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GIVE NOWThomas Jefferson returns to the mountaintop.
Last week archaeologists began test excavations at an early-19th-century stone house at Tufton, one of the four quarter farms that comprised Monticello Plantation.
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.
The Restoration Department recently brought in conservator Andy Compton to restore the composition ornament on the Hall fireplace mantel frieze. Composition ornament (or “compo”) is a putty-like material made from chalk, linseed oil, hide glue and pine rosin. When warm, it can be pressed into molds to produce elaborate decorative elements.
Our staff installed a CoolBot walk-in refrigerator at the Thomas Jefferson Center for Historic Plants (CHP), which affords us more space for seed storage and allows for better seed control under a constant temperature and humidity threshold (cold and dry conditions are preferred for most of the CHP and Monticello seed lines).
In recognition of Presidents' Day and Black History Month, CBS This Morning aired a story about the connection between Thomas Jefferson's descendants through his wife, Martha, and his descendants through Sally Hemings.
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931 Thomas Jefferson Parkway
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