Month: July 2019

For those of you who have been following along on our adventures you know that from time to time we take a step back and drop off the radar for a while. Not much has been recorded recently,  so I thought I would put up something letting our readers know what’s happening and a little bit of history at the same time.

After celebrating our granddaughter’s 4^th birthday (albeit a few days early) we packed up our stuff and headed west towards Oregon. In order to make this trip we have to thank President Dwight D. Eisenhower. It was with a stroke of a pen in 1956 he signed into law the National System of Interstate and Defense Highways commonly know as the Interstate Highway System.

This network of controlled-access highways forms part of our national highway system and allows us to travel throughout this wonderful land in great comfort. This system has often been called the Greatest Public Works Project in History and has changed the daily lives of everyone . All drivers , car and truck owe a great debt to this network of roads that travel across the country – both east and west and north and south.

The new highway system didn’t help the small towns along the way as it created high speed corridors by which travelers can zip past a lot of the iconic roadways– all you have to do is think about the demise of Route 66 – the road from Chicago to Los Angeles and all the small towns that supported the travelers along that path who now don’t have the traffic to support them.

There has always been a “rumor” that part of the highway system was designed with long stretches of straight road that could be used for airplanes to land. Usually, this myth says the requirement came from President Eisenhower or the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956. However, no legislation, regulation, or policy has ever imposed such a requirement. Airplanes do sometimes land on interstates in an emergency, but the highways are not designed for that purpose.

Currently, the Interstate System is 46,876 miles long. The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 imposed a statutory limitation on the Interstate mileage that would be built with Interstate Construction funds under the new program (41,000 miles at the time). Later legislation increased the limitation to 43,000 miles, of which a total of 42,795 miles has been used. Separate legislation allows the Federal Highway Administration to approve additional mileage if it meets full Interstate standards and would be a logical addition or connection.

The first project to go to construction with Interstate Construction funds under the 1956 Act was in Missouri. The project on U.S. 40 (later designated the I-70 Mark Twain Expressway) in St. Charles County got underway on August 13, 1956. Officials erected a sign stating, “This is the first project in the United States on which actual construction was started under provisions of the new Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.”

Kansas had begun a construction project on U.S. 40 (I-70) west of Topeka before the 1956 Act, but awarded the final paving contract under the new legislation. Because this was the first paving under the 1956 Act, Kansas erected a sign claiming, “This is the first project in the United States completed under provisions of the new Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956.”

The Interstate numbering plan was based on the plan used to number the U.S. numbered highways, but in mirror image (for example, U.S. 1 is on the East Coast, while I-5 is on the West Coast; U.S. 10 is in the north while I-10 is in the south). In both plans, numbers ending in zero are used for transcontinental and other major multi-State routes. However, one of the rules for Interstate numbering is that numbers are not duplicated on Interstate highways and U.S. numbered routes in the same State. Duplicate numbers would be confusing for motorists; for example, if told to take “Route 50,” the motorist might follow the wrong one. Because the Interstate numbering plan is a mirror image of the U.S. numbered highway plan, I-50 would be located in some of the same States as U.S. 50 (Ocean City, Maryland, to Sacramento, California). Therefore, “50” has not been used for an Interstate route.

Our route going West was along I 80 to Salt Lake City and then North on I 84. Along the way we visited friends in York Nebraska and Star Idaho – it’s nice to catch up with old friends. Once we made it to Portland Oregon we took shelter with my sister Marilynn and actually had a moment with all my sibling.s It was quite by happenstance that we were all in the same place and able to get together.

For now, we are heading south from the Portland area to Los Angeles stopping along the way in Sonoma and the Bay Area again to visit friends. This piece of the trip isn’t on the Interstate but historic US 101 along the coast of Oregon and California. More as the venture continues.

Monticello – Thomas Jefferson’s Home on the Hill

At the age of 26, Thomas Jefferson inherited approximately 5,000 acres and began plans for his home having independently studied the principles of architecture; he based the design on a neoclassical style developed by Andrea Palladio who was a popular Italian Renaissance architect in eighteenth century Europe.  The home was to be built on the top of an 850-foot mountain located on the property and Jefferson named it Monticello an Italian word meaning “little mountain”.

As work began on the building in 1770, Jefferson lived in one of the outbuildings on the property known as the South Pavilion.  A few years later, in 1772,he married Martha Wayles Skelton and construction still had not been completed on the house.  Sadly, Martha died in 1782 and Jefferson left Monticello to go to France, undertaking a political position as Minister of the United States.  The construction on this first version of Monticello was considered finished in 1784 while Jefferson was still in France.

Europe changed how Jefferson looked at his project and he wanted include French design elements.

By 1794, Jefferson had returned to America to serve as the first Secretary of State for the newly formed United States followed by a stint as President.

Although the building was considered completed in 1809 Jefferson continued to make improvements and changes on structure throughout his lifetime.

Thomas Jefferson died in 1826 and per his request he is buried in the Monticello cemetery.

At the time of his death,  the estate was more than $107,000 in debt (which was a considerable amount of money at that time).  Jefferson’s daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, found it necessary to sell the Monticello plantation including the house and surrounding property, she also sold the furnishings of house, livestock and farm equipment and the plantation’s slaves to pay off the debts.

Over the years, Monticello had many owners until Uriah Levy bought the property in 1834. The Levy family continued to own the property for almost 90 years.  Levy, a former commodore in the U.S. Navy, had long admired Jefferson and he chose to restore and preserve the home and property.  In 1923, the Levy family sold the property to the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, a private non-profit organization.  The Foundation now owns and operates the house as a museum, maintains the grounds of the property and administrates an educational center.  Monticello is a National Historic Landmark and in 1987 it was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site along with the nearby University of Virginia where Jefferson had also designed many of the buildings on the campus.

Montpelier – James Madison’s delightful home

Located a mere 30 miles from Monticello, and doing basically the same thing throughout his live, our fourth President James Madison lived in his family home called Montpelier. We visited Montpelier the following day, after visiting Monticello, on our way back home to Springfield.

In 1723, Ambrose Madison, James father, received a large parcel of land located in Virginia.  By 1732 he had built Mount Pleasant, the original family homewhich became the home for his wife, Frances Taylor, and their three children.  Upon his death, it was believed ,but never proved, that one of his slaves had poisoned him.His oldest son; James Madison Sr. inherited the tobacco plantation.

After inheriting the plantation, Madison Sr. acquired even more land and the estate grew to over 5,000 acres making him the largest landowner in the area.  Mount Pleasant soon became a prosperous plantation and Madison Sr. established several more businesses, including a distillery and ironworks.  With a growing family a new house was in order and in 1764 the new home – a two-story brick Georgian style house to be called Montpelier was completed.

The future president, James Madison Jr. was the oldest of their children and while the young boy enjoyed life on the plantation, as he grew older he realized that he wanted to pursue a career in public office.  He eventually went to school at the College of New Jersey and then on to Williamsburg and Philadelphia.  While serving in the new nation’s capital of Washington as a congressman, Madison meet and married a young widow, Dolley Payne Todd, in 1794.  By 1797, construction had begun on the front portico and a 30-foot extension on the main building at Montpelier.

A number of additions were made to the house over the years to accommodate the family and to provide entertaining spaces due to James Madison’s rise in public office from Secretary of State to President of the United States.  Finally in 1817, after serving two terms as president, James Madison and his wife Dolley once again left Washington and retired to Montpelier.

After leaving public office, James and Dolley Madison lead a very full life and together they spent many years editing his presidential and personal papers.  They also enjoyed entertaining political statesmen and diplomats as well as their personal friends and neighbors.  When James Madison died in 1836, the estate went to his stepson Todd Payne.

From 1844 until 1900, Montpelier went through a series of six different owners.  In 1901, William DuPont Sr. bought the property.  The wealthy DuPont family was very influential in the development of Thoroughbred horse racing in the United States and for this reason several barns, stables and other equestrian buildings were built on the property.  After the death of William and his wife Annie, their daughter inherited the estate in 1928.  Despite the renovations made on the Madison’s former home, Marion meant to preserve the original footprint of the estate, gardens and additional grounds. At the time of her death in 1983, Marion DuPont Scott bequeathed the property to the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

Since 1984, the National Trust for Historic Preservation took ownership of the estate and the organization has worked to restore Montpelier to how it would have looked during the time of James and Dolley Madison.  From 2003 to 2008, the Montpelier, former home of James and Dolley Madison, underwent a $25 million restoration project funded by the National trust to remove the renovations created by prior owners and the DuPont family to restore the building to its original 1820 look. The restoration was able to recreate much of the color scheme from the Madison period along with some of the wallpaper.

Our visit toured the interior of the property and much of the grounds. While there really are few furnishings left from when Madison owned the property, the house is furnished with period pieces and much of the history is brought to life by the docents leading the tour.

The estate includes a Landmark forest which Madison preserved for house use in fireplaces. 

Some of the Tulip trees are hundreds of years old.  He also was an advocate of preserving natural resources. A Witness Tree stands near the slave quarters and back of the main house.