Saving Monticello: The Levy Family's Epic Quest to Rescue the House that Jefferson Built, and: The Levy Family and Monticello, 1834-1923: Saving Thomas Jefferson's House (review)

When Thomas Jefferson died, famously on July 4, 1826, he left behind more than $100,000 in debt. His heirs were forced to sell his Monticello, the beloved and beautiful home that he had designed. As a result of Jefferson's constant money woes, the house was already decaying. Eight years later, by now in a state of almost total ruin, the house was sold to the pugnacious Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, one of the most colorful figures in American Jewish history. Levy is famed for his successful and, at the time, controversial campaign to end corporal punishment in the navy. As one of the few Jews in the navy, he was subject to constant petty antisemitic insults that the combative Levy would never ignore. This inevitably led to fights and duels. He was court-martialed and ultimately vindicated six times and, nevertheless, continually promoted. He also amassed a rather substantial fortune in New York City real estate. Levy admired Jefferson as "one of the greatest men in history...He did much to mold our Republic in a form in which a man's religion does not make him ineligible for political or governmental life." (Urofsky, p. 54) In gratitude, Levy commissioned a "colossal bronze statue" of Jefferson that he presented to Congress. (After many travails the statue was placed in the National Statuary Hall in the Capital Rotunda where it remains today.) While Levy's motives and actions in acquiring Monticello remain somewhat elusive, he seems to have been an early proponent of the historic preservation movement. At any rate, he spent a good deal of his personal fortune in restoring the mansion. In his will, he left Monticello to the people of the United States, albeit with the rather puzzling condition that it be used as an agricultural school for Navy warrant officers' orphan boys.

The United States government, however, rejected ownership of the property, and the Civil War further complicated matters. For a period of seventeen years, as litigation dragged on, the property once again fell into a state of disarray. This time, amazingly, a Levy, the appropriately named Jefferson Monroe Levy, Uriah's nephew, once again rescued the estate. The younger Levy, a three-time New York congressman and successful speculator, took over in 1879 and proceeded to pour hundreds of thousands of dollars into the renovation and maintenance of Monticello, saving the mansion from ruin. Despite this, a national campaign was launched demanding that Jefferson Levy relinquish ownership of Monticello to the government or to a restoration trust. The campaign was characterized by substantial overtones of antisemitism. Uriah Levy, according to slanderous stories that were widely circulated, had originally purchased Monticello by tricking an innocent Anglo-Saxon "lad" who represented a disinterested group willing to keep the mansion in the hands of Jefferson's family. In other articles the Levys were described as "outsiders" and "aliens" who cared only about money and allowed the mansion to deteriorate. Some observers, including Jefferson's descendents, defended the Levys and Jefferson Levy was able to fight back and maintain his ownership for 44 years. Finally, possibly as result of financial setbacks, Jefferson Levy agreed to sell the estate to the newly established Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation in 1923.

Although the Levy family owned Monticello for 89 years (far longer than the Jefferson family), the Jefferson Foundation for many years refused to recognize the critical role the Levy family played in saving Monticello. This slight continued despite the participation of several Jews in the foundation's earliest days. Levy family descendents felt unwelcome when they visited Monticello and even...