James Madison’s Montpelier

I was going through some photos of our trip last to Virginia and realized I forgot to share our trip to Montpelier {James Madison’s estate}.  Since we went to Monticello and Mount Vernon last time we were back east, I thought I’d better keep up the themed history lesson and check it out.

Quick history lesson, in case you’ve forgotten everything you learned in sixth grade:  James Madison was our fourth president.  His estate is massive, to say the least, covering about 2700 acres.

First off, let me start by saying, Montpelier is a MANSION.  They call it the mansion, and it definitely lives up to its name–it has something like 22 rooms.

We toured the first floor, which had the drawing room and library.  The estate was sold several times after Madison’s death, so historians have been busily trying to recreate the interior of the mansion as it might have looked during his life.  Historians are also trying to acquire original artifacts, etc. of Madison’s.

The estate also has a garden, called the Annie duPont Garden.  During Madison’s life, he maintained {well, probably his slaves maintained it actually} a vegetable garden of 4 acres {I wonder how many pounds of food I could grow on 4 acres?!}.  The 2 acre Annie duPont Garden is a replica of the gardens that Madison and his wife Dolly would have had during their lives.

About 500 yards from the house, is the original homestead site called Mount Pleasant.  Madison’s grandfather originally acquired the land {about 4000 acres at the time} and built a home he called Mount Pleasant.  Madison’s father later built the framework of Madison’s house, James and Dolly continued to add onto Montpelier in phases throughout their lives, creating the mansion it is today.

The Madison family cemetery where James is buried is also on the grounds.  Dolly moved to Washington D.C. after Jame’s death and was buried there.  She has since been moved back the Montpelier cemetery.

A couple hundred yards from that lies the slave cemetery.  Madison had slaves his whole life–they ran the plantation {mostly tobacco}, maintained the gardens and house, and did some blacksmithing.  Historians at the site are trying to uncover the lives, names, etc. of the slaves that lived at Montpelier so that their stories can also be part of the estate.

Their is an old growth forest that is open to the public for hiking.  It is almost completely undisturbed, so it looks just as it would have during Madison’s time.

The South Yard and Stable Quarters are framework replicas of the slave quarters that have been unearthed by archaeologists.  They have found glass window remnants near the South Yard where domestic slaves {slaves who worked in the mansion} lived, indicates that they lived a much better life than those who worked with the horses or on the estate and lived in the stable quarters {with clay floors and horse equipment}.

Overall, the estate is pretty impressive.  How nice would it be to just be gifted an automatic 2000 acres?  Life has sure changed a bit since James Madison’s time, huh?

~Mavis