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JEFFERSON 8/3/2013 5:48:57 AM
My only son, Robert Paul Mills, was born August 9, 1952, and I promptly named him Po-po after singer Guy Mitchell’s hit record lyrics Feet up, pat him on the po-po, let’s hear him laugh! Ha!-Ha! Ha!
As a promising young D.J. at the time on his first radio job, and I wanted my son to be a junior, but his mother said No! His middle name will be Paul!, after her father. I indifferently said OK; he was, after all, a Mills, and THE Robert Mills was our (alleged) cousin removed many times, a personal friend of Thomas Jefferson.
Remembered as the designer of the Washington Monument, the Treasury Building, the U.S. Patent Building, and many well-known federal structures in the nation’s capitol, THE Robert Mills also designed the University of South Carolina campus, numerous churches and countless pre- and antebellum mansions and plantations.
For an engaged couple, a pair of lovers to whom he was introduced by Jefferson, Mills designed and built the Robert Mills House on Blanding Street in Columbia — the couple never lived there (nor did Mills) but it stands today as a landmark in that quaint South Carolina city.
After Jefferson left the presidency, Mills, among others, became a frequent visitor to Monticello. During dinner one night, the architect said, My god, Tom, it’s warm in here! (It was one of those breezeless August evenings in Virginia; if you ever lived there, you know what I mean.)
I’ll see what I can do, replied his host.
Jefferson, an architect and inventor in his own right, set about to reconstruct his dumb waiter to allow air to waft up from the kitchen below, circulate throughout the house, and thus afford his guests a slightly a cooler atmosphere in which to dine.
Because electricity had not yet been discovered and ice was virtually non-existent outside the icehouse, Jefferson instructed his slaves to place a well-salted reindeer carcass and a 100 lb. block of ice from the icehouse at the entrance to the dumb waiter to allow its coolness to permeate the shaft, now vacant, as he had removed the tray.
In the winter he merely told his slaves to allow the kitchen hearth and stoves to heat up fully — the natural phenomena that warm air rises did the rest.
To my knowledge, the Wright brothers were never guests at Monticello, but Jefferson’s interest in flight was boundless. He might have been the first to note that the hawk was able to sustain a maneuverable glide path, while changing directions, while searching for food among the Blue Ridge Mountains.
The original Jefferson library contained many sketchbooks of drawings he had made, depicting hawks and albatrosses in actual flight, books that were lost when Jefferson was forced to sell of his magnicent collection.
But he had noted that the tail construction of nearly all birds allowed uncanny control of direction, and that the incredible wingspan of hawks, eagles, albatrosses and condors enabled them to glide almost interminably through the sky.
Mostly, it was Jefferson who noticed that flight was maintained because (a direct quote) air seems to come from below and push the bird upward, as if some mysterious force were created, perhaps by the flapping of wings, or his forward motion, to keep the bird airborne (unquote). This may have been the first time anyone had ever broached the phenomena of vacuum, not withstanding the word was never mentioned.
Without this knowledge, however, it is doubtful the Wright brothers would have succeeded at Kill Devil Hill years later (even Ben Franklin admitted Jefferson had commented) that (quote — the areas between struts in a kite all puff upwards when the toy is aloft, as though something were pushing [it] up — unquote).
John Holt, the Philadelphia publisher, was the first to read Jefferson’s early drafts of The Preamble to the Constitution and The Declaration of Independence, although they were written three weeks apart.
You, sir, have a way with words, Holt said. Did you read over the entire Constitution?
I did, Jefferson replied. In fact, I wrote most of it myself, with Jimmy’s help.
What do you think? the publisher asked.
The nation’s future 3rd president did not answer immediately. Then, seated at his desk, he said, I think it is a most magnificent document. It needs some work — King George will be pissed, but that’s too bad. It will, I suppose, mean war. But we will win — good always triumphs over evil. The blood of patriots must often be shed to nourish the Tree of Democracy.
It will, however, require some changes over time. Call them amendments, if you will. He added, I think it will require us to declare our independence beforehand.
May I see the finished product before anyone else?
Sure, said Jefferson; I’ve always said you’re a damned good editor.
As mentioned earlier, electricity was not yet available, and once the sun went down, candles, as dangerous as they were, and smelly, unreliable oil lamps were the only illumination one could expect. Consequently, reading was limited to daylight hours, and most people went to bed shortly after dinner and stayed there until morning. Perhaps that alone accounts for our forefathers having families in large numbers.
It was Thomas Masseth, a Virginia neighbor, an overnight guest one year, whom Jefferson found rummaging about the library long after bedtime.
What, may I ask, are you doing up? the third future president inquired, adjusting his eyesight to the dancing candelabra.
Looking for something to read, replied his guest. I can’t sleep.
How can you see?
Oh, I can see all right. Quite well, actually. Here, let me show you.
Masseth took Jefferson to his bedroom and showed him a most unusual contraption. It was a box, really, a magic lamp, which held a single candle. On each of four sides a circle had been cut out, and a small, curved magnifying glass had been inserted. The illusion of illumination was undeniable.
Ingenious, said Jefferson. May I have that?
Of course.
The next day Jefferson took the contraption to his workroom.When finished, the magic lantern was remodeled with four high-powered lenses installed in larger holes — illumination that night made the entire room light up as never before when the sun had set.
And from that day on reading (and writing) at Monticello often went on until after midnight. In fact, the two historical documents mentioned earlier were finished off a month later shortly before cock crowed at dawn.
Po-po, sadly to say, has never been to Monticello, but someday I will take him there, but first we must visit the Robert Mills House in Columbia
