Roundabout Road System
A look at the various paths and roadways that connected the various parts of the Monticello plantation to each other and to the larger world.
Traces remain of many of Jefferson's original roads, including a series of four "roundabouts" that completely encircled the mountain at different elevations. The first, or uppermost, roundabout, which includes Mulberry Row, has been restored, while others of only been partially restored.
Diagonal roads connected the roundabouts, some of which Jefferson identified as the "1 in 10" or "1 in 20" – a reference to the steepness of the road’s grade.
Jefferson laid out the upper two roundabouts in 1771, while enslaved workers created the lower roundabouts in the 1790s. In August of 1809, a visitor named Margaret Bayard Smith recounted her experience of the roundabouts, writing “The first circuit, the road was good, & I enjoyed the views it afforded & the familiar & easy conversation, which our sociable gave rise to; but when we descended to the second & third circuit, fear took from me the power of listening to him [Jefferson], or observing the scene; nor could I forbear expressing my alarm, as we went along a rough road which had only been laid out, & on driving over fallen trees & great rocks, which threaten’d an over set to our sociable & a roll down the mountain to us—"