Jeffrey Brown:

This summer the foundation opened six new exhibits, including the plantation's first kitchen.

The archaeology uncovered a stew stove of the kind Jefferson found and admired in Paris, where he served as U.S. ambassador to France in the 1780s. Sally's brother, James Hemings, was trained in French cooking in Paris and used the stove here at Monticello.

But the main new addition in what until now was a public restroom for visitors is a display on the life of Sally Hemings in one of the two rooms researchers now believe she lived in.

Part of her story is told in the words of her son Madison who gave an oral history of life at Monticello in 1873. Sally Hemings was just 13 or 14 years old when she went to Paris as a maidservant, and the relationship with Jefferson, then 43, began.

When Jefferson returned home, she could have stayed in Paris as a free woman, but negotiated terms for returning to Monticello, that her future children would be freed at age 21.