Monticello Blog

It is claimed, by websites and other sources various and sundry, that Thomas Jefferson, upon hearing of a meteorite crash in Connecticut in 1807 and its subsequent reportage by two professors at Yale, scoffed that it "was easier to believe that two Yankee professors could lie than to admit that stones could fall from heaven."

One of our informants encountered a story, related by one Thomas Bloomer Balch, a Presbyterian minister recalling that in his childhood in the D.C. area during Mr. Jefferson's presidency, a little boy wandered onto the grounds of the President's House and was killed by TJ's "ill-tempered goat."

Jefferson was an accomplished amateur violinist and an avid concertgoer who once declared music is "the passion of my soul." This time we present a selection of music related to Jefferson and Monticello, ranging from popular tunes to classical pieces.