University of Virginia Library

MONROE.

President James Monroe was for many years a citizen of
Albemarle. Being a great admirer as well as a special favorite
of Mr. Jefferson, he was attracted to the county by his
influence. His first purchase of real estate was made from
George Nicholas in 1790. He then bought from him Lots
Seventeen and Eighteen in Charlottesville, with the Stone

House which Nicholas had erected thereon. That was his
first residence. At the same time he purchased the farm on
which the University stands. In the conveyance of his town
property to Peter Marks in September 1790, it is recited that
he sold to him "the pine plank and materials deposited
thereon, except that which was planed, and the walnut
plank," and reserved in the house "room for his furniture and
family, until his houses were ready to receive them on his
farm." This farm he also bought from George Nicholas,
who, having purchased more than two thousand acres in
different parts of the county, sold them, and removed without
making conveyances for any of them; and it was not until
nearly twenty years after his death, that James Morrison,
his executor, gave title to the heirs of his vendees. For the
land he sold Mr. Monroe, no deed was ever made, or at least
was ever recorded; on account of Mr. Monroe's celebrity,
and the property having changed hands several times, perhaps
it was deemed unnecessary. The house Mr. Monroe
was getting ready on his farm, was part of that now occupied
by Professor Thornton, situated on what is still called Monroe
Hill.

But he did not reside there long. In 1793 he purchased on
the east side of Carter's Mountain, where he was a still closer
neighbor to Mr. Jefferson. Part of this land he bought from
Mr. Jefferson, and part from William C. Carter. His home
was Ash Lawn, now owned by Rev. John E. Massey. Here
he lived till the termination of his presidency, when all his
lands in the county, amounting to between four and five
thousand acres, were sold, or transferred to the United States
Bank, in payment of his debts. Like Mr. Jefferson, he was
so completely absorbed in his public engagements, and so
frequently and long absent from home, that his private affairs
suffered from neglect. When a man's mind is accustomed to
dwell upon the broad expanse of a nation's interests, it is not
unnatural perhaps that he should insensibly contract a sort
of sublime indifference to the petty range of his mere personal
concerns. As already stated, Mr. Monroe never did
get a deed for his University land, and that which he bought

from William C. Carter in 1793, was not conveyed to him
till 1827. He was appointed a magistrate in 1798, and the
latter half of the next year he sat regularly on the bench.
His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Lawrence Kortright, a
captain in the British army, and his children Eliza and Maria.
Eliza was married to George Hay, United States Attorney
for the District of Virginia, at his home in the county in
1808, and Maria to Samuel L. Governeur, of New York, in
Washington, while he was President. At the expiration of
his second term, he removed to Oak Hill, a farm he had purchased
in Loudoun.

The President had an elder brother, Andrew, who, it is
believed, in 1781 purchased a farm near Batesville, where he
resided for four years. In 1816 he was living on a farm
which the President purchased on Limestone, below Milton.
He died in 1828. A son, Augustine G., was admitted to the
Albemarle bar in 1815. Another son, James, born in the
county, was an officer in the United Stated army, acted as
the President's private secretary, married a daughter of James
Douglass, an adopted son of Rev. William Douglass, of
Ducking Hole, Louisa, and settled in New York City, where
he was active in political affairs, and where he was appointed
to perform his last public service as a member of the Peace
Convention in 1861.

Joseph Jones Monroe, another brother of the President,
became a member of the Albemarle bar, married Elizabeth,
daughter of James Kerr, was appointed Commonwealth's
Attorney in 1811 as successor to Judge Dabney Carr, and
the next year gave place to William F. Gordon. In 1812
his daughter Harriet was married in Charlottesville to
Edward Blair Cabell, and removed to Keytesville, Mo. He
himself subsequently removed to Missouri, where he died in
Franklin County in 1824.