CHARLOTTESVILLE, VA (CVILLE RIGHT NOW) – Archeological excavation has resumed at James Monroe’s Highland in Albemarle County until July 3 on what Highland Executive Director Sara Bon-Harper calls “the lost-and-found main house” on the property. She says the research question started about 10 years ago when the curators and historians “started investigating further some lingering, very much in the background questions about the standing house at Highland”. She says what we see standing there is no remnant of the main house, but using archeological, architectural, and tree-ring dating investigations they’ve determined what we see standing is a guest house built in 1818. The entire main house built in 1799 was entirely destroyed by fire after Monroe sold it. Sometime within 50-to-60 years after all of that, people “kind of forgot and started calling the guest house a remnant wing of Monroe’s main house”.

Using insurance papers, in part, in 2016 archeologists through some educated guessing and luck, they hit some foundation stone of what is the main house. Bon-Harper says excavations have been going on off-and-on in spurts as they are able to raise funds to finance them. This new round of excavating started today (Wed, May 21) and will last five weeks. Visitors to Highland are able to see the work happening, weather permitting, most weekdays as well as Saturday, June 14 which is Descendants Day.

“This is public archeology. We are doing it at this time of year when it’s enticing for people to visit because we do want people to come, look over our shoulders, ask questions, see what we have found, what are the most recent interpretations. That dialogue is part of why we’re doing this as we want to share it with everyone in real time,” Bon-Harper said.

Bon-Harper said they hope to be able to get all the way to the cellar floor on this round of excavation. She said this main house is a discovery that changes our impressions of Mr. Monroe from what had been a more austere and simpler Virginia gentlemen into someone who did engage in some of the pomp of his contemporary Virgnia Governor and Presidential buddies and neighbors Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.

Click here for all of the Highland information for visitation and watch a video of this near decade old excavation project.