Daniel P. Jordan, who as president of the foundation that owns Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s plantation in Virginia, expanded his educational mission—and, perhaps most importantly, commissioned a study that found that Jefferson almost certainly had six children with Sally Hemings, one of hundreds of people he enslaved — died March 21 in Charlottesville, Va. He was 85 years old.
His daughter Kathryn Jordan said the cause was a heart attack.
Questions about Jefferson’s relationship with Hemings have circulated among historians and her family for two centuries. In 1993, when Mr. Jordan (pronounced JUR-dun) invited some of her descendants to a memorial for Jefferson at Monticello, he was noncommittal about the question of paternity.
“If there is such a thing as a party line, it’s just that,” he told the Washington Post: “We can’t prove it, we can’t disprove it.”
But five years later, his position had to evolve. The results of the DNA tests, published in the November 5, 1988 issue of the journal Nature, appeared to confirm that Jefferson was the father of Eston Hemings, one of Sally Hemings’ sons. Tests strongly indicated that Eston had the same mutations on the Y chromosome seen in the Jefferson genealogy.
“Although paternity cannot be established with absolute certainty,” Mr. Jordan said at a press conference, “our assessment of the best available evidence suggests a strong possibility that Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings had a relationship over of the year which led to the birth of one and, perhaps, all of Sally Hemings’ known children.’
He added: “Whether it was love or lust, rape or romance, no one knows and it is unlikely that anyone will ever know.”
Annette Gordon-Reed, author of “Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy” (1997) — which examined inconsistencies in scholars’ assessments of existing evidence of their sexual relationship — said Mr. Jordan deftly handled her answer. book and DNA results.
“Commissioning the Jefferson Foundation study of the matter and accepting the findings were the right responses,” he wrote in an email. “He could have bet.”
Daniel Porter Jordan Jr. was born on July 22, 1938 in Philadelphia, Miss. His father was a dentist and his mother, Mildred (Dobbs) Jordan, was a homemaker. At the University of Mississippi, where he played both baseball and basketball, Mr. Jordan studied history and English and graduated with a bachelor’s degree in 1960.
He met Lewellyn Schmelzer, known as Lou, at university. They married in 1961.
After receiving his master’s degree in history from the university in 1962, Mr. Jordan served as an Army infantryman in South Korea and Western Europe and taught history to enlisted men on Army bases through a division of the University of Maryland.
Back home, he continued his education at the University of Virginia, which Jefferson founded. He received a scholarship from the Jefferson Foundation for his studies, and Merrill Peterson, a Jefferson scholar, was his doctoral advisor. He received his Ph.D. in history in 1970.
For the next 14 years, he taught history at the University of Richmond and Virginia Commonwealth University, also in Richmond, where he became chairman of the history department. In 1983 he published a book, Political Leadership in Jefferson’s Virginia.
When he was named the foundation’s executive director in early 1985, Mr. Jordan said his goal was to expand its educational mission. He was elevated to president nine years later.
“We’re in the business of telling people about Thomas Jefferson, educating them in the best sense,” he told The Daily Progress of Charlottesville in 1994. “It’s great if they know that Jefferson was the author of the Declaration of Independence, but the facts they are secondary to his values and ideas.’
During Mr. Jordan’s 23 years at Monticello, publication of Jefferson’s post-presidential letters and other documents began. The Jefferson Library opened, near Monticello, on the campus of the Robert H. Smith International Center for Jefferson Studies. Descendants of Monticello’s enslaved people began being interviewed for an oral history project called Getting Word. and the Historic Plant Center was established to collect and sell plants and seeds grown at Monticello, in addition to other historic and heirloom seeds.
“He was interested in restoring gardens,” Peter Hatch, former director of gardens and grounds at Monticello, who started the plant center, said by phone. “He wasn’t much of a gardener, but he understood the importance of landscaping when you talked about Jefferson.”
Additionally, the plantation’s fortunes increased with the acquisition of nearby Montalto Mountain for $15 million. The leaky main house roof was rebuilt. and the vineyard of the estate was restored.
In 2001, archaeologists located a slave burial site about 2,000 feet from Monticello itself.
“It has been a long-standing goal here at Monticello to determine where the slaves were buried, and we believe we have now found such a site,” Mr. Jordan told The Associated Press. “We view this as an important archaeological find, allowing us to complete another piece of the puzzle in our efforts to investigate and understand all aspects of the Monticello Plantation.”
Before Mr. Jordan arrived, Susan Stein, Richard Gilder’s senior curator of special projects at Monticello, said: ”It was a mom-and-pop place. There were serious scholars here, but Dan elevated them, and me, and really reimagined the place. He envisioned it as a university. That made all the difference.”
After retiring in 2008, Mr. Jordan worked as a consultant for clients, including people who managed historic houses like Monticello and other nonprofit organizations.
In addition to daughter Katherine, Mr. Jordan is survived by his wife; another daughter, Grace Jordan; a son, Daniel III; six grandchildren; and a brother, Joseph.
Mr. Jordan and his family did not stray far from Jefferson’s plantation during his years at the helm of Monticello. He and his family lived in a modern house down the hill from the main house. Mr. Jordan rose early every January 1st to greet the first visitors of the year. And Grace and Katherine Jordan married for her reasons.
“We love being here,” Mr. Jordan told C-SPAN in 1997. “Let me point out that we’re not in the main house, and I should say that Thomas Jefferson’s bedroom is not for rent. We live about 150 meters from the top of the mountain. It’s just absolutely magical.”
