![]() ![]() Perhaps Ursula Granger, whose reputation as a great cook induced Jefferson to purchase her at his wife’s request in 1773. We can only speculate about who might be buried there. They knew bodies were buried there because their mothers and fathers, who had heard it from their mothers and fathers, said it was so. The story goes that when old-timers who had spent their lives living in the shadows of Jefferson’s mountain heard that the graveyard was to become a parking lot, they spoke up. ![]() What saved it was an oral tradition, which for centuries was how America’s Blacks remembered their past. The burial ground, like much of African American history, was almost lost forever. They were guests because they too can trace their origins to the third president. That was made painfully clear a few years after a white descendant invited dozens of his Black cousins to an association reunion. Only Jefferson, his white family, and their descendants and spouses are buried there. From time to time, members of the association gather for a burial or a wreath-laying ceremony to commemorate their legendary ancestor. It is the only property on the former plantation not owned by the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the nonprofit that owns and manages Monticello, but by a group called the Monticello Association, whose members are direct descendants of Thomas Jefferson and his wife, Martha Wayles Skelton. OF THE STATUTE OF VIRGINIA FOR RELIGIOUS FREEDOM ![]() Jefferson’s grave is marked by an obelisk adorned with an inscription of how he wished to be remembered:ĪUTHOR OF THE DECLARATION OF AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE It is populated with tombstones marked “Jefferson,” “Randolph,” “Taylor,” and the surnames of other kin. One is near the main house and surrounded by an imposing wrought iron fence. There are at least two known burial grounds at Monticello, the estate that was Thomas Jefferson’s home. ![]()
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