President's Day

Jefferson’s Monticello and James Madison’s Montpelier– CLICK 4 SHOW

James Monroe’s Ash Lawn– CLICK 4 SHOW

Had a great tour of about 200 miles covering three U.S.President's residents in northern Virginia today.

Observations by Bob Engler

Monday finds us shifting gears a bit. This started out as a Civil
war excursion but circumstances have forced onto a different tack.
The storm that many of you may have heard about that swept across the
country in the last few days has finally caught up to us and we
adjusted our planned outdoor excursions with some that were more
indoor. This storm has some rain but the real exciting part of it
has been the cold temperatures (38 - 50) and winds up to 60 MPH. We
did not want to park under any trees, much less walk in the fields and
forest of a battle field. In fact as we traveled today we saw many
trees which were spilt from crown to ground, blown over, or sheared
of major limbs. So we decided to step back in time and explore the
roots of the Civil War by visiting the homes of three founding
fathers all Virginians and all slave owners. As Mike Reed says we
are observing a new President's Day!

We started with a visit to Monticello, the home of our 3rd president,
Thomas Jefferson. What a wonderful house, grounds well planned and
cared for, the house designed by Jefferson himself with many
innovations and inventions that were copied all throughout the new
nation, and of course the knowledge that the great man had actually
gazed upon the same trees that we now saw and looked at the same
vista that we enjoyed. From up on top of Montecello (Little Hill) we
could see at least 30 miles to the east and back to the blue ridge
mountains to the west. The trees still stripped bare from winter are
beginning to leaf out with the dogwoods and eastern red bud trees in
full bloom, shades of yellow, white, and red everywhere to be seen.
In honor of Washington, Jefferson planted cherry trees that were
loaded with blossoms of pink to light red. Throughout the grounds
hundreds of tulips were at the peak of their bloom. Another week we
would have missed it. There was a poplar tree near the house that
was the biggest poplar any of us had ever seen, at least 25 feet in
circumfrance. The house itself was in a state of perfect
preservation such that a couple of our crew was chastized by the tour
guide for first snapping a few photos (Verbotin) and then brushing up
against a wall accidentally! They are very protected of Mr
Jefferson's things.

Jefferson was a complex and brilliant man. Some say he was a
politician not above dirty tricks, a slave owner who opposed slavery
but who fathered at least 2 children with one of his house servants.
Then again, he was an architect, designer, builder, plantation owner,
scientist, botanist, meteorologist, and played the violin. And oh by
the way, President eight years, vice president, ambassador to
France , founder of the democratic party, bought half the present
United states from France and in his spare time wrote the Declaration
of Independent and 19 thousand letters to his friends. No wonder his
face is carved into a mountain in the Dakotas.

Trying to stay in period we then went to eat at an 1784 inn named
Michie Tavern where we dined family style on authentic food from the
Revolutionary War period. Fried chicken, cabbage salad, black eyed
peas, tomatoes bisque mixed with biscuits (surprisingly good) topped
off with a peach cobbler. We need to keep up our strength after
all.....

From there we went to our 5th president,s house, James Monroe. The
difference was remarkable. Jefferson was a wealthy planter. Monroe
was not. The house was 6 rooms, out buildings for the slaves and
other workers but not on the scale with Jefferson. As it turned out
Monroe owned the house for 19 years but only spent a total of 4 years
in it total. Jefferson spent the last 15 years of his life
perfecting Monticello. We know Monroe best for his "Doctrine" which
warned European power to stay out of the western hemisphere, quite a
challenge since it was only three years since the British had last
visited, burned the White House and most of Washington DC down around
it. But he had been involved in the birth of the nation, fighting
alongside Washington in the war. Remember the picture of Washington
Crossing the Deleware. Guess who is the guy standing next to
Washington in the boat. Our man, Monroe.

We Then Drove about 30 miles to our next president, good old number 4
James Madison. He and his wife Dolly lived in a beautiful home on a
large plantation so nice that the DuPont family later bought it for
their horse ranch. Huge grounds with two to three full sized horse
race tracks on it, Steeple chase courses that host the primier
american cross country horse race each year to this day. The house
was redone by the Du Ponts and is now in the process of being
returned to what it looked like in Madison's time. It is a
construction site where we were allowed to tour inside the partially
demolished house seeing how it was built and seeing many of the
features that Madison's friend, Jefferson, built into the design.
You see, Madison, Monroe , and Jefferson were all neighbors and were
friends as well. Literally, when Madison needed some nails for his
house, Jefferson sent over a few boxes! The same worker hung the
windows in both houses. It was easy to imagine them talking about
how the construction was going on afternoon get-togethers.

The Sad thing about all this presidents is that they all had slaves
and the all knew that the institution of slavery was wrong on many
levels. They all looked for an answer to their problem but none of
them could come up with a solution. It was Jefferson who predicted
in 1820 that the country would not be able to survive unless a
solution was found and 'that thing' would come to a head in the next
generation. He was right.

Back to the Civil war tomorrow


Author and retired Redondo Beach Fire Chief, Bob Engler -Observing from the ground.