DATE: Monday, November 10, 1997             TAG: 9711090004

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E6   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: Larry Maddry 

                                            LENGTH:   85 lines

``LEWIS & CLARK'' LIKELY TO FOCUS INTEREST ON JEFFERSON, MONTICELLO

MONTICELLO, THE home of Thomas Jefferson at Charlottesville, is destined to receive a big boost in attendance once again, thanks to Ken Burns, the master of public-television documentaries.

``Last March we got an immediate 30 percent boost in attendance after Burns' TV biography of Thomas Jefferson appeared on public television,'' said Elizabeth Dowling Taylor. ``And his latest work on Lewis & Clark's expedition will have a similar effect.''

Taylor is the head guide at Monticello, where nearly everyone on the staff watched Burns' epic documentary ``Lewis & Clark: The Journey of the Corps of Discovery'' last week.

The significance of the corps' odyssey across the North American continent - the first undertaken by non-Indians - is underscored by Stephen Ambrose in his book ``Undaunted Courage: Meriwether Lewis, Thomas Jefferson and the Opening of the American West.''

Ambrose notes that when Jefferson - surely the most enlightened white man on the continent - took office in 1801, he believed these things:

``That the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia might be the highest on the continent; that the mammoth, the giant ground sloth, and other prehistoric creatures would be found along the upper Missouri; that a mountain of pure salt a mile long lay somewhere on the Great Plains; that volcanoes might still be erupting in the Badlands of the upper Missouri; that all great rivers of the West - the Missouri, Columbia, Colorado and Rio Grande - rose from a single `height of land' and flowed off in their several directions to the seas of the hemisphere. Most important, he believed there might be a water connection, linked by a low portage across the mountains, that would lead to the Pacific.''

The entrance hall to Monticello contains two items related to the expedition, which Lewis and Clark, both Virginians, undertook under President Jefferson's direction from 1803 to 1806.

One is a large pair of elk antlers, connected by a frontal bone, which are mounted on a wall. They are from an elk killed on the expedition - one of 50 killed over the winter of 1804-05.

``The antlers are believed to have been from a moose found in the Fort Mandan area, part of what is now North Dakota,'' Taylor said.

Another item in the entrance hall is a bighorn sheep head. The one displayed is similar to the one that hung on the wall during Jefferson's time, given to him by the corps leaders.

The exotic trophies from the expedition caught the attention of Monticello visitors during Jefferson's time, and they often commented on the curiosities in their letters, Taylor noted.

Another item that can be seen by visitors to the Jefferson home is a reproduction of a Lewis and Clark buffalo robe given to the president. It's embellished with a scene from a battle between Mandan and Sioux Indians.

Last week, another reproduction was placed on display at Monticello, a likeness of one given to Jefferson. It is a Northern Plains Indian ``society shirt'' made of buckskin decorated with human and horsehair, porcupine quills and glass beads. Taylor said the original is at the Peabody Museum in Cambridge, Mass., but is too fragile to display.

On the grounds at Monticello, plants of the type Lewis and Clark brought back from their voyage can be found. (There are trees growing at the University of Virginia, outside Morea, a guest house, that grew from cuttings Lewis sent to Jefferson.)

``Monticello guides are getting more questions about Jefferson's connection with Lewis and Clark than before because of the latest Burns documentary,'' Taylor said. ``But discussions of the expedition have always been part of our tours because of the maps and artifacts displayed.''

Taylor noted that many of the scenes of Monticello that appeared in Burns' epic on Lewis and Clark were filmed when the producer was doing the earlier series on Jefferson.

Ambrose, a technical adviser for the latest project, is a frequent visitor to Monticello. In June, he spoke at a dinner for donors.

In a sense, there were five prominent Virginians linked with the Lewis and Clark expedition, Taylor recalled. Three of them became presidents: Jefferson, James Monroe and James Madison.

The continent-crossing expedition was undertaken, in part, to explore the lands the United States had acquired as a result of the Louisiana Purchase in July 1803. Jefferson was president, James Madison was secretary of state and James Monroe was special envoy to France.

Tours exploring the friendship of those three men who became presidents will be given this winter at Monticello, beginning Dec. 1. ILLUSTRATION: Photo

R. LAUTMAN/MONTICELLO

The entrance hall to Monticello features a large pair of antlers

from an elk killed on the Lewis and Clark expedition. They were

given to Thomas Jefferson.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu