Showing posts with label Monticello. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Monticello. Show all posts

Saturday, January 12, 2019

Diary of Captain Luman Harris Tenney: Sunday, March 5, 1865

Saddled up early but did not move out. One hundred men pulled down the burned bridges. More destruction of R. R. Went out with forage detail. Camped under the hill on which is the home of Thomas Jefferson. Rations and ammunition.

SOURCE: Frances Andrews Tenney, War Diary Of Luman Harris Tenney, p. 146

Monday, June 3, 2013

Remarkable Requests – Will of Capt. Levy, of the Navy

From the N. Y. Post

The will of Captain Uriah P. Levy, U. S. N., came up for probate in the Surrogate’s Court to-day.  Mrs. Levy receives only her right of dower and all the household furniture, plate, &c. so long as she shall remain unmarried, excepting what is otherwise bequeathed, to revert upon her death or marriage.  Captain Levy’s nephew, Ashel S. Levy, receives the Washington farm, in Albemarle, Virginia, with all the negro slaves, &c., and $5,00 [sic] in cash, also his gold box with the freedom of the city of New York.

He leaves to his brother, Jos. M. Levy, $1,000 in cash and mortgage on his house in Baltimore, to his brother Isaac Levy, $1,000 and all debts due him on notes, to Mitchell M. Levy, son of his brother, Joseph P. Levy, $1,000 in cash, to Eliza Hendricks, of Cincinnati, Ohio, the income of $1,000 to his nephew Morton Phillips, of New Orleans, his gold hunting watch and $500, to Colonel T. Moses of South Carolina a sliver urn, formerly belonging to Dr. Philips on which is engraved, “From Captain Uriah P. Levy, United States Navy, to his kinsman, Colonel Franklin Moses, Senator of the State of South Carolina, as a testimony of my affection.”

There are also legacies of $100 each to Captain John B. Montgomery, Captain Lawrence Kearney and Captain Francis Gregory, United States Navy, and Benj. F. Butler, to purchase mourning rings.  To Lieutenants Peter Turner and John Moffat, U. S. Navy, and Dr. John J. Cohen and Jacob J. Cohen, Jr., Col. M. Cohen, United States Navy, Lieutenant Lanier, Captain Wm. Meroine and Commodore Thomas Ap C Jones, each $25, to purchase mourning rings.

The will directs the executors to erect a monument at Cypress Hills, to consist of a full length statue of Captain Levy, in iron or bronze, in the full uniform of a Captain of the United States Navy and holding his hand a scroll on which shall be inscribed, “Under this monument,” or “In the memory of Uriah P. Levy – Captain in the United States Navy, Father of the Law for Abolition of the Barbarous Practice of Corporal Punishment in the Navy of the United States.”  The monument is to cost $6,000, and the body is to be buried under it.

To the Historical Society are bequeathed three paintings – the Wreck of the Medusa frigate, by Gericault, the Descent of the infant Jesus and Virgin Confessing the Bishop of Rouen, and a Rural Scene by Carl Bonner.  He then bequeaths his farm and estate at Monticello, Va., formerly belonging to President Thomas Jefferson, with all the residue of his estate, “to the People of the United States,” or such persons as Congress shall appoint to receive it, and especially all my real estate in the city of New York in trust for the sole and only purpose of establishing and maintaining at the farm in Monticello, Va., an agricultural school for the purpose of educating, as practical. farmers children of the Warrant Office of the United States Navy whose fathers are dead, the children to be supported by this fund from the ages of twelve to sixteen.”  For fuel and fencing said farm school, [the] will bequeaths two hundred acres of woodland of his Washington farm, Va.

The will especially requires that no professorships be established in said school and no professors being employed, the school being intended for charity and not for pomp.  In case Congress refuses to carry out the intention of this bequests the property is bequeathed to the people of Virginia for the same purpose, and incase the legislature of Virginia declines to received the trust the property is to go to the Portuguese Hebrew Congregation in this city and the Old Portuguese Hebrew Congregation in Cherry street, Philadelphia, and the Portuguese Hebrew Congregation of Richmond Va., for the establishment of said school at Monticello, for the children of all denominations, Hebrew and Christian.

Should this fund be more than sufficient for the support of children of warrant officers of the navy, the children of sergeant-majors of the United States army are to be included in the benefit – the balance to be for the benefit of children of seamen.  He further bequeaths $1,000 to the Portuguese Hebrew Hospital of this city.

The executors are Benjamin F. Butler, D. V. S. Coddington, Ashel S. Levy, Jos. H. Patten, Joshua Cohen, Jacob J. Cohen, George Carr, and John B. Blake, who are also created trustees of the estate.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, June 7, 1862, p. 1

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Washington Correspondence

WASHINGTON, April 15, 1862.

Was the battle at Pittsburgh a victory, or was it not a victory? Did the secretary of War “put his foot in it,” in making it the subject of devout thanksgiving, or did he not? These are about the commonest questions agitated here just now. I think the general judgment is very clearly – certainly it is mine – that it was a victory, but not one to brag about, very much; and that Secretary Stanton was a little more hasty and inconsiderate than the occasion justified, in the extent and character of his thanks.

Mrs. Harlan and Mrs. Fales from Iowa, left here a few days ago for Pittsburg, to assist in the nursing of our wounded soldiers. Mrs. Harlan is the wife of our estimable Senator, and has all the season manifested a practical interest in the welfare of our soldiers. Of Mrs. Fales I desire to speak especially, for she is deserving of public notice. She is the wife of Mr. Joseph T. Fales, and was formerly a resident of Burlington. Her husband is an Assistant Examiner in the Patent Office. From the first arrival of troops here, she has devoted her attention exclusively to alleviating the sufferings of the sick and wounded. Day and night she has been wherever her services were most needed, and I have been greatly surprised that she or any other woman was physically able to endure such incessant and exhausting labor. Nevertheless she goes about her business with a daily renewed vigor, not with any desire for notoriety, but under a sense of plain Christian duty. And she brings to the discharge of her duties and unusual fund of practical good sense and efficiency.

Our friend Samuel F. Miller, of Iowa, has just left here. If a new circuit is created west of the Mississippi, he will be a candidate for nomination to the Supreme Bench of the United States. I think you will agree with me that there are few men who, in all respects, are better fitted for the position, and certainly to men of our ways of thinking few would be more satisfactory. I would be very glad to swap off for him any member now sitting on that Bench.

The speech of Senator Grimes on the connection of negroes with the army, yesterday, meets with much applause from all those who have a realizing sense of the condition and tendency of things. It goes to the root of the matter, and many of those to whom his ideas are distasteful think – “fear,” they say – that “to this complexion must we come at last.” The delay in traveling towards the goal to which we are traveling and must travel, is costing us an amount of debt and blood that, in the retrospect, will cause us to shudder, and to ask why we should have been so blind, so reluctant, and so cowardly.

The next encounter with the Merrimac is awaited with the liveliest interest here, and I am persuaded is also a matter of much fear at the Navy Department, notwithstanding the bold face that is assumed. Several new kinds of shot have been provided for the Monitor, among them shells with a liquid that takes fire on explosion, similar to, or the same as, those that have been experimentally exploded there during the winter. Of their frightful nature, I have been witness. Water has no effect in quenching their flames.

The Com. Levy, of the Navy, who was buried with such honors in New York, two or three weeks ago, was a Jew, and the possessor of the homestead of Thomas Jefferson, “Monticello.” He was very rich. He has not, however, been allowed to enjoy the estate of Mr. Jefferson, as having married his own niece, the gentlemen of the region notified him, on its purchase, that he could not be allowed to live among them, on account of this marital alliance, at which they expressed an exceeding disgust. They gave him the privilege of residing on it one month in the year, merely that he might be able to look after its condition. A short time since it was “confiscated” by Virginia, though the Union army are likely soon to bring it back for the benefit of his heirs.

It would seem strange, that people, and a daily paper, right here in this city, should, as they do, vehemently maintain, even yet, that there were no wooden guns at Centerville, and try to bring those into contempt and ridicule who maintain the fact. And strange, too, that such a journal as Harper’s Weekly, that must know the facts should persistently lampoon and caricature, in the must imprudent and malignant manner people of character for asserting and insisting on the veracity of the statement. There are hundreds here who saw those guns. Mr. Julian, of the War Committee, told me he saw them himself, and should have counted them if he ever supposed their existence would have been questioned. Mr. Elbert, from Iowa, just appointed Secretary of Colorado, was there early with his brother, who is an officer in the army, and tells me the same thing; and that it was apparent that they had long been there, - in fact no other guns could stand upon their foundations without breaking through. Surely the partisanship of McClellan must be very blind and bitter to need the denial of such indisputable facts. Still, perhaps I am myself quite as unreasonable in the other extreme, for it is my deliberate and unimpassioned opinion that the war has not disclosed and cannot disclose such another stupendous humbug as Gen. McClellan. I greatly fear an unfortunate result in the limited (though immensely important) field to which his department has finally been reduced, though the extent and character of his force together with the completeness of its equipment give me a moderate degree of assurance that the campaign cannot fail.

– Published in The Burlington Weekly Hawk-Eye, Burlington, Iowa, Saturday, April 26, 1862, p. 1