Behind the Scenes: Monticello's 2nd and 3rd Floors 

What a wonderful story. Your father got lucky that day thanks to his uniform. 🇺🇸 And the nice man as well.

I visited Monticello as a little kid with my family. My grandparents had a farm in Charlottesville. I loved it because it was like stepping into a Time Machine. Beautiful home.

I always assumed every kid in America took Virginia history. It WAS all about birthing a new nation. You people do realize that Mr Jefferson was a President don't you? I know he wasn't as shallow as the kind of president Americans prefers. He was a nice man, decent like Jimmy C arter, another president America disliked, because he was too intelligent. They couldn't wait to get those dynamic Hollywood has-beens in the White House. Ain't they got fun, show people doing what show people do, pretending to be someone. I'm surprised California doesn't love Fruit Cake. I assumed that was a given.

I also, so many years ago. I remember that the tours were loosely done and we could roam quite freely from the basement to the octagon room. I have went back several times over the decades and have never gotten enough of It.

We’ve seen this house about twenty years ago.....it left an impression.

I was 18 and a student at U.Va. when I first toured the 2nd and 3rd floors of Monticello. I am 69 now. I recall that most of the rooms were empty, or used for storage or offices. The Dome Room was where the trustees would meet semi-annually. The staircases were narrow, because Mr. Jefferson did not like the ostentation of grand staircases at other Virginia mansions.

I came with my wife on our honeymoon and returned in 2017 on our 50th anniversary.

Slave plantation. A house of torture. A terror cell with rape quarters. Yup, that’s what this pile of dung is.

I loved taking that ride.

I doubt much of the furnishings belonged to Jefferson. He was so far in debt at the time of his death, creditors were literally removing personal effects within hours of the event.

My ex is a descendant of Sally.

I do agree with you, Janet.

Go feel the history in Europe then if this excites u

The main house itself seems so small! The home itself is quality (not quantity) but the outer buildings and passageways are still being uncovered and quite extensive. This must have quite been a self contained village! The slave cabins and gardens and factories and stables had been plowed under but I hope one day they will all be rediscovered! They just found Sally's little room next to Jefferson's. I wish there was a painting of her that we could see, afterall she was blood related to Jefferson's wife. This is important American history and should be taught in our schools.

Which gives us insight into just how very difficult, costly and time consuming it must have been to plan and construct such a structure like Monticello in the late 1790s. Everything was labor intensive and far away from larger city centers. Jeff himself was obsessive/compulsive among his many other psychoses. Perhaps grand staircases were much too intricate to incorporate into his smaller estate home where every square foot was precious and precise. The smaller hidden stairs or hidden doors, hallways and his food elevators were hidden so that Jefferson and his constant guests (who literally ate him out of house and home), did not have to think about or see the dozens of people he enslaved and/or hired that were required to keep him and his eleven grandkids in clean clothes and comfort. He must have had some sort of 'magical thinking' psychosis where he felt he'd never go bankrupt as long as he had his nail factories and his slaves that he could rent out for cash.

​@@moirapettifr7127yeah for all his talents personal finance wasn't one

Being obsessive compulsive is not psychosis. How do you know he was OCD and what were his other psychoses? What are your sources?

I was the same age when I visited in 2005. ❤️

Thanks for sharing this thorough tour!

I 7

And it’s forever preserved now !

Anyone on the woke left ...because they mention enslaved servants !

@@kikihowe4799 thank you. I didnt think of it like that. I was thinking from historic side. We can't change ugly things in past but we can learn and move forward. Thank you again

@@kikihowe4799 More likely the depressing conservative...because they mentioned enslaved servants!

@@kikihowe4799... This Woke "thing" is a marxist comunist movement to divide the American People.

@@militzamadrid462 No, not really.

I am trying to work out how to fit a concert hall with a vaulted ceiling large enough for an ensemble & grand piano in my 3 bedroom semi. I haven't worked it out yet 🤔

@@bradleysmall2230 bro what

@@jorgemasvidal1901 they ran dna as he was banging sally hemmings his blk slave girl and she got preggers

@@bradleysmall2230 What the original comment said has nothing to do with Sally. What the hell is the matter with you?

Ikr? The first thing I thought of is a grand piano being in the center of it! I'm a flutist, btw.

Its very interesting how they built that wall to stop the aninals from getting up into the yard

Modern construction should be done with such thought and care so they , too, could last a very long time.

Lol you do realize there was 600 slaves in the same house or next to the house right? We have to also think about that when thinking about founders as if they lived in a house with paid maids. No

He didn’t want you to be able to vote. Let alone his rape crimes and hundreds of hostages.

Slaves watched over his grandchildren. This is not a good man- sorry.

@@WaveRider1989 I think we have all been told about the slaves. Did you not hear about the slaves in the Bible, or the Kings, Queens in Africa that had slaves, ( thousands ) and of their selling for profits. In fact I hear they still sell slaves in many parts of Africa. Lest we forget...God forbid we make it about Jefferson.

This is the sort of information that should be on this video, not emotional ramblings.

@@LynxSouth ?

@@LynxSouth Exactly what a Fake Title to this Video I wanted to see furnishings and collections and not dumbed down to supposed information on how Pricilla Hemings felt while taking care of children.

@@alexajones2593 Right! REAL historical, documented, substantiated information.

@@LynxSouth 👍

So have you met your black cousins from Thomas Jefferson?

@@briskii1020yeaDo you realize that you are mocking bi-racial persons?

My several times great uncle was Commodore John Barry, founder of the American Navy, and friend of Jefferson. Our ancestors hung out together 250 years ago! Cool!

Kitty holes in doors were fairly common in the deep south. Rats and other vermin were endemic and the cats were just about the only means to keep their numbers down. They didn't have rat poisons and traps were only minimally effective. A good mouser/ratter of a cat was a treasure to be encouraged

Why would they not be? They have nothing to be ashamed of. Historians aren't guilty of anything.

I have been to Monticello many times, and in 1979 saw his great, great ...grandson present at WM & Mary College a reading from Thomas Jefferson's writing. The family familiarity was so uncanny, and he was in a period costume. I have been there many times, I will have to go back now!

@@carolluther1625Fascinating isn't it? How by sight, one can actually see generations of family dna. --I guess you could say, it by sight WAS and still is the first dna test.

It's amazing what can be built when all the laborers are working for free.

Did you cry because slaves worked there?

yes i always thought a dumbwaiter was a small manual style elevator used for tasks like moving laundry and food up and down levels so they don't have to carry it.

Dumbwaiter refers both to a "pie table" and the more familiar elevator apparatus. We remember the elevator definition because it's more interesting than the table variant.

Touché Recyler, I’d never heard it used referring to what we’d now call a lazy Susan. Wikipedia dumbwaiter entry has two Jefferson dumbwaiter tidbits. Apparently the man was really all about the dumbwaiter/lazy Susan

@@dmcgee3 off the top of my head I remembered that from a Bill Bryson book. He was also obsessed with the idea that staircases are wasted space and he tended to hide them in walls with doors obscuring them.

Washington’s and Betsy Ross’ stairways were also pretty tough to navigate, especially Betsy’s which was a compact, winding stairway.

Interesting what a micromanager TJ must have been - his 49 year old daughter needing his permission to not sleep in an alcove.

@@johnvonundzu2170 it was his home he built and paid for, which he hardly got to live in and women did as they were told then.

@@Tony-InLosAngeles correct!

He spent a fair amt of time in France. Clearly he learned and utilized many French ways of cooking, gardening, farming and styling things in his life.

@@lolodee3528 Yes five years as the American Minister to the Court of Versailles; and later assumed the position of Secretary of State, he continued his involvement in American foreign policy with French Revolution, continuing into the 1790s.

I've done the upper tour twice... it's amazing after going before and seeing blocked off stairs as a child

I'm surprised it didn't get demolished with all the monuments.

@@randallmccrea283, What "monuments" do you think were demolished?

Oh ya know the confederate ones this house has something to do with slavery and I’m just surprised that nobody decided to destroy it while they went on that whole tirade of tearing down American history a few years ago.

@@randallmccrea8245 The confederate ones? You are making that comment and you can’t even actually name one of the “monuments” that have been “demolished”?

There were multiple and I don’t see how I need to specifically name each monument that was destroyed. But what ever I’m just glad to see the assholes didn’t get to this national treasure. That’s all.

So your gonna just leave out Sally hemings went with him too and didn't want to come back to the us because she was free there the only reason she came back is tommy promised that he would set her family free in which he didn't did u leave that out by mistake??

Excellent memories...🌞

I agree, I've always thought that room (storage room indeed) got a lot of use for all kinds of things by the family ( all those teenagers and young adults?) and braziers in the winter would have been put to use. So much of the home's original furnishings and uses for rooms is long gone and forgotten. Historians oftentimes are less imaginative than the people they purport to describe and rely on a dearth of lackluster information. It seems to me I read something about the telescope being used up there. I think, tho, he wanted his own Roman oculus, you reckon ? Pat

Could he have used to for acoustics? He played the violin...

People were NOT small at this time. President Jefferson was 6’2” as was President Washington. The height of alot of people was probably the result of poor or lack of food during critical growth periods.