Jefferson’s neighbors, James Madison and James Monroe
The evening before we went to Monticello, we bumped into a family at the hotel pool that had gone to Monticello that day. The dad told me, "Hey, Madison's house is on the way, and Monroe's house is right next to Monticello." Wait, WHAT.
That smelled like a giant marketing opportunity to me. The third, fourth and fifth presidents live within a couple miles of each other, and I missed this?? I LIVE for dorky things like the Freedom Trail.
The drive up to Madison's Montpelier house. It was a tobacco farm back in the day.
Jefferson, Madison and Monroe were basically the Three Musketeers. Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence, Madison was the Father of the Constitution, and Monroe is best known for the Monroe Doctrine (which warned European nations to butt out of the Western Hemisphere).
Jefferson's house was the spiffiest, with a giant visitor's center and hordes of visitors. At Monroe's house, the visitors barely outnumbered the staff. Madison's house fell somewhere in between.
This house looks like it was meant to be, but it was actually built like Tetris blocks over time. The original house is on the right. Madison added a separate townhouse on the left when he brought Dolley home. Later he joined the two and added wings. The Duponts owned the property and added on a couple dozen more rooms; those rooms have since been torn down to restore the house to how it looked when Madison lived here.One of the few original Madison artifacts. He sold most of his stuff before he died to pay off debts.James Madison was 5'3" and Dolley was 5'6" (and 17 years younger).A room on Madison's mom's side of the house.The tall instrument generates static electricity. This is what they did for entertainment, shock each other.Madison would have sat at his desk at this window writing the Constitution.Monroe's house. Monroe isn't buried here; he's buried in Richmond next to John Tyler.Our guide told us to look for an acorn to take home, then in 300 years we would have a tree just like this one.The original house burned down after Monroe sold it.Southern tradition of painting the porch ceiling haint blue to keep out the ghosts.Napoleon's stepdaughter Hortensia married Napoleon's brother (!) and was good friends with Monroe's daughter. The necklace was a wedding gift from Hortensia.
