A Difficult Visit: Anna Maria Thornton

 

 

Introduction

Danna Kelley: Isn't she, a prickly thing? She would have been fun to know. . . .

 

Melanie Bowyer: I’m Melanie Bowyer.

 

Justin Bates: And I’m Justin Bates.

 

Melanie Bowyer: And welcome to another edition of "In the Course of Human Events," a Monticello podcast.

 

Danna Kelley: I'm Danna Kelley. And I'd like to tell you a story about a week in September 1802, when a woman named Anna Maria Brodeau Thornton visited Monticello.

 

Justin Bates: I'm looking forward, Melanie, to talking with you about one of the most detailed visitor descriptions we have about Monticello.

 

Melanie Bowyer: Get on up in that mic, Justin.

 

Justin Bates: [Laughing] I'm literally right over it. Like, I can't get any closer.

 

Early Washington Society

 

Danna Kelley: Okay, some context: who was an Anna Thornton? A well-read, 27-year-old woman, accomplished musician. At the young age of 15, she had married 31-year-old William Thornton.

 

Justin Bates: Okay. So just to give a little bit of context, in terms of the age. Both of Jefferson’s daughters were married fairly young, as well. His oldest daughter married at the age of 18 and his other daughter was married at the age of 21.

 

Melanie Bowyer: It was frequent that a woman would go straight from the home of her father to the home of her husband.

 

Danna Kelley: The Thornton's lived in a townhouse on F street in Washington, right next door to their good friends, James and Dolly Madison. James Madison was Secretary of State in the Jefferson administration and William Thornton was the Superintendent of the newly created Patent Office.

 

He was a medical doctor, but he didn't really practice medicine. He was also a painter, an inventor, an architect, a farmer, he bred race horses. Apparently, he was this really interesting guy that people like to get to know. They said his company was the “complete antidote to dullness.”

 

Anna Thornton's friends included people like Martha Washington and even Abigail Adams. And these women, who were married to the city's powerful men, they helped to set the tone and define the style of governmental rituals and ceremonies, and even the social norms in private life. They were the arbiters of taste and style in this brave new world, where leaders were elected by the people and we're not paying homage to a monarch. So, the rituals and ceremonies were going to be different than in a monarchy.

 

Justin Bates: Jefferson believed that dining was a way to break an aristocratic tradition. And, so, he was famous in Washington for hosting these elaborate dinners. And Jefferson believed that it was over a good food, good wine, and casual conversation that political compromise could be made.

 

Melanie Bowyer: It was more like a buffet-style at meals, instead of having each of the meals plated up. The use of dumbwaiters, as well, so that people could clear their own plates. So, the buffet style was more kind of a democratic way to eat, not as stuffy.

 

Justin Bates: Yes, it very casual. And Jefferson believed that having women at the table would set people at ease and that conversation would be able to flow more freely. So, he sees women as fulfilling a role, it's a limited political role, but one that still is bringing about that political compromise. (03:40)

 

Anna Thornton’s Diary

 

Danna Kelley: I think the most fabulous thing about Anna Maria Thornton is that she kept a diary for nearly 70 years, from 1793 to 1861. And when you think about it, that spans the formation of the young nation all the way up to the start of the Civil War. So those diaries are precious and they are housed at the Library of Congress. They are so much fun to read. This Anna Thornton is so honest and opinionated.

 

And she could be kind of prickly and irritated with these constant social obligations. They included the hosting of teas for ladies, attending teas and hosting teas. And, one day, she hosted a tea at her house, even though she had a splitting headache. And, as I mentioned, she was a musician, so she even played the piano for a while to entertain the other women. And in her diary that night, she simply wrote this one line, quote, "Tea drinking is very stupid."

 

Melanie Bowyer: [Laughing] I do have to comment on the "tea drinking is very stupid." I mean, I feel this woman. So, she's having to perform these duties, you know, she probably didn't want to do it at all. I would have said it a lot worse, probably, in my diary. So, I feel this lady.

 

Justin Bates: Yeah. She knows how to throw shade.

 

Melanie Bowyer: She was done. At the end of that tea, she was done. [Laughing]

 

Travel to Monticello

Danna Kelley: So back to September 1802, our main story. It's the second year of Thomas Jefferson's first term as president, but he's at home at Monticello because August and September were the sickly months in Washington City back then. The city was a mosquito-infested, fever-stricken marsh. So, government officials simply retreated to their homes out of town for a couple of months. And President Jefferson was working from home, as we all can relate to in our current sickly season. And the Madisons were at their home Montpelier, which is near Orange, Virginia. And Dr. and Mrs. Thornton had been the Madison’s guests. And the whole group was invited to visit Monticello.

 

It was a hot, sticky, rainy Saturday and the entire party embarked in two horse-drawn carriages. It's a 28-mile journey from Montpelier to Monticello. So, the travelers left Montpelier at half past 10 that morning. But the summer rains had left the roads worse than usual. And it was getting dark by the time the travelers reached the bottom of Monticello mountain, an 867-foot mountain that one visitor called a "steep and savage hill." By then, thunder was rumbling in the distance and lightning streaks flashed across the sky. It was a dark and stormy night . . . I just had to say that.

 

The horses were struggling. They were slipping. They were having a lot of trouble pulling the carriages up the muddy rutted road. And they got out of the carriages and began the walk, nearly a mile, uphill through the dark woods toward the house. And Mrs. Thornton wrote, this rather convoluted sentence, quote, "Had it not been for the lightning was played almost incessantly, we should not have been able to have seen the road at all." Fortunately, they arrived at Jefferson's house just before the skies opened up and it poured.

 

Melanie Bowyer: As she's describing this day and they're going up the "steep and savage" hill and the lightning, it's like a horror movie. I mean, I'm thinking, like, “Haunting of Hill House,” or something, here. It just seems so dramatic. I might have turned around.

 

Justin Bates: And then like you imagine they have enslaved people with them, who are going to be responsible for hauling the luggage that they left behind and the carriage up the mountain.

 

Melanie Bowyer: Absolutely. That's a good point.

 

Justin Bates: They may be able to continue on foot, but the other people in charge of the horses and all the other stuff, they're having to go up the same road. They just have a heavier load.

 

Melanie Bowyer: That's a really good point. Something we may not think about.

 

Too late for Dinner

 

Danna Kelley: If Anna Thornton was expecting to arrive at a house of luxury and comfort, she was sorely disappointed. Monticello was in the midst of a decades-long remodeling project. And frankly, it was a mess. The entrance hall where visitors still arrive today -- today it's a lovely finished room -- but back then it was an empty, cavernous, dark room, un-plastered brick walls, exposed beams in the very high ceilings, boarded up windows, and no floor. There were just loose boards thrown over the floor joists.

 

Melanie Bowyer: It's so incongruous to what you think of when you think of Monticello, you know? I know it looks much different nowadays than it did then, but I think it must've just looked even worse than we imagine.

 

Justin Bates: Columns on the West Portico were tree trunks up until a few years before Jefferson died. And the loose boards thrown over the floor joists -- there actually is a story about Jefferson's daughter, Maria falling through the floor while this house was being built.

 

Danna Kelley: The visitors were too late for dinner because typically dinner at Monticello started at half past three. But they were greeted at the entrance hall, no doubt by one of the enslaved servants and shown to the unfinished dining room and tea room. In her diary, Mrs. Thornton said the appearance was "irregular and unpleasant."

They found President Thomas Jefferson having tea with about 15 people, family members and guests. And from what I've read, that that was typical of life at Monticello when Jefferson was in residence. There was just a constant stream of company.

Justin Bates: I'm also just thinking like, as someone that's more of an introvert, walking into a room with 15 strangers after I've been traveling all day. That's the last thing I want to do is make small talk with people.

Melanie Bowyer: In my wet and dirty dress. No. [Laughs] 

Justin Bates: And you're too late for dinner.

Melanie Bowyer: They didn't stop for fast food along the way.

Justin Bates: It's almost like jet lag, you know? You've been up for hours and you're hungry and you're tired, coming into a house now that's unfinished

Melanie Bowyer: With tree trunks, holding it up.

Justin Bates: With tree trunks holding it up. [Laughs]

Danna Kelley: Finally, upon being shown to her room, she must've been shocked at climbing what she called “a little ladder of a staircase.” And she found her bed was in a recess in the wall. She concluded, quote, "Everything has a whimsical and droll appearance."

Melanie Bowyer: The alcove beds. That was something that, that Jefferson saw while he was in France. So you would have been surrounded on three sides by the wall, and was she's traveling in summer, right? It's hot.

Justin Bates: And then I imagine too the room they probably stayed in would have been right next to where the gong is for the clock, which goes off every hour.

Melanie Bowyer: I didn't think about that. Oh, Poor Anna Thornton.

 

Breakfast

Danna Kelley: Anna Thornton's visit got off to a very inauspicious start. And the rain did not let up. However, things did improve because there were many interesting people in the house. In her journal, Mrs. Thornton lists those present at breakfast the next morning: Thomas Jefferson; his two daughters and their husbands; Mr. William Short, Jefferson's private secretary when he was Minister to France; Mr. Randolph Jefferson, the brother of the president; Ms. Virginia Randolph, the sister of Jefferson's son-in-law; two Miss Browns; Miss House; and Mr. Venable. And there were also four or five grandchildren. And, of course, the Thornton's own traveling companions. That's another six people. So, I did the math and that's two dozen people.

 

And I reckon all those people must have spent the night in order to have been there at breakfast, which was, I believe, served at either eight o'clock or nine o'clock in the morning.

 

Justin Bates: Melanie, I know what they had for breakfast. Do you know?

 

Melanie Bowyer: Yes, I do know. Sorry, I just had to be sassy. They had the muffins. We've made the muffins before. Didn't they have ham, right? Eggs?

 

Justin Bates: Eggs.

 

Melanie Bowyer: I'm just throwing things out there, Justin.

 

Justin Bates: And the one other thing was hot wheat, hot cereal.

 

Melanie Bowyer: I like cream of wheat.

 

Justin Bates: It also says that there were four or five grandchildren there. They're being cared for by Priscilla Hemmings, who was an enslaved nursemaid, but it sounds like in the dining room, when the family was all together, that it might have been a scene of chaos every now and then. I mean, there's a story of one of Jefferson's grandsons, accidentally killing one of his pet mockingbirds in the dining room. So, you have that activity going on.

 

Melanie Bowyer: Hopefully not the same night that Anna Thornton was there.

 

Justin Bates: I don't think it was the same night. No.

 

Remodeling Plans

Danna Kelley: On the second day, Jefferson, showed Dr. and Mrs. Thornton his plan for the remodeled house. And Mrs. Thornton commented in her diary that she thought the inside would eventually be "handsome and convenient." But here's what she said about the exterior, "He has authored his plan so frequently, pulled down and rebuilt, that in many parts it looks like a house going to decay from the length of time that it has been erected." And, actually, that observation has been corroborated by other visitors accounts too.

 

Melanie Bowyer: Well, one thing I'm wondering Justin, this was in what, 1802? Like his second year of his presidency. So, it was mostly completed by 1809.

 

Justin Bates: Right. So, what Melanie is referring to -- it's a part of the remodel of Monticello. Initially, in 1769, Jefferson had a design that would be a house of two stories and eight rooms. But after the death of his wife, he's selected to be the American Minister to France, so he lived in Paris for five years, and when he came back to the United States, he was so full of new ideas, he decided he wanted to have everything completely remodeled. And so it's at that time when Thornton is visiting that she's observing the construction of what we call Monticello II, the second version of the house.

 

A Life of Privilege

 

Danna Kelley: All right, so it's still raining out on the third day of their visit. And now Jefferson invited the Thorntons into his library, where Mrs. Thornton had access to thousands of books. And now she's happy. She spent hours reading and looking at drawings of Greek and Roman antiquities. She read a French opera. And she even tells us how others spent the day. She wrote that Miss Randolph and the gentlemen play at chess almost all day and evening. So, it was kind of nice. It tells us how a rainy day was spent at Monticello.

 

As the weather improved the next day, Anna Thornton was able to take walks around the extensive grounds. And she described the views from the mountain in very positive terms. It's a magnificent view. Although she described the house in this way, "There is something grand and awful in the situation, but far from convenient or in my opinion, agreeable. It is a place you would rather look at now and then than live at. Mr. J. Has been 27 years engaged in improving the place and he has pulled down and built up again so often that nothing is completed nor do I think ever will be."

 

Melanie Bowyer: As I was listening to this, it kind of made me think what a privileged life these people have. They're reading a French opera, you know. This would have been in stark contrast to the enslaved people who were serving this family and all of these guests, lounging around in the parlor.

 

Justin Bates: Everything Jefferson's family is doing is enabled by that system of forced labor. All of the wealth to acquire those objects came from slavery.

 

And I think, you know, when she says it's far from convenient, she's right about that. Having a house on a mountain in this time in Virginia was totally counter to conventional wisdom. Rivers were the highways. The task of supporting life on this mountaintop, and going back to the number of people that are living here free and enslaved, and just getting food and water. It's beautiful. Definitely. The view is beautiful, but it's not convenient.

 

Many years before Anna Thornton, the Marquis de Chastellux, he visits in 1784, or at least he writes this in 1784, but he describes Jefferson, he says that he “has placed his mind as he has done his house on an elevated situation from which he might contemplate the universe.”

 

Melanie Bowyer: All of this, as Justin said, was made possible by the labor of enslaved people.

 

A long time maturing his projects

Danna Kelley: Mr. Jefferson eventually showed the Thorntons his pride and joy. I think of it as his sports car, if you will, a handsome, two-seater, state-of-the-art carriage, called a Phaeton. Jefferson had constructed it after eight years preparation, and in her opinion, "The mind of the President of the United States ought to have more important occupation. He is a very long time maturing his projects."

 

Melanie Bowyer: Talk about a little bit of shade there. Right?

 

Justin Bates: There definitely are those firsthand accounts talking about how reckless Jefferson was in the driving of his Phaeton.

 

Melanie Bowyer: It would have just been so bumpy and awful.

 

Justin Bates: But, also, is she thinking he's not doing a very good job as president? I think you can compare this to other presidents who have been criticized for taking lots of vacations or playing lots of golf. You know, you still hear this today.

Conclusion

Danna Kelley: And I have just one little addendum to this story. It's four years later and Mrs. Thornton and her husband returned to Monticello for a visit in 1806. And she noted that things were much improved even the road. And she wrote that evening in her diary, "It is now quite a handsome place."

 

Melanie Bowyer: well, I'm glad she had a better trip the second time around. I'm sure it looked a lot different than it did four years before

 

Justin Bates: It still is striking to me, though, that she never would have seen a completed Monticello since she's coming in 1806.

 

Melanie Bowyer: Well, thanks Justin, for joining me in this discussion about our friend Anna Thornton. Thanks to Danna Kelley for telling such a great story and to everyone else for listening. . . . I didn't know. Justin wanted to jump in with something else.

 

Justin Bates: Sure.

 

Melanie Bowyer: You can thank me, please.

 

Justin Bates: All right. . . . And thanks, Melanie. Hopefully, next time we ever take a trip, wherever that might be, it's not as rough as Anna Thornton's.

 

Melanie Bowyer: I'm not going anywhere with you in a Phaeton.

 

Justin Bates: No, no. Phaetons for me either.