Presidents and First Ladies Trivia

[L Verge]

I think most of us know the history behind the restoration of Washington's Mount Vernon from decaying building to international stature, thanks to the efforts of a group of Southern ladies who began their project just a few years before the Civil War. Much of the same can be learned from Monticello, which went into terrible decline, but was saved by an owner after that war. When I have more time, I'll discuss the process as described in The President Is Dead. I knew that a figure on the sidelines of the Lincoln assassination story, Benjamin Ficklin, was part of the process; but I did not know that he could not keep up with the mounting debts and that it was a subsequent owner who made the difference.

On a minor sidebar, I took my grandson on our Surratt Society's Booth Tour this past Saturday. One of the sites that we always pass en route to Cleydael (summer home of Dr. Richard Stuart) is the former plantation of one of Jefferson's granddaughters, who married into the Mason family. The home at Mt. Alto went down in the 1960s, I believe, but the farmland around it has always been pristine, and the "Mt" was clearly visible as a gentle mound of lawn with trees in the middle of the area.

Well, it appears that developers are once again changing the scenery. As we rode by, I said good-bye to the last vestiges of what the Mason family would have seen. Roads are now being bull-dozed into place in preparation, I'm sure, for the onslaught of McMansions and newcomers who will have no idea that they are living where a Jefferson granddaughter once lived.

Every now and then, I think it would be nice if the new developments were actually named after the historic sites they are replacing or revert to an old land grant title -- maybe even have a small plaque near the entrance giving a brief history. We need to hang onto whatever history we can salvage in this country now.