Monticello Blog

Before he was President, before he wrote the Declaration of Independence, before the American Revolution, Thomas Jefferson feared an invisible enemy.

Monticello has lost a magnificent friend, longtime Trustee (1994-2008), Honorary Trustee (2009-2020), and Summit member, Richard Gilder.

Just as the intoxicatingly fragrant hyacinth blossoms begin to fade, another colorful charmer pulls back the curtain and takes the stage: the tulip.

Jefferson’s “Belles of the Day” Begin

Today we at Monticello mourn the loss of one of our own: Joshua Scott, our Vice President for Development.

For many people enslaved in the United States, Christmas was the only holiday they ever knew.

Archaeology is an historical discipline whose goals are to advance our understanding of what happened in the past and why. But unlike the documents on which historians rely -- think Jefferson's letters -- archaeological deposits do not come with dates. In archaeology, we have to do work for the dates that are essential for turning artifacts into history.

On February 5, 1769, Thomas Jefferson replied to his cousin’s request that his son study law under him. Writing from Shadwell, his boyhood home, Jefferson said he must decline: "I do not expect to be here more than two months in the whole between this and November next, at which time I propose to remove to another habitation which I am about to erect."

Thomas Jefferson returns to the mountaintop.

While historians have been quick to highlight the national reasons for Jefferson’s vocal support for the admission of Missouri, the situation at Monticello that shaped his thinking has been largely overlooked. In September 1819, Jefferson had agreed to be guarantor of two $10,000 loans for his friend Wilson Cary Nicholas, who promptly died the following year.