past, it’s easier to enrich the future. But if we destroy all evidence of the past; then history may repeat itself – and that’s not always a good thing.