Object Lesson: "Build the Negro houses near together": Thomas Jefferson and the Evolution of Mulberry Row's Vernacular Landscape

Between 1768 and 1826 Thomas Jefferson built an internationally acclaimed 11,000 square foot dwelling on a small mountain in Virginia's central piedmont. Less well known is the even larger construction project he directed during the same time period only two hundred feet south of his highly refined neoclassical house. Known as Mulberry Row, it centered on the important road that ran for twelve hundred feet and served as the Monticello plantation's main street. Under Jefferson's explicit direction, enslaved workers and hired white workmen built over thirty-two known dwellings, workshops, and service structures there that would, in total, enclose over 12,500 square feet of space. Mulberry Row was also in many ways the heart of the plantation, and it served as a focal point for the communities of enslaved and free workers who lived at Monticello during Jefferson's lifetime (Figure 1).

As with his own house, Jefferson's goal for Mulberry Row was to provide for his comfort and that of his family while also publicly demonstrating his wealth, power, and cultural ideals. The means Jefferson used to achieve these goals, however, were not static. As a result of his changing needs, desires, and intellectual interests, Jefferson made dramatic changes to the physical appearance of Mulberry Row as well as to the surrounding landscape. Given that Jefferson so closely guided the development of Mulberry Row, understanding its evolution provides insight into both Jefferson's decision-making process and how his choices impacted the lives of those who lived and worked there.

Figure 1.

Rendering of the Monticello mountaintop, ca.1816. Starting ca.1768, Jefferson established a row of service buildings and worker housing just to the south of Monticello. Copyright Thomas Jefferson Foundation at Monticello, created by RenderSphere, LLC.

In order to illustrate Mulberry Row's development, in 2011 the Thomas Jefferson Foundation embarked on a comprehensive project to digitally model all of the buildings and the surrounding mountaintop at three distinct time periods: circa 1784, circa 1796, and circa 1816. Called the Picturing Mulberry Row Project, its goal was to produce digital renderings to illustrate each of the thirty-two buildings as well as changes to the larger landscape. While principally a public history endeavor, it also ultimately resulted in a deeper understanding of Mulberry Row that in turn helps to enliven its interpretation.

Today's Mulberry Row is a carefully curated and partially restored landscape interpreted as part of the educational mission of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. Its current appearance is in sharp contrast to the rugged, rocky, and only partially cleared mountaintop that Thomas Jefferson started with in 1768. It was here the restless polymath and future president developed many designs for both the main house and its support buildings in the years before he rose to national prominence in 1776.

In the early 1770s, Jefferson developed expansive plans for the outbuildings along Mulberry Row. Two circa 1776 plans delineated a long range of stone structures connected by wooden sheds that included nontraditional uses such as a dedicated slaughterhouse and greenhouse.¹ While at least two of these structures—the joiner's shop and stone workmen's house—appear to have been constructed, most were not. Instead archaeologists and historians have discovered that Jefferson never settled on a single vision for Mulberry Row. His restless aspirations resulted in significant and large-scale changes over a period of approximately forty-one years. As a result, Mulberry Row's changing uses, evolving building types, and shifting demographics can all be read as evidence of how the landscape was transformed to accommodate Jefferson's needs and his mercurial vision for a model Virginia plantation.

The Picturing Mulberry Row Project

The Thomas Jefferson Foundation developed the Picturing Mulberry Row Project to educate the public about Jefferson's changing vision for Mulberry Row as well as the lives of those who lived and worked there. This public history program set out to rematerialize the complex development of one of Virginia's best-documented vernacular...