OCR Output

tie! PLEDÁLONT SECTION

himself, "Here lies Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration
of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom
and Father of the University of Virginia."

The second gate opens out on the lawn, and here the house
comes into full view; on the left of the driveway are the servants
guarters and on the right the garden.

This garden is arranged in a chain of rectangular plots, with
orass walks between. Originally, vegetables were planted here in
long rows to be easily worked by horse and plow. There was a
background of native shrubs and trees through which one caught
olimpses of the valley below and the distant strip of the pine belt.
Old-fashioned shrubs were scattered throughout the garden near
the paths and inthe angles. Further on, just before one approaches
the overseer’s house, there is seen a small graveyard owned by the
Levy family, the present owners of the property.

On the left of this driveway was once a greensward running
along the side of the quarters, or southern pavilion, and in the
spring it was a mass of bulbous flowers familiar to old homes, such
as jonquils, single blue Roman hyacinths and Stars of Bethlehem.
The blue feathered hyacinth (Muscari comosum monstrosum )
found congenial environment here. This was a rare flower in those
days, and today is not generally seen here.

With such evidence of remains of a garden, one readily con¬
jectures that on this gentle slope, protected from the north by the
servants’ quarters and work shops and exposed to the warm rays
of the sun from the south, Jefferson must have laid out here an
ornamental and terraced garden.

In an old book we read that ‘“‘The nail factory, the machine
shops and weaving room were on the southeast of the house, beyond
which was the terraced garden in which he delighted to exhibit his
horticultural products.”’

His granddaughter, Sarah Randolph, in her “Life of Thomas
Jefferson,” constantly refers to his love of trees and shrubs and
of their intimate walks in the garden. One pictures them strolling

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