Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, June 27, 1994 TAG: 9407230004
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
At a ceremony Tuesday night at the Department of the Treasury in Washington, D.C., representatives for Monticello and Poplar Forest will receive checks from the Mint.
The Mint's complete issue of 600,000 Jefferson coins sold out June 20, after a little more than two months on the market. Created to commemorate Jefferson's 250th birthday last April 13, the coin was issued a year late because of legislative delays.
A silver dollar, the coin features the 1805 Medallion Portrait of Jefferson by 19th-century painter Gilbert Stuart on its front with the inscription, "Thomas Jefferson - Architect of Democracy." On its reverse side, there is a depiction of Monticello based on new drawings by the Historic American Buildings Survey.
Sold at $35 apiece, the coins included a $10 surcharge to benefit Monticello and Poplar Forest.
"I see . . . [the coin funds] as a major milestone," said Lynn A. Beebe, executive director of the Corporation for Jefferson's Poplar Forest, the nonprofit organization that owns and operates the third president's retreat.
"We've all worked so hard to rescue Poplar Forest. This is a special opportunity to start ensuring Poplar Forest's future preservation."
The corporation, which formed more than 10 years ago, has spent more than $7 million so far to purchase and restore Poplar Forest, but it says it has a long way to go. A recent fund-raising campaign, independent of coin sales, has raised $3 million. Poplar Forest's owners want to raise an additional $2.5 million for projects such as the restoration of the home's brick exterior.
As for the $1 million raised by the Mint coin, Beebe said it will be used to create an endowment, which the corporation hopes will grow through investment.
The Thomas Jefferson Memorial Foundation, the nonprofit organization that owns and operates Monticello, has similar plans for its $5 million share of the Mint coin.
Paula Faust, the foundation's director of development and public affairs, said the money will be used to create an endowment for the foundation's new International Center for Jefferson Studies, which will open in the fall.
Operated in cooperation with the University of Virginia, the center will offer college-level classes and act as an information clearinghouse for Jefferson scholars from around the world. Built on Kenwood, a Jeffersonian property that was used as a retreat by presidents Franklin D. Roosevelt and Dwight Eisenhower, the center will include research and archaeology libraries.
Douglas L. Wilson, one of the nation's leading Jefferson experts and a history professor from Galesburg, Ill.-based Knox College, has been named the center's director.
Faust said the center is "a very exciting undertaking that has been a vision here for many years. . . . But it is the [$5 million] endowment that enabled us to get it started."
by CNB