We were able to visit Thomas Jefferson's home - Monticello - today. Wow!! We weren't able to take pictures inside the house, but the entire basement area was open, showing the storage area and the kitchen where the slaves prepared food, etc.
I didn't know that Jefferson was an inventor. He invented his own version of the odometer. And yes, I stood there and spun the wheel until I rang the bell! (see the picture below this one.)
I'm not going to show you ALL of the things that were under the house - too much. But, here are few more:
I didn't know that Jefferson was an inventor. He invented his own version of the odometer. And yes, I stood there and spun the wheel until I rang the bell! (see the picture below this one.)
This is the ice house - yes it was snowing.
He also designed his own carriages:
I'm not going to show you ALL of the things that were under the house - too much. But, here are few more:
This was a dumb waiter for delivering wine up to the dining room. There were four of them in the house:
Kitchen:
Decorative beads and hooks for the enslaved women's "allotted" clothing. See the explanation below the display.
Keys to wind watches:
Here are two of the outside of the house:
On the tour of the house, the guide asked, "What 3 things did Jefferson want to be remembered for?" Everyone got "writing the Declaration of Independence" and founding the University of Virginia" but the third was harder. The guide said he'd give a gold star to the person who could come up with the third.
Guess who got the gold star?:
Oh, what's number 3? He wrote the "Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom".
This is Mulberry Row, where the slave quarters were:
This is part of the garden where they would have worked:
The posts you can see sticking out are the legs of the ladder used to climb up into this small sleeping space:
This is the one-room living quarters:
The boards in front of the fireplace are covering a hole where excavators discovered small sea shells only found in the Caribbean - memories of home. They also found small slates and chalk [so the parents could help their children learn to read and write]. The slaves would hide these precious items there for safe-keeping. Quite a difference between this house and Jefferson's! There was so much that we learned about the life of the slaves and their horrible treatment. Just too much to tell here - and too emotional as well!
Where Jefferson was buried:
Our last stop of the day was Appomattox. They gave us a map of what the village would have looked like in April of 1865, but only a very few buildings are still standing. The most important of those, of course, is the McLean house where Lee officially surrendered to Grant.
This is the room where the signing took place:
This is Lee and Grant taking a selfie after
the signing! [Grant is the smiling one.]
This is the courthouse:
This was our last stop because we still had 217 miles to drive to our lodgings in Charlotte, NC.
