Wednesday, June 30, 2004
While the Michie Tavern lies about a mile to the right of Monticello, my next stop was about a mile in the other direction. Ash Lawn/Highland is the one-time home of James Monroe, fifth president of the United States.
The home is starkly different from Monticello; where TJ's home is a celebration of red brick and greek styling, Ash Lawn is a HOUSE. A colonial house that looks like every colonial-style home since the beginning of time, but bigger.
Suffice to say that the personalities of the two men are reflected in their homes. If you were to resurrect Jefferson and Monroe and let them live at their homes again, you get the feeling that Jefferson would only invite over important people to Monticello and he would be wary of the throngs touring his home. Monroe, on the other hand, has a home so "homey" that you would be surprised if he didn't invite you in for beer and football.
As our tourguide explained, the Monroes "lived" in this house. He never meant for it to be a showcase, and it isn't. But that's what makes it so neat. You get an idea of what the average well-to-do plantation owner lived in in the early 19th century. Much of Monroe's original furniture (all sold in his later life to pay off debts) has been relocated and repurchased and put back into the house. In one room I was standing literally an inch from one of the original chairs owned by Mr. Monroe and tempted as I was to place my patoot in a chair once occupied by a Presidential posterior, I refrained like a good boy.
Ash Lawn/Highland is on a sweeping mass of land; in the summer, the grounds are used for an outdoor opera festival. The plantation's peacocks used to have free reign of the place until a few summers ago when they roosted themselves in the trees during one particularly loud opera and started wailing with the sopranos....
Unlike Monticello, where the outside buildings (slave quarters, etc.) have, for the most part, long since gone bye-bye, two of the workers' buildings at Ash Lawn are still there, and the others have been meticulously reconstructed. It is a beautiful place and it's easy to see why scores of weddings are performed there every year.
After walking about the place for awhile, I headed for the James Monroe gift shop looking for Kitsch and it took me two seconds. I now have, for the very reasonable price of TWO DOLLARS, a wonderfully kitschy item: A MINIATURE BEER STEIN IN THE SHAPE OF JAMES MONROE'S HEAD. It's now sitting proudly on my dresser.
Unlike TJ, JM isn't buried on the grounds. He died in New York and was later reinterred in Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery. On a different day, I visited that cemetery; Monroe is encased in an above-ground concrete sarcophagus, which is locked inside a massive cast iron cage.
I think it's obvious why the cage is there: JAMES MONROE IS A MEMBER OF THE UNDEAD. AND SOMETIMES HE GETS FEISTY! If those massive iron bars weren't keeping him in, he'd leap from his sarcophagus every year on his birthday and wreak havoc on both sides of the House of Representatives, sucking their blood and eating their flesh -- not that they'd notice after doing that to US all these years -- and trying to write new doctrines.
You gotta know how to handle them presidential zombies...
Incidentally, not 50 feet away from JM's grave stands the unbelievably obvious grave of John Tyler, our tenth president. The obelisk-shaped stone is about 25 feet tall, features a bust of the rather ineffective president and covers not only his grave but that of his second wife, Julia. That Tyler had more children than any other president (and late into life; one of his GRANDCHILDREN is still alive and living near Richmond on the family farm) probably had no play in the design of this rather phallic memorial, but who knows?
My tour of Ash Lawn/Highland finished, there was nothing left to do but go home, right?
But waaaaaiiiiit...
... 'til tomorrow, as I pay a visit to the home of a man who figures strongly in my stage act.
TT
The home is starkly different from Monticello; where TJ's home is a celebration of red brick and greek styling, Ash Lawn is a HOUSE. A colonial house that looks like every colonial-style home since the beginning of time, but bigger.
Suffice to say that the personalities of the two men are reflected in their homes. If you were to resurrect Jefferson and Monroe and let them live at their homes again, you get the feeling that Jefferson would only invite over important people to Monticello and he would be wary of the throngs touring his home. Monroe, on the other hand, has a home so "homey" that you would be surprised if he didn't invite you in for beer and football.
As our tourguide explained, the Monroes "lived" in this house. He never meant for it to be a showcase, and it isn't. But that's what makes it so neat. You get an idea of what the average well-to-do plantation owner lived in in the early 19th century. Much of Monroe's original furniture (all sold in his later life to pay off debts) has been relocated and repurchased and put back into the house. In one room I was standing literally an inch from one of the original chairs owned by Mr. Monroe and tempted as I was to place my patoot in a chair once occupied by a Presidential posterior, I refrained like a good boy.
Ash Lawn/Highland is on a sweeping mass of land; in the summer, the grounds are used for an outdoor opera festival. The plantation's peacocks used to have free reign of the place until a few summers ago when they roosted themselves in the trees during one particularly loud opera and started wailing with the sopranos....
Unlike Monticello, where the outside buildings (slave quarters, etc.) have, for the most part, long since gone bye-bye, two of the workers' buildings at Ash Lawn are still there, and the others have been meticulously reconstructed. It is a beautiful place and it's easy to see why scores of weddings are performed there every year.
After walking about the place for awhile, I headed for the James Monroe gift shop looking for Kitsch and it took me two seconds. I now have, for the very reasonable price of TWO DOLLARS, a wonderfully kitschy item: A MINIATURE BEER STEIN IN THE SHAPE OF JAMES MONROE'S HEAD. It's now sitting proudly on my dresser.
Unlike TJ, JM isn't buried on the grounds. He died in New York and was later reinterred in Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery. On a different day, I visited that cemetery; Monroe is encased in an above-ground concrete sarcophagus, which is locked inside a massive cast iron cage.
I think it's obvious why the cage is there: JAMES MONROE IS A MEMBER OF THE UNDEAD. AND SOMETIMES HE GETS FEISTY! If those massive iron bars weren't keeping him in, he'd leap from his sarcophagus every year on his birthday and wreak havoc on both sides of the House of Representatives, sucking their blood and eating their flesh -- not that they'd notice after doing that to US all these years -- and trying to write new doctrines.
You gotta know how to handle them presidential zombies...
Incidentally, not 50 feet away from JM's grave stands the unbelievably obvious grave of John Tyler, our tenth president. The obelisk-shaped stone is about 25 feet tall, features a bust of the rather ineffective president and covers not only his grave but that of his second wife, Julia. That Tyler had more children than any other president (and late into life; one of his GRANDCHILDREN is still alive and living near Richmond on the family farm) probably had no play in the design of this rather phallic memorial, but who knows?
My tour of Ash Lawn/Highland finished, there was nothing left to do but go home, right?
But waaaaaiiiiit...
... 'til tomorrow, as I pay a visit to the home of a man who figures strongly in my stage act.
TT
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