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Highland (James Monroe house)

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Highland
AshLawnHighland.jpg
Highland, formerly Ash Lawn–Highland. Note: The yellow wing was added on by later owners.
Highland (James Monroe house) is located in Virginia
Highland (James Monroe house)
Highland (James Monroe house) is located in the United States
Highland (James Monroe house)
LocationSoutheast of Charlottesville off VA 53, near Simeon, Virginia
Coordinates37°58′56″N 78°27′19″W / 37.98222°N 78.45528°W / 37.98222; -78.45528Coordinates: 37°58′56″N 78°27′19″W / 37.98222°N 78.45528°W / 37.98222; -78.45528
Area200 acres (81 ha)
Built1799 (1799)
ArchitectJames Monroe
NRHP reference No.73001990[1]
Significant dates
Added to NRHPAugust 14, 1973
Designated VLRJanuary 16, 1973[2]
"Ash Lawn" redirects here. For the house in Sprague, Connecticut, see Ashlawn.

Highland, formerly Ash Lawn–Highland, located near Charlottesville, Virginia, United States, and adjacent to Thomas Jefferson's Monticello, was the estate of James Monroe, a Founding Father and fifth president of the United States. Purchased in 1793, Monroe and his family permanently settled on the property in 1799 and lived at Highland for twenty-five years. Personal debt forced Monroe to sell the plantation in 1825. Before and after selling Highland, Monroe spent much of his time living at the plantation house at his large Oak Hill estate near Leesburg, Virginia.

Monroe named his Charlottesville home "Highland". For many years after Monroe's death until 2016, the house was known as Ash Lawn-Highland or merely Ash Lawn.

The estate is now owned, operated and maintained by Monroe's alma mater, the College of William & Mary.

Discover more about Highland (James Monroe house) related topics

Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville, Virginia

Charlottesville, colloquially known as C'ville, is an independent city in the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States. It is the county seat of Albemarle County, which surrounds the city, though the two are separate legal entities. It is named after Queen Charlotte, wife of George III. At the 2020 census, the population was 46,553. The Bureau of Economic Analysis combines the City of Charlottesville with Albemarle County for statistical purposes, bringing its population to approximately 150,000. Charlottesville is the heart of the Charlottesville metropolitan area, which includes Albemarle, Buckingham, Fluvanna, Greene, and Nelson counties.

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson

Thomas Jefferson was an American statesman, diplomat, lawyer, architect, philosopher, and Founding Father who served as the third president of the United States from 1801 to 1809. Among the Committee of Five charged by the Second Continental Congress with authoring the Declaration of Independence, Jefferson was the Declaration's primary author, writing it between June 11 and June 28, 1776 at a three-story residence at 700 Market Street in Philadelphia. Following the American Revolutionary War and prior to becoming the nation's third president in 1801, Jefferson was the first United States secretary of state under George Washington and then the nation's second vice president under John Adams.

Monticello

Monticello

Monticello was the primary slave labor plantation of Founding Father Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, who began designing Monticello after inheriting land from his father at age 26. Located just outside Charlottesville, Virginia, in the Piedmont region, the plantation was originally 5,000 acres (20 km2), with Jefferson using the labor of African slaves for extensive cultivation of tobacco and mixed crops, later shifting from tobacco cultivation to wheat in response to changing markets. Due to its architectural and historic significance, the property has been designated a National Historic Landmark. In 1987, Monticello and the nearby University of Virginia, also designed by Jefferson, were together designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The current nickel, a United States coin, features a depiction of Monticello on its reverse side.

James Monroe

James Monroe

James Monroe was an American statesman, lawyer, and diplomat who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father as well as the last president of the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation; his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, concluding the First Party System era of American politics. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas while effectively asserting U.S. dominance, empire, and hegemony in the hemisphere. He also served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War.

Founding Fathers of the United States

Founding Fathers of the United States

The Founding Fathers of the United States, commonly referred to simply as the Founding Fathers or Founders, were a group of late-18th-century American revolutionary leaders who united the Thirteen Colonies, oversaw the War of Independence from Great Britain, established the United States, and crafted a framework of government for the new nation.

President of the United States

President of the United States

The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces.

Leesburg, Virginia

Leesburg, Virginia

Leesburg is a town in the state of Virginia, and the county seat of Loudoun County. Settlement in the area began around 1740, which is named for the Lee family, early leaders of the town. Located in the far northeast of the state, in the War of 1812 it was a refuge for important federal documents evacuated from Washington, DC, and in the Civil War, it changed hands several times.

College of William & Mary

College of William & Mary

The College of William & Mary is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia. Founded in 1693 by a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and the ninth-oldest in the English-speaking world. It is classified among "R2: Doctoral Universities – High Research Activity". In his 1985 book Public Ivies: A Guide to America's Best Public Undergraduate Colleges and Universities, Richard Moll included William & Mary as one of the original eight "Public Ivies".

History

Monroe establishes Highland

Encouraged by his close friend, Thomas Jefferson, Monroe purchased a deed for one thousand acres (4 km2) of land adjacent to Monticello in 1793 for an equal number of pounds from the Carter family. The land formerly had been a part of the Blenheim Plantation owned by Champe Carter.[3] Six years later, Monroe moved his family onto the plantation, where they resided for the next twenty-five years. In 1800, Monroe described his home as: "One wooden dwelling house, the walls filled with brick. One storey high, 40 by 30 ft. Wooden Wing one storey high, 34 by 18 ft."[3] Over the next 16 years, Monroe continued to add onto his home, adding stone cellars and a second story to the building. He also expanded his land holdings, which at their greatest included over 3,500 acres (14 km2). However, by 1815, Monroe increasingly turned to selling his land to pay for debt. By 1825, he was forced to sell Highland completely.[3]

Slave quarters

Highland was a thriving plantation employing the labor of 30-40 slaves. Their housing no longer exists. Quarters for field hands were at some distance from the main house, while the domestic slaves lived closer to their Monroe's home.[4]

Highland after Monroe

Edward O. Goodwin purchased Highland from Monroe at twenty dollars an acre and often referred to the property as "North Blenheim." At the time of the purchase, Monroe described Highland as containing:

a commodious dwelling house, buildings for servants and other domestic purposes, good stables, two barns with threshing machine, a grist and sawmill with houses for managers and laborers . . . all in good repair.[3]

Goodwin sold the house and six hundred acres (2.4 km2) in 1834 and it was sold again in 1837 to Alexander Garrett. Garrett gave the property its second name which remained with it to the present day, "Ash Lawn."[3] Over the course of thirty years, Ash Lawn–Highland was sold numerous times until 1867, when John E. Massey purchased it. It remained in the possession of the Massey family for the next sixty-three years. In that time period, the family added to the house, whereupon it took on its present-day appearance.[3]

Highland was sold for the last time in 1930 to philanthropist Jay Winston Johns of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The Johns family soon after opened the house to public tours and upon his death in 1974, Johns willed the property to James Monroe's alma mater, the College of William and Mary.[5]

It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.[1]

Highland today

The property today includes the 1818 guest house, an 1850s addition, and an 1870s Victorian style farmhouse. Also on the property are a reconstructed three-bay slave quarter, a reconstructed gable-roofed ice house, a gable-roofed overseer's cabin with an exterior end brick chimney, and a smokehouse with a pyramidal roof.[6]

Highland was featured in Bob Vila's A&E Network production,[7] Guide to Historic Homes of America and in C-SPAN's Cities Tour, Charlottesville.[8]

In 2016, the name Ash Lawn-Highland was dropped, and the house was redesignated James Monroe's Highland to more clearly communicate the relationship to its first owner, President James Monroe.[9]

Today, Highland is a 535-acre (2.2 km2) working farm, museum, and a performance site for arts, operated by the College of William and Mary. It is open to the public year-round, though with limited hours from October through March.

Discovery of larger house

Evidence that this home, long believed to be an original wing of Monroe's residence, was in fact, a guest house, surfaced when archaeologists discovered the foundations of a much larger home presumed to be Monroe's home.[10][11] Additional evidence for the current residence being a guest house include construction techniques that post-date Monroe moving into his mansion at the end of 1799, and dendrochronology which dates the existing structure as being made from trees harvested between 1815 and 1818.[12]

Discover more about History related topics

James Monroe

James Monroe

James Monroe was an American statesman, lawyer, and diplomat who served as the fifth president of the United States from 1817 to 1825. A member of the Democratic-Republican Party, Monroe was the last president who was a Founding Father as well as the last president of the Virginia dynasty and the Republican Generation; his presidency coincided with the Era of Good Feelings, concluding the First Party System era of American politics. He is perhaps best known for issuing the Monroe Doctrine, a policy of opposing European colonialism in the Americas while effectively asserting U.S. dominance, empire, and hegemony in the hemisphere. He also served as governor of Virginia, a member of the United States Senate, U.S. ambassador to France and Britain, the seventh Secretary of State, and the eighth Secretary of War.

National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic value". A property listed in the National Register, or located within a National Register Historic District, may qualify for tax incentives derived from the total value of expenses incurred in preserving the property.

Ice house (building)

Ice house (building)

An ice house, or icehouse, is a building used to store ice throughout the year, commonly used prior to the invention of the refrigerator. Some were underground chambers, usually man-made, close to natural sources of winter ice such as freshwater lakes, but many were buildings with various types of insulation.

Smokehouse

Smokehouse

A smokehouse or smokery (British) is a building where meat or fish is cured with smoke. The finished product might be stored in the building, sometimes for a year or more. Even when smoke is not used, such a building—typically a subsidiary building—is sometimes referred to as a "smokehouse". When smoke is not used, the term meathouse or meat house is common.

Bob Vila

Bob Vila

Robert Joseph Vila is an American home improvement television show host known for This Old House (1979–1989), Bob Vila's Home Again (1990–2005), and Bob Vila (2005–2007).

Dendrochronology

Dendrochronology

Dendrochronology is the scientific method of dating tree rings to the exact year they were formed. As well as dating them, this can give data for dendroclimatology, the study of climate and atmospheric conditions during different periods in history from wood. Dendrochronology derives from Ancient Greek dendron, meaning "tree", khronos, meaning "time", and -logia, "the study of".

Source: "Highland (James Monroe house)", Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, (2023, February 20th), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_(James_Monroe_house).

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Further Reading

Berkeley Plantation

Sherwood Forest Plantation

Charlottesville, Virginia

Poplar Forest

Martha Jefferson Randolph

Oak Hill (James Monroe house)

Shadwell, Virginia

Jefferson Monroe Levy

The Lawn

Carter's Grove

Ampthill (Cumberland County, Virginia)

Castle Hill (Virginia)

Birdwood (Charlottesville, Virginia)

Edge Hill (Shadwell, Virginia)

Belmont Plantation (Albemarle County, Virginia)
See also
References
  1. ^ a b "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. July 9, 2010.
  2. ^ "Virginia Landmarks Register". Virginia Department of Historic Resources. Retrieved 2013-05-12.
  3. ^ a b c d e f An Account of James Monroe's Land Holdings by Christopher Fennel
  4. ^ "James Monroe and Slavery," highland.org., maintained by William & Mary University. Accessed 28 April 2016.
  5. ^ "Ash Lawn-Highland.org". Archived from the original on July 9, 2006. Retrieved Jan 26, 2020.
  6. ^ Virginia Historic Landmarks Commission Staff (December 1972). "National Register of Historic Places Inventory Nomination Form: Highland" (PDF). Commonwealth of Virginia, Department of Historic Resources. and Accompanying photo
  7. ^ Bob Vila (1996). "Guide to Historic Homes of America". A&E Network.
  8. ^ "James Monroe's Highland". C-SPAN.org. Retrieved 2017-07-20.
  9. ^ "James Monroe's Highland Announces Historic Name Change". Apr 20, 2016. Retrieved Jan 26, 2020.
  10. ^ Richer, Alanna Durkin, "Home long thought to be Monroe's turns out to be guest house Archived April 29, 2016, at the Wayback Machine," ABC-7.com., updated 28 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  11. ^ Shapiro, T. Rees, "At Virginia home of President Monroe, a sizable revision of history," Washington Post, 28 April 2016. Retrieved 28 April 2016.
  12. ^ Watson, Traci (Jul–Aug 2017). "A Residence Fit for a President". Archaeology. 70 (4): 34–37. ISSN 0003-8113. Retrieved 2 July 2017 – via EBSCO's Master File Complete.
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