Monticello's renewal makes a perfect gift

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Disapproving myself of transferring the honors and venerations for the birthday of our Republic to any individual, ... I have declined letting my birthday be known, and have engaged my family not to communicate it.

President Thomas --Jefferson, 1803

CHARLOTTESVILLE , Va. -- Thomas Jefferson had a thing about birthdays. He insisted that the nation's, the Fourth of July, be commemorated instead of his.

In fact the public never discovered the date of his birth, April 13, until after Jefferson died. Once they knew, they made the most of it. At one public celebration -- in 1830 at the Indian Queen Tavern in Bladensburg, four years after Jefferson's death -- the more than 150 present raised 24 planned toasts, and nearly as many extemporaneous ones, as they attested to "their love and admiration" for the third president.

Nowadays at Monticello, Jefferson's mountaintop home just outside Charlottesville, the birthday is observed with a graveside ceremony featuring a presentation, a wreath-laying, and music by a contingent of the Fife and Drum Corps of the Army's Third Infantry (the "Old Guard"), who will travel down from Fort Myer.

"Until about 20 years ago it was a fairly modest event," explains Dan Jordan, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation, the organization that owns and operates Monticello, "but the foundation wanted to do more. We have endeavored to get speakers who have a real Jeffersonian message."

The speaker at next week's ceremony is Daniel Meador, emeritus professor at the University of Virginia School of Law. The 11 a.m. birthday celebration is open to the public.

Mountaintop renewal

But every day at Monticello is a celebration of Jefferson's birth and life. This spring is a particularly good time for Americans to reconnect with the author of the Declaration of Independence by touring his property.