University of Virginia Library

V
The Librarians
of the First Hundred Years

THERE WERE nine Librarians during the first
hundred years of the University of Virginia
Library. In the preceding historical sketch there
have been recorded details concerning the library
services of each of the nine, with some indication of the
place of each in the slowly changing conception of the
position of Librarian. But Librarians are persons; and it
now seems fitting to throw such light as may be possible on
the backgrounds and personal characteristics of those nine.
An effort will be made to keep repetition at a minimum.
Therefore, to complete each picture, what has already been
noted in the historical sketch should be added to the personal
records which follow. In some cases the outlines will
still be faint. It would seem that Librarians not infrequently
qualify for the role of the unknown citizen.

These were nine quite different personalities, and one
cannot from them generalize about the attitude of the
community toward the genus Librarian. But the comment
of one shrewd observer, David Culbreth, who was a student
at the University midway in those hundred years, from
1872 to 1877, is suggestive. He was writing of the one of
the nine, William Wertenbaker, whose librarianship covered
nearly half, forty-three years, of the century. “While
the students,” said Culbreth in his book, The University of
Virginia: Memories of Her Student-Life and Professors,

“never placed him on the same plane with the professors,
yet they appeared to look upon him as a kind of paternal
spirit deserving all honor and kindness.”

1. JOHN VAUGHAN KEAN (1803–1876)
Librarian 1825

The first Librarian, John Vaughan Kean, had the shortest
term, one year. It will be recalled that during 1825 the
collection of books was small, it was temporarily located in
a pavilion on West Lawn, and it was open for students only
one hour a week. The salary was $150 for the session. Yet
there were a number of applications for the position. The
one received from Dr. Andrew Kean in behalf of his son
found favor, probably because of Jefferson's high regard for
the father. Doctor Kean's home was in Goochland County,
but his reputation had extended throughout central Virginia.
It was said that, when the dates for his visits to distant
cases became known, patients would be brought to the roadside
to await his passing. At any rate, Jefferson and others
had urged this “beloved old Doctor” to take up his residence
in Charlottesville; and there is reliable testimony that
Andrew Kean was offered the chair of Medicine at the new
University. But he seems to have felt himself to be better
qualified for general practice than for teaching.

It was the son who was to be the teacher. John Vaughan
Kean had been born in 1803, and, according to his father's
letter of application to Rector Jefferson, possessed “a good
English education, a tolerable acquaintance with the Latin
and some slight knowledge of the Greek languages.” These
had been acquired before he enrolled as a student in the
University of Virginia. At the University his courses for
that first session were in the “Schools” of Chemistry, Mathematics,
Modern Languages, and Natural Philosophy. These
courses and the enforcement of the library regulations

under the supervision of Rector Jefferson and the Faculty
doubtless gave young Kean a busy year. Meantime his
father, after a short stay in Charlottesville, had decided to
return to his home and practice in Goochland County; and
at the end of the session the son resigned from the University
and from the library post and started a school at Olney
in Caroline County, Virginia. He was thus one of the first
of a distinguished company of secondary school administrators
and teachers who had the prestige of training at the
University of Virginia. At Only he married, raised a family
of considerable size, became “Schoolmaster Napoleon Kean
with the little head of all knowledge,” and lived until 1876.
One of his pupils later described his manner as suaviter in
modo, fortiter in re. As a phrase, this pleasantly demonstrated
the classical training received at the Olney School.
As a description, it may well be that there is here a trace of
the effect on the impressionable student-librarian of a year's
association with Thomas Jefferson.

That librarianship was brief, but Kean's later links
with the University and its Library through his family have
been close. A son of his, Robert Garlick Hill Kean, was a
student at the University, became a leading lawyer of
Lynchburg, Virginia, a member of the Board of Visitors
of the University from 1872 to 1875 and again from 1890
to 1894, and the Rector of the Board from 1872 to 1875.
This son married Jane Nicholas Randolph of Edgehill and
thus became allied with the Randolph and Jefferson families.
Their son, Jefferson Randolph Kean, was a graduate
of the University's Department of Medicine, had a distinguished
career in the Surgeon General's Department of
the United States Army, and was instrumental in support of
Walter Reed's achievements in the control of yellow fever.
Toward the close of his life, General Kean joined with his
son, Robert Hill Kean of Richmond, a doctor of philosophy
of the University of Virginia, in making available at the

University Library papers and books of rare associative
interest, since they had belonged to direct descendants of
both the Founder of the University and of the University's
first Librarian.

2. WILLIAM WERTENBAKER (1797–1882)
Librarian 1826–1831, 1835–1857, 1865–1881
Librarian Emeritus 1881–1882

By contrast, the second Librarian, William Wertenbaker,
holds the record for length of service. He was a
native of Albemarle County, was present at the birth of
the University of Virginia, and was a part of its life until
he died at the age of eighty-five. He came of German stock
which had migrated to Maryland about 1740. Sometime
between 1783 and 1790 his father, Christian Wertenbaker,
had moved to Virginia and settled at Milton in Albemarle
County, his lot being next to one owned by Thomas Jefferson.
It was there that William was born 1 June 1797.
Later his mother, who had been Mary Grady of Caroline
County, Virginia, inherited a farm northwest of Charlottesville,
and the family moved thither. The farm was on
the Old Barracks Road, so-called because it led to the
encampment where in 1779 had been settled prisoners
taken in the Revolutionary War. That location probably
gave rise to the erroneous tradition that Christian Wertenbaker
had been one of the Hessian soldiers.

While a boy of fourteen, William Wertenbaker obtained
employment in the Clerk's Office in Charlottesville,
Alexander Garrett then being Deputy Clerk. Only a year
or two later, when a local company of militia was organized
for service in the War of 1812, young Wertenbaker enlisted.
The company was assigned to the brigade, under command
of John Hartwell Cocke, which operated in eastern Virginia,

to protect the approaches to Richmond. Shortly after being
mustered out, Wertenbaker, who had returned to his
position in the Clerk's Office, was appointed Deputy Sheriff
of Albemarle County. He also began the study of law in
the office of Valentine Wood Southall, one of Charlottesville's
leading lawyers; and it was with the intention of
becoming a lawyer that Wertenbaker enrolled as a student
at the opening of the University.

It is noteworthy that those early occupations of his
attached this young man to persons intimately connected
with the beginnings of the University of Virginia. General
Cocke was one of the Founders of the University, and he
was for thirty-three years an extraordinarily valuable member
of its Board of Visitors. Alexander Garrett was a Trustee
of Albemarle Academy, a member of the Board of Visitors
of Central College, the Proctor of Central College, and
the University's first Bursar. Valentine Wood Southall
presided at the banquet held in the Rotunda in 1824 in
honor of Lafayette. When on 6 October 1817 the cornerstone
was laid of the pavilion that was to give visible form
to Central College, it was Southall who delivered the
address to the general audience and it was Garrett who, as
Worthy Grand Master, officiated in the Masonic ritual.
Moreover, on the contract for the erection of that pavilion
there were the signatures of Alexander Garrett as Proctor
of Central College, of William Wertenbaker as witness, and
of Thomas Jefferson as endorsing approval in behalf of the
Central College Board of Visitors.

It is altogether likely, therefore, that Rector Jefferson
had some previous acquaintance with this student of the
University's first session; and when Librarian Kean
resigned, it seems not improbable that Jefferson chose
Wertenbaker as Kean's successor because of his knowledge
of the young man's previous experience with civic records,
military discipline, and law enforcement. There is apparently

no record that Wertenbaker had made application for
the position.

It was Wertenbaker, therefore, who moved the library
books into the Rotunda and was the first to put into operation
in that building the regulations for library use. It was
he, also, who performed the clerical task of compiling the
1828 printed catalogue. He continued as a student during
the second session, a part of his courses being under John
Tayloe Lomax, Professor of Law, who had joined the Faculty
with that session. But Librarian Wertenbaker then
had to interrupt his college work, and his intention of
becoming a lawyer had eventually to be abandoned. For in
1829 he married Louisiana Timberlake, a sister of the wife
of Warner Minor, one of the University's “Hotel-Keepers,”
and there ensued the responsibilities of a growing family.
As his hours as Librarian were still few, Wertenbaker began
to take on other income producing occupations, until he
had, at one time or another, filled nearly all the positions
available at the University except a Professor's chair. His
collection at this time included Assistant Proctor, University
Postmaster, and Bookstore Manager. Coincident with
undertaking as a student the post of Librarian, he had also
been appointed Secretary of the Faculty. There was at first
some faculty objection at having (to quote Robert Burns)
“a student child amang them taking notes” of the very
frank discussions in those early faculty meetings. But Wertenbaker's
serious mien seems soon to have allayed apprehension
on that score. In fact his demeanor could be so stern
that there were reactions to his disadvantage. By performing
the duties of Assistant Proctor with the methods of a former
Deputy Sheriff, he aroused violent opposition on the part
of spirited students who were approximately of his own
age. There were incidents of violent language and of
attacks directed at him, and one student was expelled in
1831 for repeated threats to flog Wertenbaker.

The Wertenbaker career as Librarian was interrupted
for two periods, and the first interruption came at this
time, in 1831. It has been conjectured that he wished to
resume legal studies. But he did not register again as a
student; and it is possible that there was some loss of
confidence in him on the part of faculty members inclined
to find reason in the student complaints. This is merely a
guess. But he did at this time resign also as Secretary of the
Faculty, and he ceased to be Assistant Proctor. He seems,
however, to have continued as the local Postmaster and as
Manager of the bookstore.

However, after four years of notoriously lax conduct
of the Library by William Henry Brockenbrough, the Faculty
and Visitors were quite ready to have Wertenbaker
reappointed. During his next and longest term as Librarian,
from 1835 to 1857, he added for one year, 1854–1855, the
post of University Hotel Keeper to his collection of stipend
producing activities. In all this he was meeting household
expenses, not serving Mammon; and he freely devoted his
efforts to causes which brought no monetary returns. For
many years he was an active and respected member of the
Session of the Charlottesville Presbyterian Church; and he
was a leader, along with John Hartwell Cocke, his Commanding
General in the War of 1812, in the early temperance
movements at the University of Virginia.

In a preceding section of the historical sketch we have
seen that the second interruption to Wertenbaker's career
as Librarian came in 1857 as the result of the decision of
the Board of Visitors to separate the library post from any
other position. Wertenbaker continued to be Secretary of
the Faculty through the war years and on until his retirement
because of illness in 1881. As he held that secretaryship
from 1826 to 1831 and from 1836 to 1881, a total of
fifty years, and as he was also Secretary of the Board of
Visitors for six years, 1865 to 1871, this scribe, who made no

claim to devotion to literary pursuits; probably has to his
credit more pages in his handwriting than any other contributor
to the University Archives.

A veteran of the War of 1812–1814, he was too old for
active service in the War of 1861–1865. But there was no
question of his convictions. A memorable gathering at his
house in March 1861, the month before the firing on Fort
Sumter, was one of the early occasions of the raising of a
Confederate flag. Of his three sons, the eldest, his namesake,
had been killed as a boy by being thrown from a horse. The
others, Charles Christian and Thomas Grady, had both
been students in the University of Virginia, and both were
officers in the Confederate Army. Thomas, who was one of
the student organizers of the Young Men's Christian Association
at the University of Virginia in 1858 and was studying
for the Presbyterian ministry, lost his life in the war.
Charles Christian survived and became a manufacturer in
postwar Charlottesville. To a distinguished son of his,
Professor Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker of Princeton and
Oxford Universities, acknowledgment is gladly made for
friendly assistance in supplying some of the details here
given concerning his grandfather, the Librarian.

Librarian Wertenbaker's last “tour of duty” at the
Rotunda was from 1865 to 1881. He zealously continued his
guardianship of the books. It was in this period that he
made his vigorous protests against the holding of dances in
the library room. By this time he had come to be the sole
survivor of the original group of professors and administrative
officers; and when illness made it impossible for him to
continue the daily trips to the Library, the Board of Visitors
took the unusual but heartily approved action of naming
him Librarian Emeritus and of continuing his salary, then
$700 a year, as long as he should live. But this new title he
held for only one year, for his death came on 7 April 1882.

At the close of his long service, the estimated size of the

library collection was 36,000 volumes. This was between
four and five times the 8,000 of 1830, but it was essentially
an expansion of the nucleus originally selected by Jefferson.
Wertenbaker was spared the knowledge that the nucleus
and the additions were thirteen years later to be in large
part destroyed by fire; and that his own agency in adding
to the original collection was fated to have little effect on
the new University Library collection that was to date
from 1895.

Wertenbaker's agency in collection building was mainly
in the purchase of the books, not in their selection, which
had continued to be a faculty function. There was a pleasant
exception, however. In the poverty-stricken period after
the war, in November 1868 to be exact, a visitor from New
York, Abiel Abbot Low, was so impressed by the Library
and by its custodian's courteous demeanor, that, on leaving,
he handed to Wertenbaker a cheque for five hundred dollars.
The surprised Librarian inquired how the donor
desired this money to be spent. “Do with it as you please,”
said Mr. Low. “I leave it entirely to your discretion.” “My
first love is the library,” was Wertenbaker's prompt
response. He immediately reported the gift to the Faculty,
with the modestly offered recommendation that the money
be used for “such standard works, of permanent value, on
History & Biography, Geography & Travels, Religion and
General Literature as may be of common interest to all the
Professors and especially useful to the students of the University.”
The formal, comprehensive, and precise nature
of the statement excellently reveals Wertenbaker's characteristic
manner and motives. Maybe it is also a reminder
of his absorption of Jefferson dicta concerning books and
a library.

There is ample indication that during his terms as
Librarian, Wertenbaker impressed students, faculty, and
visitors not only as a disciplinarian but also, as University

Historian Bruce expressed it, by his “conspicuous fidelity,
integrity, and efficiency.” From his portrait, with a beard,
by John Adams Elder and from a Bohn album engraving,
without a beard, by A. B. Walter, and from word pictures
by university graduates writing of their student days, an
attempt at a composite delineation of William Wertenbaker
is possible. The writers of reminiscences were Paul Brandon
Barringer and Francis Henry Smith, who became Professors
at the University of Virginia; David Marvel Reynolds Culbreth,
physician of Baltimore; Richard McIlwaine, Presbyterian
clergyman and President of Hampden-Sydney College;
and Crawford Howell Toy, Professor of Hebrew at
Harvard University.

This delineation is of his later years. He was of medium
height—about five feet, eight inches—and he weighed approximately
one hundred and forty-five pounds. He walked
with a cane, leaning slightly forward, and his gait was
deliberate. His face was small, with a high forehead, strong
features, a long upper lip, and a firm mouth. He was commonly
addressed as “Mr. Wert”—but student references to
him were likely to be to “Old Wert.” His usual greeting
to students, whatever the time of day, was “Good morning.”
For, he would explain, “These young men are in the
morning of life.” In general his manner was reserved,
never familiar or obtrusive, friendly, but strictly businesslike.
By interested and appreciative listeners he could be
induced to expand into stories of the early days of the
University, of his conversations with Jefferson and Madison
and the other Founders, and of his impressions of the early
Professors—of the time, for example, when at a faculty
meeting the Professor of Mathematics kicked the Professor
of Modern Languages under the table, and the latter
retorted: “You kick like an ass.” He was an early defender
of Poe against his detractors. He had a retentive and
accurate memory; it enabled him readily to locate books

on the shelves, to know the names of the students and to
be able to enumerate what books each had borrowed, and
to greet graduates by name when they returned to visit the
University. He seemed never to be idle. For relaxation from
his varied duties, he would settle down comfortably to a
game of chess.

There were, it is true, some derogatory comments on
the management of the Library during those days. As one
critic stated it—it may be noted that he was anonymous—
“The Library was not the heart of the University.” He
pointed out that students were “allowed” the use of the
Library, that stiff regulations were strictly enforced, and
that the hours of opening were not liberal. In part, however,
this condition was not so much the result of the administration
of the Library as it was of the methods of instruction.
The methods were those of lectures and textbook recitations,
not of collateral and reference readings from books
reserved in the Library. The close cooperation of the
Library with the curriculum came much later. Indeed it
was years after Wertenbaker's time that, according to an
unauthenticated tale, one faculty member's objection to
evening hours of opening was, forsooth, that the students
might be tempted to read books when they should be studying
their lessons!

Yet some of those very criticisms of the Library in
Wertenbaker's day are capable of another interpretation.
His greatest treasure, which he would display as a climax
to an especially friendly conversation, was Jefferson's letter
to him of 30 January 1826. There, in the well-known handwriting,
were these words:

We have seen that this letter grew out of an emergency
action by Jefferson, the appointment of a student as
custodian of the books in order to maintain the operation
of the Library, and that it does not necessarily limit the
Founder's conception of the functions of librarianship. But
from 1826 to Wertenbaker's last active hours in 1881, those
were his marching orders from Thomas Jefferson; and
whatever else might happen, those orders were to be obeyed.
He had been entrusted with the Library by Mr. Jefferson,
and he spent his manhood years in being faithful to that
trust.

3. WILLIAM HENRY BROCKENBROUGH
(1812–1850)
Librarian 1831–1835

William Wertenbaker's first love was the Library. For
William Henry Brockenbrough, who held the position
from 1831 to 1835, the librarianship was a somewhat inconvenient
means to other ends. The outcome with simple
directness points a moral. Of the nine Librarians of this
first hundred years, Brockenbrough was the one definite
failure.

That failure was deserved. Brockenbrough drew the
salary of the position, which was then $250 a year, but
shirked its duties. It is fair, however, to add that the pressure
of circumstances to which he yielded was strong. His
family's fortunes were in eclipse, it was important that he
obtain a law degree, and he seems to have been suffering
from the early stages of tuberculosis.

His father, Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough, had been an

important factor in the building of the University. As
Superintendent of Repairs at the State Capitol in Richmond,
he had come to the attention of the Governor, James
Patton Preston, and Governor Preston had recommended
him for the post of Proctor of the University. There his
energy, his common sense, and his constructive ideas
appealed to Jefferson; and his intelligent comprehension
of the Founder's plans and his constant presence at the
point of operation rendered him an agent of marked value
during the building period. In those days Charlottesville
was an isolated town lacking transportation facilities, and
there were no experienced contractors capable of translating
specifications into reliable estimates of cost. To a
large degree it was necessary for the Proctor to take on
himself the gathering of materials and the training and
superintendence of the workmen. These things Brockenbrough
did to Jefferson's satisfaction—and Jefferson was a
firm and observant principal for any such operations.

The importance of his position and the regard shown
by Jefferson gave prestige to Arthur Brockenbrough during
the first years. Socially he was linked with an early romance
at the University, the wooing and wedding of Harriet
Selden, his wife's sister, by George Long, the young Professor
of Ancient Languages from the University of Cambridge.
But along with his finer qualities, Brockenbrough
was inclined to be impatient of ineptitude, whether in
workmen or in members of the Faculty, and he had a quick
temper. When the major construction tasks had been completed,
and the Proctor's duties fell more into a routine of
small jobs, his popularity waned; and in 1831 he was eased
out of his position—though he was permitted to retain the
title of Patron. His death followed not long after.

His son, William Henry Brockenbrough, had become
a student of the University in 1828 and was pressing assiduously
towards a law degree. His father's loss of position and

income greatly handicapped that effort. It seems possible
that his appointment in 1831 as Librarian (he was a student,
as Kean and Wertenbaker had been at the time of
their appointments) was influenced by sympathy for his
situation on the part of some of the Visitors and Faculty.

The appointment came in July, to take effect in August.
Almost at once his attitude and the criticism thereat
became apparent. His effort to continue as candidate for
a degree without further registration or payment of fees
drew from the Faculty an action specifically aimed at him
in February 1832 and again in October of that year. In
July 1833 the Board of Visitors granted an application for
a room in a vacant hotel but seems to have taken no action
on his claim for compensation for certain temporary shops
erected on university grounds by his father. As late as
August 1834 a letter of his to Joseph C. Cabell of the Board
of Visitors indicates that he was still involved in certain
matters connected with his father's proctorship.

As for his management of the Library, adverse criticism
began early and grew in volume. The Visitors' Library
Committee, whose function at first, it will be recalled, was
chiefly to make an annual inspection, reported in July
1832, after one year of Brockenbrough's tenure of the
librarianship, that there was need of a house cleaning of
the Rotunda and there should be stricter enforcement of
the library regulations. A somewhat similar report was
made by the Visitors' Committee in July 1833. By October
1834 a special committee of the Faculty, headed by Professor
Emmet, had been appointed by that body to examine
into the state of the Library. A month later this Committee
presented an elaborate report, charging the Librarian with
the down-at-the-heel condition of the equipment, with
lack of orderly arrangement of the books, with laxity in
enforcement of the regulations, with frequent absences
without previous notice, and with appointment of assistants

who had not been approved by the Faculty. In the
discovery ten years after the opening of the Library that
the equipment was deteriorating and that some of the
regulations needed clarification, it would seem that the
Faculty had its share in any possible blame; and in view
of the antagonism that had been developing between Faculty
and students in this decade, it was not unnatural that
a student appointee should join in the student attitude
toward what appeared to be illiberal rules. But for his lack
of responsibility as a custodian of the books there was no
excuse.

The long report was presented to the Faculty on 11
November 1834. It was a bad break for Librarian Brockenbrough
that the following week a severe rainstorm descended
on Charlottesville, sundry leaks in the Rotunda
began active operation, and word was brought to the Chairman
of the Faculty, Professor Bonnycastle, that damage was
being done to the books in the library room. The Chairman
hurried to the Rotunda, sent for the Librarian, and learned
that he had chosen that moment again to be absent from
the University without leave. The Chairman took action
of an unusual character. He suspended Brockenbrough
from his office for two days, and appointed a substitute
Librarian. This emergency action received the full approval
of the Faculty.

The Faculty's confidence in Wertenbaker at this stage
is indicated by its appointment of him on November 28
as Assistant Librarian. These moves had the effect of bringing
Brockenbrough literally to book. They also encouraged
further action on the pending report of Professor Emmet
and his special committee. That committee had been
directed to prepare a full set of resolutions concerning the
Library. The resolutions were ready by the end of 1834,
and were adopted by the Faculty on 9 January 1835. This
time the Faculty threw the book at Brockenbrough. It was

not in its power to remove him from his office permanently.
But the resolutions bound him tightly to his library duties;
and just prior to the meeting of the Visitors in July 1835,
the Faculty approved of a resolution presented by Professor
Emmet that the whole library matter be referred to the
Board of Visitors. The Board, however, found also before
it the resignation of William Brockenbrough; and so its
only action was to accept the resignation and to reappoint
Wertenbaker as Librarian.

Meantime Brockenbrough had already achieved the goal
of his law degree. Since he was suffering to an increased
extent from ill health, he decided to try the climate of the
Territory, as it then was, of Florida. He settled in Tallahassee,
and that became his home for fifteen years. He died
in Tallahassee in 1850, at the early age of thirty-seven.

His career during those fifteen years in Florida must
have been a matter of wonderment to those who had known
him only as Librarian. He was admitted to the bar,
advanced rapidly as a lawyer, served in turn as a member
of the Florida House of Representatives and of the Florida
Senate, was selected as President of the Senate, became a
United States District Attorney, and upon the admission of
Florida as a State was elected one of its first Representatives
in the Congress of the United States.

This story began with a moral. It is well that for our
estimate of Brockenbrough we have also the Florida conclusion.
Yet that conclusion makes clear that the lack in his
librarianship was not one of ability.

4. THOMAS BEVERLEY HOLCOMBE (1823–1872)
Librarian 1857–1861

The fourth Librarian, Thomas Beverley Holcombe, was
like the third, William Henry Brockenbrough, closely
related to a prominent member of the teaching and administrative

staff of the University of Virginia. In the case of
the Brockenbroughs it was a father and son relationship. In
the case of the Holcombes it was the relationship of brothers.
The two Holcombes (there were six brothers altogether)
came from a Lynchburg, Virginia, family which had a
distinguished ancestry. The brothers' great grandfather had
aided in the founding of Hampden-Sydney College, their
grandfather had been a Major in the Revolutionary War
and a Lieutenant Colonel in the War of 1812, and their
father was successful both as a physician and as an ordained
minister—the two professions being actively pursued simultaneously.
The father and mother had become opposed to
slavery, had liberated their own slaves, and had removed
from Lynchburg to Indiana. Later, however, they had
returned to Virginia—this time the physical climate, not
the political one, being the deciding factor. In 1851 the
elder of the brothers, James Philemon Holcombe, had been
appointed Adjunct Professor of Law at the University of
Virginia and three years later had been promoted to a full
professorship. He was a vigorous supporter of States'
Rights; and in the years just prior to 1861 he became the
spokesman of the more extreme elements in the University.
On the outbreak of the war he resigned his chair in order
to devote his notable powers as lawyer, author, and publicist
to crusading projects in behalf of the Confederacy.

The younger brother, Thomas Berkeley Holcombe, was
of a more retiring disposition, with fewer of the qualities
of a crusader. He had been a student at the University of
Virginia, but only for one session, 1841–1842. He had gone
with his parents to Indiana, and had later settled in Cincinnati,
Ohio. There he became associated with Alexander
McGoffey in a law office, his own special interest apparently
being the codification of law. Like the Professor of Law
and like another brother, William Henry Holcombe, who
attained to leadership among homeopathic physicians,

William Wertenbaker

Rector Jefferson's Letter of Appointment to William Wertenbaker

Thomas displayed facility in writing; and in time he took
on the editorship of a democratic publication, the Indiana
State Journal.

It was with this background that Thomas Holcombe
became Librarian of the University of Virginia. In the
preceding historical sketch it has been pointed out that
he was the nearest approach to a “professional” Librarian
that the University had during the nineteenth century. It
will be remembered that in his four years in that office,
from September 1857 through December 1861, there was
increase in student enrollments and in the number of book
purchases, and that there was added to the Librarian's
regular duties the preparation of a catalogue. Holcombe
was a diligent and a conscientious worker. This was probably
fortunate for him—as well as for the University
Library. For it was a time of bitter partisanship, in which
his brother, the Professor of Law, was taking a leading part;
and concentration on routine tasks would help to supply
wholesome balance for the gentle and sensitive younger
brother. Even so, it seems to have been an increasingly
difficult period for Librarian Holcombe; and by October
1860 he was petitioning the Faculty to permit him to close
the Library at noon on Saturday, in order that he might
“spend as many Sundays as I conveniently can in Lynchburg,
my birthplace and where many relatives and friends
of my family reside.” To compensate for the earlier closing,
which would enable him to avoid traveling on the Sabbath
Day, he offered to open the Library earlier on five days of
the week. If the request were granted, he wrote to the
Faculty, “I shall be able to do this without violating the
Sabbath or neglecting my duties.” And he pathetically
added, “My health and spirits urgently require some relief
of this sort.” It is pleasant to record that the request was
granted.

Had the times not been out of joint, it is possible that

Holcombe might have made a valuable contribution to the
development of this University Library. But 1861 ended
peace-time progress. In December of that year, Holcombe
departed from the University on leave of absence for the
balance of that session. He did not return.

Of his remaining years there is little known. His interest
in literary studies seems to have continued. In 1870 there
came from him to the Board of Visitors a letter asking for
the loan of books from the University Library. But the
policy of book loans had not yet been liberalized; and it
was deemed necessary to reply to this former Librarian that
he would be permitted the use of books in the library room
only. In his last days he suffered increasingly from a persecution
complex. Fortunately those days were spent in the
friendly home in New Orleans of his physician brother,
William Henry Holcombe; and there he died in December
1872. He had been a mild and kindly soul in a family of
vigorous and dominant personalities and in a time of tragic
emotional strain.

5. ROBERT RIDDICK PRENTIS (1818–1871)
Acting Librarian 1861–1865

The place of Robert Riddick Prentis in the roll of
Librarians is unlike that of any other incumbent of the
office. He was not appointed by the Board of Visitors, but
temporarily and as an emergency measure by the Faculty.
His “charge of the Library” was an added and not a major
part of his duties. During his four years as Acting Librarian,
from December 1861 to July 1865, there were fewer student
readers than at any other period in the history of the University
of Virginia, the hours of opening were at a minimum,
additions to the book collection were infrequent,
and there were no purchases. Moreover there is not much
uplift of spirit for those who have to remain at home during

war time. Yet by faithful day-by-day performance of this
additional duty of his, Acting Librarian Prentis was able
not only to protect the Library but also to keep it in continuous
use. If the influence of such a collection of books in
such a period (or in any period) could be weighed, it would
surely be found that this servant returned more than a
talent hidden in the earth.

Robert Prentis came from a distinguished family in
Nansemond County, Virginia, his paternal grandfather
being Judge Joseph Prentis of Williamsburg and his maternal
grandfather Col. Robert Moore Riddick of “Jericho”
in Nansemond County. He was a student at the University
of Virginia during the sessions 1838–1840, and was
appointed Proctor and Patron in 1853, eight years before
the wartime care of the Library was added to his responsibilities.
In 1855 he was one of the guarantors for the cost
of the erection at the University of Temperance Hall,
others in the group being General Cocke, Professor Minor,
and Librarian Wertenbaker. In addition to his varied
duties during the war, he seems to have been a Collector of
Internal Revenue for the Confederate Government. At the
close of the war, the office of Proctor (the title Patron had
been dropped in 1861) was temporarily suspended. But the
services of Prentis were not long allowed to remain dormant,
for in 1867 he was appointed Commissioner of
Accounts, and he was continued in that office until his
death on 23 November 1871. From November 1870 until
his death he was also Clerk of Albemarle County. His
years as an administrative officer thus covered periods of
prosperity, of disaster, and of reconstruction.

Four years after his student days at the University, in
1844, Prentis married Margaret Ann Whitehead, and he
was the father of twelve children. (He himself had ten
brothers or sisters.) One of the twelve, Joseph Prentis, a
Sergeant in the Confederate Army, was killed at the battle

of Malvern Hill. Another, Robert Riddick Prentis II,
became Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court of
Appeals. The Prentis home at the University was on “Monroe
Hill”; and he is buried in the University Cemetery.

As in the case of John Vaughan Kean, there is a later
link between Robert Prentis and the University and its
Library. For the great great nephew of the Acting Librarian
of 1861–1865, namely, Robert Henning Webb, was Professor
of Greek at the University from 1912 to 1950, a member
of the Faculty Library Committee from 1929 to 1950,
and its Chairman, succeeding Dean Metcalf, from 1940 to
1950. An endowment fund for the purchase of books on
Ancient Languages was in 1953 presented in his memory by
friends and former students of Professor Webb.

6. WILLIAM AYLETT WINSTON (1827–1894)
Librarian 1882–1886

In strict order of appointment as Librarian, Frederick
Winslow Page should follow William Wertenbaker's last
“tour of duty.” But as Page's first term, 1881–1882, was for
one year only, and as the significant part of his service came
during the twelve years from 1891 to 1903, it is more
consistent with the historical development of the University
Library to list him after Winston and Baker and before
Patton.

It will be recalled that the abrupt termination in 1882
of Page's one year term had a political cause. William
Winston was the Readjuster Librarian. He came in suddenly
and he went out suddenly. His four years' tenure of
the office was without special distinction. But such evidence
as we have would indicate that the duties were performed
with consistent carefulness and fidelity. He was concurrently
Secretary of the Board of Visitors and Secretary of
the Faculty, and the businesslike legibility of his record of

the meetings of those two bodies is likely to elicit favorable
comment from whoever has occasion to pore over the ponderous
volumes of those university archives.

Winston had been a student at the University of Virginia
during the session of 1850–1851. In his matriculation
entry his date of birth is given as 23 November 1827 and his
home as Hanover Court House, Virginia. Winstons had
settled in Hanover County in colonial days, and by midnineteenth
century there were several branches of the
family, occupying such houses as Blenheim, Courtland,
Manheim, Signal Hill, Wilton, and Woodland. Curiously
enough, it has been difficult to establish with what branch
of the family Librarian Winston was connected. Many of
the Hanover County records were destroyed in 1865; and
this William Winston himself has, no doubt quite unintentionally,
been far from helpful. For at his matriculation,
under the heading “Parent or Guardian,” he simply wrote
“Self.” His own name, moreover, was entered merely as
“Wm. A. Winston.” It seems fairly certain, however, that
he was the William Aylett Winston whose father, William
Chamberlayne Winston, is recorded as having been born in
1802 and as having married Sarah Pollard. If so, the Librarian
was of the seventh generation from the pioneer settler,
William Winston.

To the established facts, the date of his birth, his connection
with Hanover County, his one session as a student
in the University, and his four years as University Librarian,
we have from an early alumni record the additional
items that he served in the Confederate Army and that he
was at one time a clerk in the Virginia Legislature. We
know also that not long after he was replaced as Librarian,
he went to Minnesota. Three Winston brothers, who were
cousins of his, had in the late 1870's established in Minneapolis
a firm of railway contractors which was to have a
large part in opening that region to railway communication.

Beginning in 1890 William Winston was for a couple of
years a clerk in that company, and then he became Librarian
of the Minneapolis Central High School. His death,
apparently from cancer, came on 21 January 1894.

7. JAMES BISCOE BAKER (1834–1902)
Librarian 1886–1891

To replace William Winston the new Board of Visitors
chose a schoolteacher from southwest Virginia, James Biscoe
Baker.

Baker had been a student at the University of Virginia
and a soldier in the Confederate Army. As a soldier he had
taken part in only one battle, but in that he had displayed
supreme courage. The story of his bravery under fire seems
to have become widely known, and it may have been a
contributing cause for this recognition by the Board of
Visitors.

He had been born in Middleburg, Loudoun County,
Virginia, 17 October 1834. He was seventeen when he
matriculated at the University of Virginia, and he continued
as a student for three sessions, 1851–1853 and 1855–
1856. He was teaching in a school near Culpeper when the
war broke out. A gentle and diffident youth, he seemed
little fitted to be a soldier. Yet he enlisted in a cavalry
company recruited in Loudoun, his home county, and he
gained promotion to the rank of Orderly Sergeant.

The company was attached to the command of the
dashing J. E. B. Stuart, then a Colonel. At the First Battle
of Manassas, that company and another were ordered to
dislodge a body of Northern soldiers concealed in some
woods. Too late it was discovered that the hidden troops
comprised a whole brigade. But the small Confederate force
did not pause to reason why. The charge was made in the
face of a withering fire. Sergeant Baker was hit in the knee,

but he did not waver. A bullet broke his arm. Yet he still
galloped on. Then his horse was killed under him, a shot
pierced his body, and he was flung headlong on the ground.
There he lay while the battle raged above him. Finally the
Northern forces withdrew and the sorely wounded Sergeant
could be given treatment by an army doctor. He was
moved to a field hospital. The tale of his gallantry spread
abroad, and Colonel Stuart sent him a personal letter of
commendation, offering promotion and a place on the
Colonel's staff. But it had been found necessary that his leg
be amputated—and his army days were over.

In time Baker recovered, and went back to the milder
disciplines of teaching. He found an opening in southwest
Virginia and became the headmaster of a boys' school in
Abingdon. It was while he was there that the offer came of
the librarianship at his University.

He was appointed both Librarian and Secretary of the
Faculty, but not Secretary of the Board of Visitors. Since
Winston no Librarian has held the Visitors' secretaryship—
that is, in the period covered by this history. As it happens,
Baker was the last Librarian to be Secretary of the Faculty.
He was also permitted, as Winston had been, to occupy a
house “west of Dawson's Row.” To this permission the
Board of Visitors, who were keeping a tight rein on the
finances, cautiously added: “but without any expenditure
for repairs.”

The five years of Baker's tenure of the office were not
marked by untoward events—or by toward ones, for that
matter. According to approximations recorded in the University
Catalogues, the number of volumes increased from
48,000 to 50,000. The growth in student enrollment was
more rapid, from 301 to 472. Baker had appreciation of the
value of books and familiarity with the needs of students;
and his duties were faithfully performed—though daily to
the point of exhaustion because of his physical handicaps.

Meantime, in 1888, Frederick Page had been called
back from the position he was occupying as Deputy Clerk
of Albemarle County to fill a newly created office, that of
Clerk to the Chairman of the Faculty. By 1891 it seemed
wise again to make a separation of offices. This time Page
was asked to resume the librarianship, and the offices of
Secretary of the Faculty and Clerk to the Chairman were
combined and offered to Baker, these two posts demanding
from him less physical exertion. Baker continued to hold
the dual secretaryships until his death on 21 November
1902.

While he was holding this double post, there was one
more day in the old Sergeant's life when he was suddenly
called upon for heroic effort. That was the day of the burning
of the Rotunda. When news of the conflagration reached
him, Baker, limping on his crutch, with desperate effort
hurried to the office of the Secretary of the Faculty, which
was in the lower part of the building, and there remained
“against remonstrance until every record, every book, every
paper in the office under his charge had been removed to a
place of safety.”

The quotation is from the master pen of Chairman
Thornton and is taken from a moving article which was
contributed to the Alumni Bulletin of April 1903, following
Baker's death. To that article we owe much of what is
known about this appealing figure. In it his character is
thus summarized by the Chairman of the Faculty:—

For five years after his [Baker's] appointment as Secretary the
writer came into daily and hourly contact with him. He learned
thus to know his many admirable qualities, to realize the simplicity
and sincerity of his nature, and to estimate at their true worth his
lofty sense of duty and the genuine modesty of his spirit. He possessed
but little power of initiative, and shunned responsibility when
he could fitly avoid it. It was necessary to give a certain general
guidance and direction to him in all his work. But his industry was
unwearied, his fidelity unwavering. A perfectly loyal man, he was

worthy of implicit trust, however delicate or however trivial the
confidence; a perfectly sincere man, he never sought to cover up an
error or hide a gap; a perfectly faithful man, he spared neither
strength nor pains to finish his task and complete the work given
him to do.

That was the simple and consistent story of a lifetime.
On one day in his twenties and on another day when he
was sixty-one, that deep-lying sense of responsibility and of
obedience to command brought him face to face with violent
emergencies. The change was in the circumstances, not in
the character; and in those crises it was the resolution and latent
heroism of a life of steadfast fidelity that stood revealed.

8. FREDERICK WINSLOW PAGE (1826–1913)
Librarian 1881–1882, 1891–1903

Since Frederick Winslow Page's first connection with
the University of Virginia Library was prior to the librarianships
of William Winston and James Baker, various
details concerning him have already been given; namely,
that he was appointed Assistant Librarian in 1876, that he
succeeded William Wertenbaker as Librarian in 1881, that
he was ousted by the Readjuster Board of Visitors in 1882,
that he then became Deputy Clerk of Albemarle County,
that he had been called back to the University in 1888 to
fill the new office of Clerk of the Chairman of the Faculty,
and that he was restored to the library post in 1891.

The popular conception of the genus Librarian, as
illustrated at the Rotunda, must have been quite different
in Page's day from what it had been at the beginning of the
University. When Wertenbaker succeeded Kean, both were
college students. When Page succeeded Wertenbaker, the
latter was eighty-four years of age and the former fifty-five.
The position had grown old with Wertenbaker; and at the
time Frederick Page became a fledgling Librarian, he had

already been a practicing lawyer, a newspaper publisher,
a veteran artilleryman, and a farmer.

He came of a famous Virginia family. Dean James
Morris Page and Professor Thomas Walker Page of the
University of Virginia Faculty were nephews of his. Librarian
Page's paternal grandfather was Major Carter Page of
the Revolutionary Army, who married Mary Cary of Ampthill,
Chesterfield County, her line running back to Pocahontas.
His father was Mann Page, doctor of medicine, who
lived at Keswick (sometimes called Turkey Hill) in Albemarle
County, and who married Jane Frances Walker of
nearby Castle Hill. He himself was born at the Turkey Hill
estate on 20 November 1826. He was a student at the University
of Virginia for the three sessions 1843–1846; and his
“Random Reminiscences” of those days, as contributed to
College Topics in 1909, were quoted by Philip Alexander
Bruce in volume three of his History of the University of
Virginia. Later he returned to the University for a fourth
session, 1848–1849, this time for courses in law. In 1850 he
married Anne Meriwether of Kinloch, Albemarle County,
and settled in Lynchburg to practice law. Seven years later,
however, he decided to move to Petersburg, and there he
joined with Robert Bolling in publishing the Petersburg
Intelligencer. News coverage had its limitations in those
days, but subjects for editorial comment were plentiful.
The Intelligencer supported John Bell in the presidential
election of 1860. When war broke out, Page enlisted as a
private in an Albemarle artillery company commanded by
Captain William H. Southall, and he fought through the
war. At its close there seemed little opportunity for law
practice or newspaper publishing, and Page, with his wife
and seven children, turned to farming for a reconstruction
livelihood, so that when he was called in 1876 to aid in the
custodianship of the University Library, he came like Cincinnatus
from the plow.

At the Library he found a truly congenial vocation.
Habits of reading and the ability to appreciate and judge
what he read had been acquired in his college days; and he
was uniformly helpful and encouraging in his contacts with
student readers. The fine quality of his courtesy is stressed
in contemporary references to his services as a Librarian.
When he retired in 1903, the Faculty paid him a tribute
from which a cogent passage may be quoted:—

The longer and more significant period of his librarianship,
1891 to 1903, was Januslike in effect. Catastrophically
divided by the burning of the Rotunda, it looked backward
to the Library founded by Jefferson and forward to the confused
beginning of the present Library. Librarian Page
was better qualified to be the last of the old than to be the
first of the new. The services lauded by the Faculty were of
course more capable of performance where order and personal
knowledge of the books were assets. In Librarian
Page's eight years after the Rotunda fire the conditions were
of constant confusion and of a rapid but poorly assimilated
influx of gift books. Of modern technical aids there was
practically none. Under the pressure of daily circulation
demands, Page had no leisure to prepare such aids—and it
is indeed doubtful whether he had much conception of
their nature and value. Moreover the years had taken a toll
of his physical strength. The steadiness and courteous character
of his service were maintained, but there came to be
a shadow of discouragement over his part in the new
Library.

During the ten years between his retirement in 1903

and his death on 27 February 1913, Frederick Page continued
to live in Charlottesville, and he became, as an article
in the Alumni News expressed it, “one of the most familiar
figures of the past generation of students.” His wife had
died in 1867, and he had in 1883 married Lucy Cook Beale
of Fredericksburg, a sister of the wife of Professor Dunnington
of the University Faculty. She died in 1897. Page married
a third time in 1902. His third wife, Lucy White Bryan
of Memphis, Tennessee, survived him. There were seven
children by the first marriage, but none by the second and
third. In view of the lack of library aids that so sorely handicapped
service after the Rotunda fire, there has been
peculiar appropriateness in the establishment in 1947 by
his youngest child, Miss Mildred Page, of a fund in his
memory, the income to be used for the purchase of books
on librarianship and its techniques.

9. JOHN SHELTON PATTON (1857–1932)
Librarian 1903–1927

Of these nine Librarians of the first hundred years, eight
had to do with the first university library collection, before
the burning of the Rotunda. Frederick Page knew that
collection in its latest and fullest form. He also saw the
beginning of the second and present-day collection. But it
was the ninth of the group, John Shelton Patton, whose
concern was exclusively with the new collection. In this
respect he stood alone.

He was like the other eight, however, in being a native
of Virginia, and like them he had been a student at the
University of Virginia. Patton was born in Augusta County,
near Staunton, on 10 January 1857. His father lost his life
as a soldier in the Confederate Army, and the boy was cared
for by a devoted aunt. He attended schools in Waynesboro
and Charlottesville, and was a student at the University of

Virginia for three sessions, 1877–1880. In 1881 he married
Beatrice Faber and moved to Salem, Virginia, where he
became editor of the Roanoke Times, a newspaper which
opposed the Readjuster Party. Two years later he returned
to Charlottesville to take an editorial position on the Jeffersonian
Republican. Connection with that newspaper
continued until 1894, when Patton, who had meantime
served as a member of the City Council, became Mayor of
Charlottesville. At the close of his term as Mayor, in 1896,
he joined with James H. Lindsay, under the firm name of
Lindsay and Patton, to take over the publication of the
Daily Progress, which had absorbed the Jeffersonian Republican.
In March 1899, however, Patton terminated active
connection with newspaper publishing and entered the employment
of the University of Virginia. For several years
he had been a member of the Charlottesville School
Board, and during the early part of his connection with the
University he was Superintendent of the City Schools. His
first post at the University appears to have been in connection
with an advertising committee formed by the Board of
Visitors after the burning of the Rotunda. He was also for
a year or so Secretary of the General Alumni Association.
Then came the appointment as Assistant Librarian, followed
a year later by Patton's succession to the librarianship.
He was then forty-six years of age.

In the historical sketch of the University Library details
have been given concerning the main products of Patton's
twenty-four years in the library vocation—the augmented
importance of the position of Librarian, the development
of a Library Staff, the extension in amount and in forms of
service, the growth and diffusion of the collections, the
new attack on the problems of classification and cataloguing,
and the emphasis on needs, particularly the need of a
new library building. The unavoidable emphasis on needs
dimmed the enthusiasm which marked the library effort

at the beginning of President Alderman's administration,
and, as no Alladin's lamp could be discovered, the later of
the twenty-four years tended to be a dulled maintenance of
an unsatisfactory status quo. But Patton's previous experience
as a writer and as a civic leader afforded outlets for
effort and relief from confining routine throughout his
librarianship; and to complete the story of his career there
should be some record of the impressive by-products from
these avocations of his.

He was recognized as a leading citizen of Charlottesville,
and his counsel continued to be sought in civic affairs. He
served as a member of the Board of Appointments for the
Miller Manual Labor School of Albemarle County, he was
a trustee of the Charlottesville Home for the Aged, and
when Charlottesville acquired a Public Library through the
generosity of Paul Goodloe McIntire, Patton was for a term
Chairman of its Board of Trustees.

His entrance into the library field naturally brought
into play the habits acquired as a reporter and editorial
writer. His first library efforts were to try to bring order
out of the confused conditions still prevailing in the
Rotunda. Herein was the material for the summer quarter
courses in Library Methods and also for a group of lectures
on general library subjects which he offered through the
University's Extension Division. He found congenial
occupation in the preparation of library reports, in the
establishment of a library bulletin, in the composition of a
library handbook, and in the compilation of bibliographical
data.

Such activities were by no means limited to library
subjects. He was a member of the Editorial Committee of
the Alumni Bulletin from 1913 until that publication was
discontinued in 1924. To it he contributed over a score of
signed articles on such diverse subjects as the Old Swan
Tavern, John S. Mosby, George Rogers Clark, Thomas

Jefferson's Contributions to Natural Science, and the University
of Virginia in the [First] World War. Scattering
articles of his appeared also in other publications and in
his old newspaper, the Charlottesville Daily Progress.

There are also a half dozen books bearing his name as
author or editor. Early in his connection with the University,
before he became Librarian, he and Sallie J. Doswell
had compiled the useful handbook, The University of Virginia:
Glimpses of its Past and Present. That was in 1900.
A second and much altered edition of this, with a third
collaborator, Lewis D. Crenshaw, was issued in 1915 with
a new title, Jefferson's University: Glimpses of the Past
and Present of the University of Virginia. Patton's history
of the University, Jefferson, Cabell and the University of
Virginia, was published in 1906. Three years later he was
associated with Professor Charles William Kent in editing
the volume entitled The Book of the Poe Centenary. The
Poems of John R. Thompson: with a Biographical Introduction,
which was published by Scribner in 1920, was
perhaps his most important literary contribution. It
received highly favorable reviews by Dean John Calvin
Metcalf and Historian Philip Alexander Bruce. In 1925
he collaborated again with Sallie J. Doswell in a book on
Monticello and its Master. A revised edition of this
appeared in 1930. In the year of his retirement as Librarian,
1927, sundry poems of his were collected and issued with
the title, Love and Mistress Annabel and Other Verses.

His career as Librarian extended two years into the
second century of the Library's history. The Virginia State
Law had by that time made retirement compulsory at the
age of three score and ten. This law had not previously been
in force, so that Frederick Page had remained Librarian
until he was seventy-seven and William Wertenbaker until
he was eighty-four. Patton continued to live in Charlottesville,
not far from the University, until his death 1 October

1932. He had been appointed Librarian in the year before
Doctor Alderman became President of the University. He
passed away in the year after Alderman's death. Both at
the time of Patton's retirement and at the time of his death,
resolutions commending his efforts were voted by the Board
of Visitors. In the former, Patton's services to the University
Library were fittingly described as having been rendered
“with devotion, high purposes, and good results.”

The Alderman Library viewed from a plane