Snowpocalypse 1772!

We are having some calamitous (for Virginia) weather lately – an astonishingly brutal winter altogether so far, in fact.  I’m told the kids are calling it “Snowpocalypse,” or “Snowtorious B.I.G.”   So I thought it would be nice to shamelessly mooch off some splendid research done by one of my colleagues and bring you a snow-themed post in honor of this snowy weekend; something to do for about 3 minutes while you’re snowed in, or, if you are not snowed in, something to feel real good about.

Some days ago, the local paper discussed our completely-uncalled-for recent snowfalls in the context of a historic snowfall, supposedly of 36″, mentioned by Our Man Jefferson.  Someone we know (rightly) became curious about this reference, and asked me about it.  I blithely passed it on to a colleague because, if there’s anything said colleague loves more than a reference question, it’s a reference question about weather.  Here’s the scoop*:

Unfortunately, TJ didn’t start keeping formal weather records with daily temperature records and observations until 1776.  However, he did note it in his Garden Book: “Jan. 26.  the deepest snow we have ever seen. in Albemarle it was about 3. f. deep.” In his endnote connected to that entry in his Garden Book, Edwin Morris Betts notes that “[t]his snow . . . was often referred to by Jefferson” (p. 36).

This is the same snow storm that Thomas and Martha slogged through to get to Monticello on their return after getting married on New Year’s Day (as daughter Martha reported).

…George Washington recorded the daily development of a storm that dumped three feet at Mount Vernon from January 26-27-28.  He describes the snow as starting the night of the 26th-27th and already accumulating six inches by the morning of the 27th, with more snow on the 28th totaling three feet (after a gap, more snow would fly the night of the 29th).  A diary entry from Sally Cary Fairfax…also records the snow as falling on the 27th (“On Monday, the 27th of Jan. there fell an amazing snow, two feet & a half deep”).  So…my guess is that it started on the 26th at Monticello but ended a day or two later.

Gadzooks, this is giving me bad flashbacks to, like, yesterday!

Well.  At least those olden people didn’t have to worry about the power going out.

*Pun.

Top 10: Misconceptions about Jefferson

Everybody loves countdowns, right?  Right.  So, I’ve come up with my own list of things people get wrong about Jefferson, based on my extensive observation of the stuff people put on the Internet or ask us about.  Here goes:

1. Thomas Jefferson wrote the Constitution. That would be the Declaration of Independence.  For Pete’s sake, they don’t even rhyme or anything, people!
2. Thomas Jefferson invented coathangers/triple-sashed windows/skylights/polygraphs/dirt. Well, this is somewhat debatable, depending on what your definition of an “invention” is, but the party line now is that Jefferson invented only the moldboard plow and not any of those other things.
3. Thomas Jefferson said [x]. TJ said lots of things, but strangely enough, not most of the things people think he said.
   
4. Thomas Jefferson was a Democrat/Republican/liberal/conservative. Yeah, you wish, Democrats/Republicans/liberals/conservatives!  For one thing, the names of the parties have changed (that one really gets the ignoramuses out there).  For another, it’s practically impossible to put a modern political label on TJ, because, well, he’s not a modern politician.
5. Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana. He did grow hemp, but as I understand it, the type of industrial hemp grown to make rope and cloth and so forth contains only minimal amounts of the compound that makes so many people so happy.  Nice try, potheads!
6. Thomas Jefferson was an atheist/Deist/not a Christian. Some say that TJ cannot be called a Christian because he did not believe in the divinity of Jesus.  On the other hand, TJ called himself a Christian, so I’m just going to take him at his word.
7. Thomas Jefferson was my ancestor/relative. Well, that could be, actually.  Statistically speaking, however, most people would be wrong about this.
8. Jefferson was the first to bring vanilla/macaroni & cheese/ice cream to the United States. Jefferson was most likely not the first person to bring any of these foods to America, although his name probably has become attached to them because these were foods he served at dinners during his Presidency, which tended to be highly remarked-upon. So perhaps one could say that although he didn’t introduce them, he may have played a large part in popularizing them.
   
9. Jefferson was a Freemason. Negatory.
   
10. Thomas Jefferson bought a Qur’an so he could study his enemies and fight the Muslims. Some people clearly wish this was true, but sadly: no.

So there you go.  I apologize if your favorite Jefferson misconception didn’t make it onto the list, but you can always post it in the comments.  I love misconceptions, as long as they’re not mine!

Romanticizing romanticism in the Old South

I received a little book in the mail just a bit ago, and I think it deserves to be read in front of a fire with a cup of tea.  It is called Romanticism and Nationalism in the Old South, by Rollin Osterweis (Louisiana State University Press, 1971) and is full of paragraphs like this:

The Virginia and Carolinian especially were of direct descent from the “rufflers” of Hastings, and Templestowe, of Agincourt, and Rochelle.  They were kindred too in more than pride and sentiment for the same English strain flowed in the veins of both, separating them from the Puritan English of the North, and warmed with the Huguenot flush and the dash of the Hibernian.

Isn’t that delightful?  I mean, it’s complete twaddle, but it’s deliciously twaddlesome.  And Osterweis does in fact seem to rely on primary sources and has respectable footnotes, so I suspect that despite the occasional twaddly passage, the overall quality of the book is alright.

I ordered this book for a certain reason, though, and it wasn’t for the trippy prose.  No, it was because of this passage:

Many officers and soldiers were in Charlottesville in the fall of 1863 recovering from their wounds and their presence in all the stages of convalescence infused a spirit of gaiety to the little town.  Picnics were organized in the bright autumn days to historic Monticello…One day we had a Tournament in the grounds at Monticello.  Some of the Knights, with only one arm to use – holding the reins in their teeth and dashing valiantly at the rings with wooden sticks improvised as spears for the occasion.   – quote from Mrs. D. Giraud Wright, A Southern Girl in ‘61

So, romanticism > chivalry > jousting on the lawn at Monticello.  See?  We really can connect pretty much everything to Jefferson.

A Very Respectable Bird

With the coming of Thanksgiving comes also a burble of chatty news stories about the origins thereof, and usually something about turkeys.  Not far behind comes some sort of mention of the Founding Fathers, and how they all felt about turkeys.  I’ve seen several of these articles in the last few days and I don’t know what else to think but that somebody out there has been working overtime, making up stories about Founding Fathers and turkeys.

The primary misconception that I’m seeing on the Internet-waves seems to be the perceived opposition between Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin during the designing process of the Seal of the United States, and their relative preference for turkeys or eagles.  Apparently TJ wanted an eagle on the seal, and Franklin wanted a turkey – TJ obviously having prevailed.  And some articles have added the intriguing tidbit that Franklin, in a fit of pique after his beloved turkey was not chosen for the seal, began calling turkeys “Tom.”

Where do people come up with this stuff?  That doesn’t even make sense – if Franklin thought so highly of the turkey, it wouldn’t be an insult to name it after somebody he was supposedly mad at. Anyway, in case the precarious logic of this story didn’t tip you off as to its unreliability, I can also confidently tell you that it bears no relationship to anything that one might call “facts.”  Consider the following:

1. The appellation “Tom” for various male animals, chiefly poultry and cats, was around long before Jefferson and Franklin didn’t have a disagreement about birds for the Great Seal.  According to the Oxford English Dictionary: “In 1760 was published an anonymous work ‘The Life and Adventures of a Cat’, which became very popular. The hero, a male or ‘ram’ cat, bore the name of Tom, and is commonly mentioned as ‘Tom the Cat’, as ‘Tybert the Catte’ is in Caxton’s Reynard the Fox. Thus Tom became a favourite allusive name for a male cat.”  (Ditto turkeys.)
2. Jefferson had nothing to do with the selection of the eagle for the seal (see link to article on Seal above).  There was no eagle in any of the proposals submitted by Jefferson and his fellow committee members in 1776, and after that Jefferson was no longer involved in seal-designing for the new nation.  (Know what Jefferson did want on the seal?  Hengist and Horsa, his favorite Anglo-Saxon heroes.  What a dork.)
3. Franklin did not propose (formally) that there be a turkey on the seal.
4. Therefore, Jefferson and Franklin didn’t have a disagreement about whether there should be a turkey or an eagle on the Great Seal.
5. After the seal’s design was finalized in the early 1780s (by a completely different committee), Franklin did grump a bit at the choice of the eagle over, say, the turkey:

Others object to the Bald Eagle, as looking too much like a Dindon, or Turkey. For my own part I wish the Bald Eagle had not been chosen as the Representative of our Country. He is a Bird of bad moral Character. He does not get his Living honestly. You may have seen him perch’d on some dead Tree near the River, where, too lazy to fish for himself, he watches the Labour of the Fishing Hawk; and when that diligent Bird has at length taken a Fish, and is bearing it to his Nest for the Support of his Mate and young Ones, the Bald Eagle pursues him and takes it from him. With all this Injustice, he is never in good Case but like those among Men who live by Sharping and Robbing he is generally poor and often very lousy. Besides he is a rank Coward: The little King Bird not bigger than a Sparrow attacks him boldly and drives him out of the District. He is therefore by no means a proper Emblem for the brave and honest Cincinnati of America who have driven all the King birds from our Country, tho’ exactly fit for that Order of Knights which the French call Chevaliers d’Industrie. I am on this account not displeas’d that the Figure is not known as a Bald Eagle, but looks more like a Turkey. For in Truth the Turkey is in Comparison a much more respectable Bird, and withal a true original Native of America. Eagles have been found in all Countries, but the Turkey was peculiar to ours, the first of the Species seen in Europe being brought to France by the Jesuits from Canada, and serv’d up at the Wedding Table of Charles the ninth. He is besides, tho’ a little vain and silly, a Bird of Courage, and would not hesitate to attack a Grenadier of the British Guards who should presume to invade his Farm Yard with a red Coat on.  (BF to Sarah Bache, January 26, 1784)

And besides all that, turkeys probably taste way better than bald eagles.  So, off you all go then, and and enjoy chowing down on a Very Respectable Bird this Thanksgiving.

Jefferson and the Itty-Bitty Potentate

This blog entry came up in my Google Alert a few days ago – its main focus is actually a cathedral in Saigon, but it incidentally mentions a fascinating little episode in Jefferson’s life of which I was heretofore unaware.

As you may know, TJ was forever in pursuit of superior rice varieties to import to the U.S., and famously smuggled rice grains out of Italy in defiance of Italy’s harsh non-exportation laws.  While in France, a little birdie told TJ that Vietnam had some fabulous rice.  And it just so happened that a representative of Vietnam was then living in exile at the French court – 7-year-old Prince Canh.  Here’s a portrait of Canh on Wikipedia – he is very adorable, non? Apparently he was wildly popular with the ladies at the French court and predictably inspired them to do new and even stranger things to their coiffures.  Jefferson wasted no time in arranging for an audience with the pint-sized foreign dignitary.  Let’s pause a minute to savor the image of overly-dignified Minister Plenipotentiary Jefferson having a diplomatic tête-à-tête with a 7-year-old boy.

Cinder Stanton discusses this incident in fairly fine detail in a 1983 report she did on TJ’s pursuit of rice.  It seems that unfortunately Jefferson never obtained his Vietnamese rice, but the blog post I mentioned above mentions another aspect to this meeting that perhaps bears thinking about: this could well have been the first contact between the U.S. and Vietnam.  Now, I think it depends on how you qualify that – I have a hard time believing that no Americans had ever set foot in Vietnam before, or Vietnamese folks hadn’t at ever stopped off at U.S. ports.  Maybe it was the first diplomatic contact.  My slapdash googling did not turn up any information to the contrary, so I’ll let that one stand unless somebody cares to contradict me.

So, there you go – yet another first on Jefferson’s resume.

I think we’re winning

If you’ve been following this blog, or even talking to me on a regular basis, you know that we went through an extraordinarily obnoxious patch a year or so ago in which we were getting fake Jefferson quotation questions about every 4 minutes or so.  This seemed to be largely due to some sort of chain-email thing that was making the rounds, although we’ve always done quite a brisk business in quotation debunking.  Some day I will compile some actual statistics on this, but off the top of my head I would venture to say that at least half of the questions we answer are to do with quotations.  Until recently, that is.

Since we started the wiki (our pet name for the TJ Encyclopedia), I’ve put up articles on any spurious quote that comes to our attention.  We now have quite the collection – there’s currently 31 infamous non-Jefferson sayings, and I have a list of at least half a dozen that need to be put up.  And I was just reflecting recently that I haven’t had a spurious quotation question in quite some time.   I’m sure that part of the reason for this is that that acursed chain email finally just sort of petered out.  But I like to think that the TJ Encyclopedia also has something to do with it.

Just this morning I received yet another inquiry about whether TJ shot somebody on the White House lawn.  We dealt with this long ago in a wiki article, but like many quotation questions, every time it comes up I like to give it a little Google just to see if any new information turns up.  In times past I’ve even had trouble getting the wiki article to come up, but this morning when I googled “white house” lawn execution “thomas jefferson”, eight of the first 10 results either were our encyclopedia article or quoted from it directly.  In other words, if you heard this story and googled it maybe a year ago, you’d get all sorts of random websites with people asking about it or just repeating the story.  Now, if you google it, it’s likely that you will get the correct answer because our information has crowded out the bad information at the top of Google’s PageRank system.

TJ Encyclopedia: 1

Random crank websites: 0

Really mortified

In case you didn’t know, it was Banned Books Week last week – the American Library Association decreed it.  And if you’re following the Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello Facebook page, you will already have caught a glimpse of what I’m going to be talking about here.  (I should have suspected those guys would scoop me when I told them about this little episode a few weeks ago!  They looked way too interested…)

Anyway, I did some research on this letter exchange for a talk I gave at the Covenant School here in town last week, so I might as well get some more mileage out of it.  The story goes like this:

On November 25, 1812, a man named Regnault de Bécourt wrote to Thomas Jefferson, offering him a copy of his book, La Création du Monde… (Philadelphia, 1813).  Jefferson agreed to buy a copy and asked Bécourt to see Jefferson’s Philadelphia book dealer, Nicolas Dufief, and have Dufief put the cost of the book ($2) on Jefferson’s account there.

All seemed well.  Then, 5 months later, Jefferson received a distraught letter from Dufief.   It’s in French, but you might actually find it even more amusing if you don’t know French, because to us ignoramuses it looks like: “blah blah blah blah le blah two dollars blah blah blah.”  Anyway, the gist is that Dufief has found himself in something of a legal pickle, having been accused of selling a copy of the aforementioned M. de Bécourt’s book to Jefferson, and Dufief asks for Jefferson’s help in exonerating him.   The wily M. de Bécourt neglected to mention that the book contained some inflammatory statements vis-a-vis religion, and now it seems the legal authorities are coming down on Dufief for purveying Bécourt’s blasphemous scribblings.

Anyway, if you know anything about Jefferson you will know that nothing is more guaranteed to elicit a long impassioned screed than an infringement on intellectual freedom.   Stand back!  Jefferson sends back a two-page letter, in which he lays out -  in grand, eloquent Jeffersonian fashion – all of the most basic arguments against banning books.   Here’s the whole thing for your consumption:

Dear Sir

Your favor of the 6th inst. is just recieved, and I shall with equal willingness and truth state the degree of agency you had respecting the copy of M. de Becourt’s book which came to my hands. that gentleman informed me by letter that he was about to publish a volume in French ‘sur la Creation du monde, ou Systeme d’organisation primitive,’ which, it’s title promised to be either a geological, or astronomical work. I subscribed; and, when published, he sent me a copy; and as you were my correspondent in the book-line in Philadelphia, I took the liberty of desiring him to call on you for the price, which he afterwards informed me you were so kind as to pay him for me, being, I believe, 2. Dollars. but the sole copy which came to me was from himself directly, and, as far as I know, was never seen by you.

I am really mortified to be told that, in the United States of America, a fact like this can become a subject of enquiry, and of criminal enquiry too, as an offence against religion: that a question about the sale of a book can be carried before the civil magistrate. is this then our freedom of religion? and are we to have a Censor whose imprimatur shall say what books may be sold, and what we may buy? and who is thus to dogmatise religious opinions for our citizens? whose foot is to be the measure to which ours are all to be cut or stretched? is a Priest to be our Inquisitor, or shall a layman, simple as ourselves, set up his reason as the rule for what we are to read, & what we must believe? it is an insult to our citizens to question whether they are rational beings or not; and blasphemy against religion to suppose it cannot stand the test of truth and reason. if M. de Becourt’s book be false in it’s facts, disprove them; if false in it’s reasoning, refute it. but, for god’s sake, let us freely hear both sides, if we chuse. I know little of it’s contents, having barely glanced over here and there a passage, and over the table of contents. from this the Newtonian philosophy seemed the chief object of attack, the issue of which might be trusted to the strength of the two combatants; Newton certainly not needing the auxiliary arm of the government, and still less the holy author of our religion as to what in it concerns him. I thought the work would be very innocent, and one which might be confided to the reason of any man; not likely to be much read, if let alone, but if persecuted, it will be generally read. every man in the US. will think it a duty to buy a copy, in vindication of his right to buy, and to read what he pleases.        I have been just reading the new constitution of Spain. one of it’s fundamental bases is expressed in these words. ‘the Roman Catholic religion, the only true one, is, & always shall be that of the Spanish nation. the government protects it by wise & just laws, and prohibits the exercise of any other whatever.’ now I wish this presented to those who question what you may sell, or we may buy, with a request to strike out the words ‘Roman catholic’ and to insert the denomination of their own religion. this would ascertain the code of dogmas which each wishes should domineer over the opinions of all others, & be taken like the Spanish religion, under the ‘protection of wise and just laws.’ it would shew to what they wish to reduce the liberty for which one generation has sacrificed life and happiness. it would present our boasted freedom of religion as a thing of theory only, & not of practice, as what would be a poor exchange for the theoretic thraldom, but practical freedom of Europe. but it is impossible that the laws of Pensylvania, which set us the first example of the wholsome & happy effects of religious freedom, can permit these inquisitorial functions to be proposed to their courts. under them you are surely safe.

At the date of yours of the 6th you had not recieved mine of the 3d inst. asking a copy of an edition of Newton’s principia which I had seen advertised. when the cost of that shall be known, it shall be added to the balance of 4. D 93 c and incorporated with a larger remittance I have to make to Philadelphia. Accept the assurance of my great esteem & respect
Th: Jefferson

TJ’s really at his best when he’s roused to write in defense of freedom, isn’t he?  One couldn’t ask for a more eloquent spokesman for Not Banning Books.  Which is great for our theme this week, but not so great for Dufief.  The beleaguered bookseller received Jefferson’s diatribe and probably concluded that his heated words would only cause more trouble; Dufief wrote back, pleading for just a simple straightforward letter stating that Dufief did not sell Jefferson That Book.   TJ never complied, apparently.

I assume that Dufief was able to wriggle out of the legal charges.  At least, there are no later letters from Dufief postmarked from the slammer, asking TJ to send muffins and pickaxes.  One presumes that Dufief was forced to use the letter above as an affidavit that he did not sell the naughty book in question.  Although it is clearly not the nice straightforward statement that Dufief would have preferred, one has to think: what would the Philadelphia court authorities’ reaction have been when presented with an irate letter from the former President of the United States, arguing circles around them and chastizing them sharply for even contemplating prosecuting such a thing?  One is reminded in this instance that, on top of all the other things that Jefferson had been and done in his long life, he was also a lawyer.  No wonder the whole thing apparently fizzled.

I call it “The Gilded Pig”

That would be a great name for a band, wouldn’t it?  Or a car.  Alas, no, it’s my latest book acquisition, and although I do poke gentle fun at my Gilded Pig, it really is a great little find.  I’ve been scouring the Internets for undiscovered works of genius by Marie Kimball, and came across a book she wrote – more of a pamphlet, really – called Treasured Recipes of the Old South (1941).  There were plenty of copies to be had on used booksellers’ websites, but I wasn’t content with just any old copy.  No!  I bought a specially-bound presentation copy, produced for the author herself!  And inside all the fancy leather cover with its gold-leaf trim and marbled endpapers is a 20-page recipe booklet, published by the Morrill Ham Company, with wall-to-wall Morrill Ham recipes.  Ham cornucopias, anyone?

This little book is certainly a study in contrasts.  On the one hand, we have nightmare-inducing color pictures of food, which look like they’re straight out of the Gallery of Regrettable Food; on the other we have marbled endpapers, gilding, and a personal letter from the president of the Morrill Ham Company to Marie Kimball in the front of the book, declaiming that he was “sure that ‘Treasured Recipes of the Old South’ will continue for many years to shine as one of the brightest stars in the firmament of gastronomy!”

It would be a mean person indeed who would mock such earnestness.  Plus, it’s not just any old corporate-sponsored recipe booklet with scary pictures; it’s a corporate-sponsored recipe booklet with scary pictures, by Marie Kimball! And so we will treasure our new Gilded Pig, in all its amusing contrasts.

Photogallery of Treasured Recipes of the Old South, A.K.A. “The Gilded Pig”

Wishing on a lucky Jefferson

Several years ago, a visitor to Monticello emailed me and asked about something they’d seen in the Jefferson family graveyard, just a short walk down from Mulberry Row: Thomas Jefferson’s gravestone seemed to be covered with coins.  What’s that about? (one might well ask).  Colleagues here quickly informed me that visitors routinely throw them onto Jefferson’s gravestone.  Nobody knows why – they just do.  I created a mini-article on it in our Encyclopedia, in case anybody asked about it again, and then forgot about it.

Well, as it happens, yesterday I looked through every single Monticello Association Annual Report between 1969 and 2006 (don’t ask) – specifically at the graveyard custodian’s reports contained therein – and found something interesting.  In 1978, the custodian first reported an odd phenomenon: visitors seemed to be throwing coins onto Jefferson’s gravestone (accidentally landing on some other lucky dead people as well).  The custodian was puzzled by this, but in the end simply took a philosophical stance and collected the small amount of money “donated” and added it to the fund to help maintain the graveyard.  The following year, the custodian reported the same thing, only more, necessitating frequent bouts of combing through the grass on her hands and knees, while the tourists looked on in puzzlement.  No further mentions of this are made until 1984, when the custodian remarked that “Mr. Jefferson’s grave is used as a wishing well.”  Apparently at this point this activity was feeding on its own momentum; the custodian mentioned that “donations” seemed to increase around Jefferson’s birthday, when the graveyard was decorated conspicuously with wreaths.  And it wasn’t just nickels, which seem most appropriate; all kinds of coins were recovered from the graveyard.  The volume got to be such that the custodian had to get herself an electric coin-sorting and -rolling machine.  Some visitors got creative with their donations; the custodian reported finding “a dead watch battery, a Canadian quarter, a small polished stone, a stamped copper oval and one orange M&M candy” in 1998.

The odd but sweet donations continue; what began with just a few dollars a year in 1978 has steadily grown over the years.  Why do people do this?  The graveyard custodian’s comment about a “wishing well” is interesting – is this some kind of weird cultural vestige, the modern-day equivalent to pleading your case with the gods by throwing something shiny into the water?  Maybe or maybe not, but I happen to have empirical evidence that it’s also self-perpetuating.  I was up at the graveyard not too long ago, and as I stood outside the fence near Jefferson’s gravestone, I heard a young boy ask his mother, “Mommy, why are there coins on his grave?”  And without waiting for her answer, he asked, “Can I have a coin to throw?”

I’m sure there’s an awesome dissertation in there somewhere.

Life Masks and Hearths

Two articles with TJ/Monticello content in the latest issue of Early American Life:

• “The Faces of a Generation,” by Audrey J. Wolfe, about sculptor John Browere (who did a near-deadly life mask of Jefferson – there’s a rather horrifying description of the proceedings by granddaughter Virginia here)
• “Early Cooking Hearths,” by Gregory LeFever, which contains glamor shots of our newly-restored kitchen at Monticello