Monticello Association - Purposes

Purposes

On Monday, April 14, 1913 (the first business day after Thomas Jefferson's birthday), a group of 13 descendants of Thomas Jefferson met in Charlottesville, Virginia for the first meeting of the Monticello Graveyard Association. Officers were elected, and a constitution and bylaws were adopted. At the Annual Meeting in 1919 the membership voted to drop the word "Graveyard" from the title of The Monticello Association.

While there have been some changes in the Monticello Association during the past 100 years, the scope and purposes of the Monticello Association have remained the same, as stated in Article II of its Constitution. Somewhat abbreviated, they are: (i) to preserve and care for the graves and grounds of the Monticello graveyard, (ii) to protect and perpetuate the reputation and fame of Thomas Jefferson, and (iii) to encourage association and friendship among Mr. Jefferson's descendants. Additional purposes of The Monticello Association include: (i) to defend the property rights of the lineal descendants of Col. T.J. Randolph as owners of the original Monticello graveyard, and (ii) to affirm the rights of the descendants of Thomas Jefferson to burial in the addition to the Monticello graveyard as provided in the covenant under which this property was deeded.

In his will, Jefferson conveyed the graveyard to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., his daughter Martha's husband, and then in trust to Martha Wayles Skelton. He named his eldest grandson, Thomas Jefferson Randolph, as his executor. The original section of the graveyard was given to T.J. Randolph's descendants under a restrictive covenant deed and will, and a subsequent section given to all of the lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson under a restrictive covenant deed.

Thus from its inception, the Monticello graveyard has been available to all lineal descendants of Thomas Jefferson and has been managed and cared for by The Monticello Association as a single unit. Burials in the Monticello graveyard continue to this day.

Read more about this topic:  Monticello Association

Famous quotes containing the word purposes:

    There has been and always will be plenty of arguments about the usefulness and harm of the spreading of the Bible. In my view the Bible will continue to cause harm when used in a dogmatic and fantastic manner; it will do good when used for didactic purposes and with sensitivity.
    Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe (1749–1832)

    Since [Rousseau’s] time, and largely thanks to him, the Ego has steadily tended to efface itself, and, for purposes of model, to become a manikin on which the toilet of education is to be draped in order to show the fit or misfit of the clothes. The object of study is the garment, not the figure.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    O, I am smitten with a hatchet’s jaw;
    And that in deed and not in word alone.
    chorus: I thought I heard a sound within the house
    Unlike the voice of one that jumps for joy.
    He splits my skull, not in a friendly way,
    Once more: he purposes to kill me dead
    —A.E. (Alfred Edward)