Thomas Jefferson's Obelisk: Desecration and Restoration

After enduring over 150 years of wear and tear, Thomas Jefferson’s personally designed tombstone will be restored to its original state.

Long before his passing in 1826, Thomas Jefferson contemplated his inevitable death.  As a boy, he studied beneath the shade of a favorite oak tree with his closest friend Dabney Carr.  The boys promised each other that the survivor would bury the other at the oak’s foot.  When Carr died in 1773, Jefferson followed through on his burial agreement, burying Carr beneath the favorite oak and beginning the Monticello Graveyard.  Carr was only thirty years old.

Later, Jefferson devised explicit instructions for his own burial alongside his childhood friend at Monticello.  Jefferson’s document stated that he desired “a plain die of cube of 3 f[eet] without any moldings, surmounted by an Obelisk of 6 f[oot] height” and provided a sketch of the grave marker. As for the epitaph, Jefferson dictated that on the obelisk’s face ‘the following inscription, & not a word more” should appear:

Here was buried
Thomas Jefferson
Author of the Declaration of American Independence
of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom
& Father of the University of Virginia

Jefferson explained "because by these, as testimonials that I have lived, I wish most to be remembered."  Yet, scholars finding Jefferson’s choice to exclude his presidency from the list perplexing.

In 1833, Jefferson’s grave marker was erected at Monticello according to his instructions.  However, the marker quickly became the subject of vandalism as visitors chipped off pieces of the stone for souvenirs.  Thus, the marker was moved into the house at Monticello for protection.

Years later, Congress passed a joint resolution providing funding for a new monument and the original marker left Monticello permanently.  Jefferson’s descendants decided to donate the original obelisk to the University of Missouri.  The university seemed appropriate because not only was it the first public university in Louisiana Purchase Territory, which Jefferson was instrumental in acquiring, but the university was modeled after Jefferson’s University of Virginia.

On July 4, 1885, the obelisk was officially dedicated to the university, but the marble slab bearing Jefferson’s epitaph remains in disrepair today.  Now, the Smithsonian Museum Conservation Institute will endeavor to restore the stone, but estimates the project will take at least a year to complete.  After, the stone will return to its permanent display at the University of Missouri.  In the meantime, the Smithsonian Institution’s Office of Exhibits Central has created two replicas, one of which will be used for educational presentations.

One final note: grave desecration is illegal in many states today, including Virginia where Jefferson’s replacement grave marker is located.  See Va. Code Ann. § 18.2-127 (making grave desecration a Class 6 felony).

Evelyn Norton