Where our forefathers have trod - Part 2

Today we left Alexandria and headed for Charlottesville, VA and the estate of Monticello. The former home of Thomas Jefferson. Besides the fact that Jefferson is important in American history over all as he wrote the Declaration of Independence, and was our 3rd President, he was also a close personal friend of William Few. It was fun to tour the estate and once again to walk the halls where William may have visited from time to time when he was a US Senator. We weren't allowed to take interior pictures, but it was set up much like Mount Vernon. Had a foyer, guest rooms, and personal quarters with a study. Jefferson was quite intelligent, and even more of an experimenter than George Washington. He even succeeded in creating a micro climate on part of his estate and increased the growing season there by two months! A couple of other things I found interesting.

• Jefferson had a type of copy machine that used two pens that would copy what the writer would write.
• The house was one of the first US residential structures to employ skylights, and also double paned doors and windows. Something that we have today.
• Jefferson would share and exchange seeds from all over the world and see what would grow on his estate. He even had a greenhouse off of his personal study. Even the guys house garden was the length of three football fields!
• Side note, he would only share and exchange seeds with his closest family and friends. More on that a bit later.

West Lawn side of the mansion.

I can see why he chose a "Little Mountain" to put his house on.

This fish pond was used to preserve fish that were caught elsewhere for future use.

The following shows the first building on the property, and where Jefferson, his wife, and at least one of their children lived while the main house was being built. It was one room with a bed and a kitchen in the basement. Probably not much bigger than a dorm room.

View from the outside.

Beds for adults and one child, and a fireplace was all there was.

The kitchen in the basement.

The garden tour was probably the most interesting for me. I'm not much of a green-thumb, but seeing how things were things were set up to not only be useful, but good to look at as well. The tour guide mentioned that Jefferson loved his salads (he grew over thirty varieties of lettuce). In fact he enjoyed olive oil on his salads, but it was expensive to import, so he started growing benne plants (a close cousin to sesame) for their seeds to be pressed into oil. Its probably not well known, but I happen to know the guy that introduced that idea to Jefferson, ad his name is William Few! You see, in my research I found a series of letters written between Thomas Jefferson and William Few - they had nothing to do with politics. In fact, it was all about this wonder seed called Bene that, when processed, was almost the same as olive oil. I will leave the transcribed letters below.

Letter dated Sept. 26th, 1807 - From William Few to Thomas Jefferson:

"Sir,

I take the liberty of sending to you by Mr. Gallatin a little of salad oil. The first perhaps that has survived in the United States. It was purified from the seed of a plant which grows in the Southern States and is known there by the name of Bene (Benne) and is cultivated in those states by the negroes only for their own use. The pod which contains the seed before it is matured, I am told is the part which they use. 
I have not learned the Botanic term of the plant nor under what clase (class) or order it is arranged. 
The seed was sent to me from Georgia by Mr. (John) Milledge of the Senate of the United States whose Agricultural and scientific researches have rendered important services (end of 1st page) to that state. 
Six bushels of the feed produces about six gallons of cold drawn oil, of the quality I send, and about twelve gallons of warm drawn oil that is not quite so pure and well tasted, but it may be used as salad oil or for painting and lamps.
 
I am sir with sincere respect,
Your most ob. Servant, 
William Few"

Letter dated Jan. 3rd, 1808 - From Thomas Jefferson to William Few

"Sir,

I thank you for the specimen of Benni oil which you were so kind as to send me. I did not believe before that there existed so perfect a substitute for olive oil. I tried it at table with many companies & their guesses between two dishes of sallad dressed, the one with olive oil, the other with that of Beni, shewed the equality of the latter, in favor of which the greater number guessed. certainly I would prefer to have it always fresh from my own fields to the other brought across the Atlantic and exposed in hot warehouses. I am therefore determined to go into the culture of it for domestic use, and would be thankful to you for the process of expressing the oil from the seed in which you appear to have succeeded so perfectly. all the minutiae in new processes give aid towards perfecting them. Dr. Mitchell supposes the Benni is a sesamum.

Accept my salutations and assurances of great esteem and respect.

Th: Jefferson"

Letter dated Jan. 11th, 1808 - From William Few to Thomas Jefferson:

"Sir,

I have had the pleasure of viewing your letter of the 3d inst. relative to the process of expressing the oil from the Bene (Benne) seed. There is very little difficulty in the operation. The common flaxseed mill is the machine I used: great care must be taken to have it well cleansed. The method I pursued was in the first instance was to put the Bene (Benne) seed under press in its crude state without grinding or heating, and after pressing from it all the oil it would yield which appeared to be one third part of the oil the seed contained. 
The seed was then taken from the press and ground and heated and pressed again, but the oil of it produced was not quite too fine and pure. It tasted a little of the flaxseed but it may be used for the table. It does well for the lamp and would probably do in painting.

If I was to make another experiment and had a new mill or machine that was not impregnated with the flaxseed oil: I would first grind the seed and press it without heating and then grind it again and heat it and press it again. By this process I should expect to get more than two thirds of the oil from the seed then the first operation of pressing which would be pure and good salad oil.

(Page 2)

The second pressing after heating would produce inferior oil and perhaps in quantity about one third.

I have lately seen an extract from the transactions of the Bath Agricultural Society in England from which it appears that the poppy has been cultivated in France, Flanders, and Hollond for the purpose of making salad oil for table use, and it has been fully proved that the oil made from the seed of poppy is sweet, wholesome & nutritious and it does not in the least partake of the narcotic property of the plant. The whole poppy is preferred, but the blue guilds most seed and the oil is quite as good.

It is said that the oil is often mixed with the olive oil, and it is probable that a great proportion of the oil use in this country that mixed kind.

I am sir with sincere respect,

Your most ob. Servant,
William Few"

From what the tour guides said, Jefferson would only engage in this type of exchange with close personal friends. The fact that the letter from Jefferson states that he shared the sample with his guests seems to corroborate this. It is unclear if the letters continued or if there are others. The three mentioned above are in the library of Congress and appear to be the only surviving copies between the two. It is also fun to note that William Few appeared to be an experimenter himself, as he was figuring out, by trial and error, how to extract the oil to get the best quantity and quality.

Here are some pictures of the planting areas.

Jefferson liked trees, here is a deciduous pine tree.

Jeffersons estate once covered 6000 acres. That included the mountain (hill) in the background.

Looking back at Monticello from the tree farm.

This area was once covered with different types of trees that were not necessarily local.

The house garden was/is the length of three football fields.

Looking over the embankment to what would have been the orchard.

The vineyards.

Appeared to be a sewing platform over the garden. Quite the view!

Thats all for today. For the next few days we will be making short stops as we discover more about Few family history. Stay tuned!

Where our forefathers have left their mark

Today was sobering day number two. We had the opportunity to go to Arlington Cemetery on our last day in D.C. They have an app that you can download where you can search for anyone in the cemetery, so I decided to just put in "Few" to see what came up. I was surprised to see that there were six grave sites. Unfortunately, they were spread out all throughout the grounds. That meant that my determination to visit each site required us to walk another four miles! At least we have been getting our exercise. Anyway, I am not sure how I would be related to these individuals, but I do know that every Few is related in one way or another.

Carl Few served in WWII and Korea

Carl's son Richard Few was buried beside him.

Arthur Few served in WWI and WWII

Arthurs wife Doris was buried beside him.

Eugene Few appears to have served in WWI as the 157th Depot Brigade  was only active from 1917-1919

Robert Few served in Korea and Vietnam

 After finding the Few grave sites we took in the grounds and the immensity of it all. There was an active funeral as we went along, and grounds keepers working on new areas in preparation. Crista asked me if I found it creepy to be wandering through a graveyard the day before halloween. While I don't believe in such things anyway, I have been in some creepy cemetery's in my life - this was not one of them. This one inspired a sense of awe at the amount of individuals that laid down their own lives for our freedom, past present and future. These markers don't even touch the tip of the iceberg. Many are missing, or are buried elsewhere.

A trip to Arlington Cemetery wouldn't be complete without a stop by the site of Unknown Solider to see the changing of the guard maneuvers. During the off-season this happens ever hour on the hour, and boy they are not late! As soon as the clock struck 11:00am local time things were on their way. I appreciated how everyone in attendance was completely silent. If only we could command that amount of respect elsewhere!

After we finished up at Arlington we made our way over to the National Archives building back downtown. This is where all of the important documents from this country are kept. From the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution all the way up to any current Bills that are signed into law. Unfortunately, I was not able to take pictures, even ones without flash, as the documents are very fragile and some have faded past being able to read them in their entirety. The Declaration of Independence is in the worst shape. The Constitution is in pretty good condition and I was able to see the real signature of William Few. As I said, I was not permitted to get a picture, but I will provide the digital version of it below. See if you can spot His signature in the Georgia bracket.

Time to pack up and move on to the next spot. We shall be visiting the house of another one of the Founding Fathers, who also just happened to be a personal friend of William Few!

Monuments of the ages.

Day three in D.C. was our monuments day. We once again waited until after rush hour to make the drive into town. Being as this is technically off season for tourism, there were not a lot of people about. We walked a total of six miles and saw nine monuments, and it all took three hours! It was interesting to see the things that I have only seen in pictures and in history books.

Jefferson Memorial

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Franklin D. Roosevelt Memorial

Martin Luther King Memorial

District of Columbia Memorial

Korean War Memorial

Lincoln Memorial

One thing about the Few family that is both cool and sad at the same time is that there has been a Few that has been a part of every war the United States has been in. From the Revolutionary war to present day. My grandfather, Donald Few, served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War. I also know at least one Few that is currently serving in the USAF. I thought it would be interesting to see if there were any other Few's listed on the Vietnam and WWII war monuments. I found a Few listed on each one!

Vietnam War Memorial

The squirrels are even quite friendly here. William was upset that it was time to take a nap, and a curious little fellow decided to come up and appeared to be concerned with his welfare. I actually think he was looking for crackers, as he was quite happy with the Cheez-it we gave him. ;)

Hungry squirrel

Washington Monument (unfortunately it is closed for renovations.

The White House from the Washington Monument.

All in all it was a good day, and we got more than enough exercise. Considering we came back to Alexandria and decided to doodle around the local shops on the main drag and do some tourist shopping. Time for bed it is! Tomorrow we will be going to Arlington Cemetery and the National Archive to finally see the signature of William Few Jr. on the Constitution!

Flora, fauna and the blue sky above.

Today was day two in the D.C. area. We had originally planned to jump an Uber to save the hassle of parking. Unfortunately, it appears no one is aware that a stroller can fit in the trunk of a Toyota Camry. No worries though, since it is Sunday we decided to drive our rental car the 15 minutes into downtown and found parking a couple of blocks away from the Air and Space Museum. We spent the next four hours learning about pretty much everything that flies above, and orbits the earth. I was hoping to see one of the Space Shuttles, but apparently it is located at a sister museum sit located somewhere in Virginia. So, I picked out a few of my favorite areas.

Had to get a picture of one of the models used in the Original Star Trek series.

Rockets anyone?

Had to settle for a model.

The type of aircraft that Amelia Earhart flew.

Yes, that is the original Wright Brothers first flyer.

Chuck Yeagers Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis. I used to play a computer flight simulator game that was narrated by Chuck via cassette tape when I was a kid.

Charles Linburh's Spirit of St. Louis

After the Air and Space Museum we headed over to the Botanical Gardens to check out the local and worldly plant life. The tropical section was a welcome relief to the cooler weather we have been having. After that we went for a casual stroll around the National Mall Park.

Botanical Gardens

Capital Building

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial

William Few wasn't in national politics at the time, to be able to see what Washington D.C. would become, but he was a Senator when the decision to make the Capital here. He would have likely seen the original Capital building as well as the White House finished, as president Adams was the first President to reside there. At that point in time William was himself residing in New York and was busy being President the City Bank of New York, which is known presently as Citi Bank. Additionally he was appointed Inspector of Prisons and was also practicing a bit of law. We will explore more about William Few and his life when we get to Georgia next weekend.

Tomorrow we go see the monuments!