Name:   MAJ USA RET - Subject:   Thomas Jefferson Date:   11/19/2010 2:36:53 PM

AND... he covered his personal expenses out of his own pocket (for his services up until he became president.  When he died, Monticello went into hock.  Then it went into disrepair.

When Thomas Jefferson died, famously on July 4, 1826, he left behind more than $100,000 in debt. His heirs were forced to sell his Monticello, the beloved and beautiful home that he had designed. As a result of Jefferson's constant money woes, the house was already decaying. Eight years later, by now in a state of almost total ruin, the house was sold to the pugnacious Commodore Uriah Phillips Levy, one of the most colorful figures in American Jewish history. Levy is famed for his successful and, at the time, controversial campaign to end corporal punishment in the navy. As one of the few Jews in the navy, he was subject to constant petty antisemitic insults that the combative Levy would never ignore. This inevitably led to fights and duels. He was court-martialed and ultimately vindicated six times

The Levy Family and Monticello, 1834-1923: Saving Thomas Jefferson's House. By Melvin I. Urofsky. Monticello: Thomas Jefferson Foundation, 2001. 256 pp.