University of Virginia Library

A Quorum Meets

When the 1824 spring meeting of the Board of Visitors began on Monday 5 April there was
nothing for the quorum of Jefferson, Madison, Cocke, and Johnson to act upon in regard to
the buildings so the board proceeded to take "such preparatory measures" as could be taken
in regard to bringing the university into "opperation with as little delay as practicable," by
discussing the "accounts and estimates now rendered by the Bursar and the Proctor," and by
appointing Virginia attorney Francis Walker Gilmer agent for a mission to procure
professors from Europe.[612] Those accounts might have included Brockenbrough's estimate
of the cost of the Rotunda derived from the contracts already entered into towards its
completion. Those figures included $10,761.72 for brickwork materials and labor, $10,165
for the Carrara marble bases and capitals and their transportation from Leghorn to America,
$1,455 for stone window and door sills, back steps, and terraces, $6,165 for "Materials
principally Lumber & iron," $2,000 for "Tin & Copper for the roof of Dome & Portico," and
$500 for "Glass & Glazing including the sky light." The total came to $31,046.72, and
Brockenbrough estimated that another $10,000 could cover the "Nails, hard ware, painting
& Workmans bills."[613] Considering the cost incurred so far in erecting the hull of the
Rotunda and the proctor's vague projections for additional costs, it is hard to conceive that
anyone on the board still believed that the interior of the building could be finished without
exceeding Jefferson's original 1822 estimate for the building of less than $50,000. If any of
the visitors complained it failed to get lodged into the record, however. On 6 April the board
was prevented from regathering by a "constant and heavy rain" but on the 7th the visitors,
now joined by Cabell, reconvened to discuss the curricula for the various schools and the
purchasing of "Such Books and Apparatus as may be deemed most useful for the
commencement of the Several Schools in the University."[614]

The board planned to open the university to students on 1 February 1825, "taking the
intermediate time to procure professors" from Europe, Jefferson informed Nicholas P. W.
Trist shortly after the visitors' meeting, and to put the Rotunda, "the only unfinished
building," into a state for use. (Jefferson also told Trist that "Charlottesville is building
fast.")[615] This long-awaited decision was made possible by another long-anticipated piece
of good luck that finally had fallen the university's way during the preceding winter. Senator
Cabell reluctantly turned over his guardianship of the university's political affairs in the
General Assembly to General Breckinridge in late November, expecting to remain away
from Richmond until near the end of the legislative session,[616] but unexpectedly (and
fortunately) he was able to return "hastily over stormy rivers, and frozen roads, to re-join the
band of steadfast patriots engaged in the holy cause of the University" at his old apartment
in Richmond's Eagle Hotel less than two weeks later. When he took his seat in the Virginia
senate on 3 December Cabell was made aware immediately that Governor James Pleasants,
Jr., "a man of great prudence and discretion," was promoting the claims of the university in
the legislature in "his happiest manner," and that the popular sentiment was "decidedly" in
favor of removing the university's entire debt.[617] Cabell worked tirelessly during the
session to get bills passed in the General Assembly remitting the $180,000 debts incurred in
the construction of the buildings of the university and granting a gift of $50,000 for the
purchase of books and other "apparatus." By late January 1824 he had been confined to his
room for two weeks, and his bed for a week, by an "excruciating rheumatic affection of my
head, contracted by sleeping near a damp wall."[618] The first victory came through before
the month ended, however, when the senate unanimously passed a bill sent up by the House
of Delegates for the remission of the university's debts,[619] and the bonus came on the last
day of the legislative session in March.[620] In fact, Cabell's absence from the Board of
Visitors' meeting until the third day was because of his attendance in Washington to lobby
President Monroe and the "general government" of the United States to settle the interest on
the debt it had previously discharged to the state of Virginia for the latter's "liberal spirit
towards the government of the Union" during the War of 1812, and from which the money
to pay for the remission of the university's debts must come.[621]