 | CHAPTER XXI Jefferson, Cabell and the University of Virginia |  |
CHAPTER XXI
THE GREAT FIRE OF 1895
Sunday Morning Fire Alarm—Efforts to Save the Rotunda—Removal
of Galt's Statue of Jefferson—
Prompt Action of Faculty and Visitors—No Suspension
of Work—Means Soon at Command—Restoration
and Expansion—Lawn Buildings and Their
Occupants—Proctor's Office and the Postoffice.
A few minutes after the first church bells had
rung their summons to the morning service on October
27, 1895, the bell at the University, and that
at the fire department in Charlottesville, sounded
an alarm, and word was passed from mouth to
mouth that the University was burning. There had
been many such rumors, but they had all proved to
be false, and this many thought would turn out to
be so too. The church-goers in the main assembled
in their accustomed places, and remained throughout
the service. The flock under the Rev. H. B. Lee
alone took the report seriously, and the rector dismissed
his people.
Confirmation followed fast, and consternation
seized the people in the little city and the University.
Throngs overran the grounds, and men, women,
and children were soon engaged in an effort to save
property.
The little fire company at the University was
promptly on hand, but it was helpless. The Charlottesville
firemen came and were equally helpless.
The water pressure was insufficient to propel a
stream on to the burning building, and there was no
appealed to.
The conflagration originated in the fourth floor
of the Annex in a room used by the engineering
department. There had been no fire in the furnaces
for forty-eight hours, and it is said there were no
electric wires in the northwest corner where the
flames first appeared. An investigation at the time
failed to disclose the source of the disaster, and it is
bootless to inquire now.
The Annex was doomed and the prophecy of
Colonel Randolph, made at the time of its building,
that it would be consumed by fire, and be the cause
of the destruction of the Rotunda, seemed, in the
first half-hour after the alarm, sure of partial fulfilment.
How to make the fulfilment only partial
was the problem to which Professor Echols, who
led the fire-fighters, devoted himself with the utmost
energy. The building in flames was joined to the
Rotunda by a porch partly supported by huge
columns, and this porch it was feared would be the
bridge across which the devouring element would
reach the Rotunda. He sent for dynamite and demolished
the columns. The roof remained apparently
unshaken. The utmost efforts, aided by
abundant supplies of dynamite, failed to destroy entirely
this connection, although the explosions were
so terrific that the windows in the Museum and
other nearby buildings were shattered.
In the mean time some of the apparatus housed
in the Annex, especially in the department of
natural philosophy, were taken to a safe place.
Some of the young men had started to remove
Balze's copy of "The School of Athens," but a sanguine
professor, who could not understand how the
historic canvas was left to the flames.
All this time ladies and gentlemen and active boys
were engaged in carrying books from the shelves,
and portraits from the walls of the library, whose
spacious halls were soon filled with smoke. In this
way the portraits of J. E. B. Stuart; the philanthropist
W. W. Corcoran; Cabell, Jefferson's able
coadjutor, and many others of distinguished connection
with the University, were saved, and continue
among the treasures of the institution.
Alexander Galt's marble figure of Jefferson
seemed the one thing beyond the powers of men to
remove unaided by machinery. Nobody would
have believed it possible, and yet twenty or thirty
students with no other appliances than a rope, a
mattress, and a table removed the statue from its
pedestal and conveyed it down two flights of circular
stairs to the Lawn, and with injuries so slight that
the casual observer does not detect them. How was
it done? A leader in this band of young men tells
the story in this vivid way:[1]
"Over yonder, surrounded by its iron railing with
its top spikes curving outward, in the same relative
position in which it stands today, was the splendid
marble statue of Jefferson by Galt. Remember that
in those days it stood on the main floor of the
Library, which is now the second gallery.
"Some one, in what some might have termed a
rash moment, suggested that the statue should be
taken out, as it was on the side of the house next to
the fire and so in more imminent danger. No
sooner had the suggestion been made than somebody
said, nobody knew where things came from that
day, nor how they happened.)
"Fortunately there was a man in the crowd who
knew the value of ropes and knots at a time like
that. That man was the present Dr. Howard H.
Bailey of Washington, D. C. The boys stood in
chairs and lifted the iron railing over the head of
the statue and threw it on the floor. Taking the
ropes with him, Bailey went up into the then first
gallery (the present top gallery) and dropped a
noose over the head of the statue; this he pulled
taut, passed it around one of the pillars in the gallery
and then threw the loose end to the crowd on
the floor below. Then with a second rope he did
exactly the same thing, except that he did not pass
it around a pillar. The first rope was eased out by
the crowd on the floor and, as a back-stay rope, held
the statue from falling over on its face, while the
second rope, as a fore-and-aft stay, enabled the
students to pull the statue down into a horizontal
position. As soon as it was in a horizontal position,
one of the library tables was run under the statue—
the pedestal at that time being about the height of
the tables (the present pedestal is a new one, as the
old one was burned), but instantly the great weight
of the marble crushed the table to the floor, and this,
too, with no injury to the statue except a minor
item, which is today testified to by the chipped off
hem of the cloak on the right-hand side—a matter
too trifling for more than mere mention when compared
with the saving of the statue. Once on the
floor, the statue was turned over on its back and
with the ropes the boys began to haul it across the
library to the door (just inside the window above
door was the only entrance and exit to the library,
so it was necessarily crowded with those hurrying
out the books, pictures, etc., as the flames were now
well in the room, though the ladies, as well as the
boys, laughed at the flames and kept on with their
work of saving the books, having dipped their handkerchiefs
in water and tied them over mouth and
nose, while they groped around through the smoke
looking for books and pictures.
"The statue had gotten just half in, half out of the
Library door and was jammed, as it was a bit long
to make an easy turn out to the narrow platform at
the head of the staircase, which led down around
the curving wall to the present main floor of the
Library.
"It was an awful scene. The smoke was so thick
and dense that one could not see twenty feet from
him; the jingle of glass which was being knocked
and kicked out of the book-cases; dozens of men
and boys all shouting different things; the crashing
of beams accompanying the frequent explosions of
dynamite cartridges; the roar of the flames which
were now well in the room and cast a dull, red,
fiendish glow over everything through the smoke;
the crackling of burning timbers; all these things
tended to make a veritable hell, when suddenly there
was a fearful explosion as though the heavens had
been rent asunder. The next moment all was silence;
we were in total darkness; the whole earth
seemed to tremble; the Rotunda rocked; the voices
hushed; the crashing and the crackling of the beams
was checked; but only for a moment: `Great God!'
one thought, `we are lost.' This silence lasted for,
and these things happened in less than a moment,
most awful yells were heard; every pane of glass
not already broken had been shattered by the force
of the explosion, and with a terrific crash the whole
plaster ceiling of the dome of the Rotunda came
down to the floor. Every one rushed for the single
door, there to find the statue half in, half out of the
Library; there was a jam, but the cooler heads
quickly dispersed it. The statue was gotten out on
the staircase and step by step it was carried down
the western stairs, feet foremost. As the base of
the statue was eased over each step, it would gather
momentum and gaining speed would tear off the top
edge of the next step, while under the combined
weight of the statue and twenty to thirty of the students,
the whole staircase would tremble.
"Safely down the stairs, it was slid along the floor
and out on the portico of the Rotunda, where mattresses,
taken from near-by rooms of the students,
were laid on the marble steps, and the statue was
eased down to the Lawn out of the reach of danger,
there to be covered with a blanket until a canvas
could be procured for the purpose. It is conservatively
estimated that it took from ten to fifteen minutes
to remove the statue from the Library. Certain
it is that it took a gang of workmen with
rollers, jacks and blocks, ropes, etc., half a day to
remove it from the Lawn to the Museum, where it
was temporarily kept."
The appeal to Lynchburg, Staunton, and Richmond
met with as ready response as was possible,
considering the distance. When the special train
from Richmond reached Gordonsville it was stopped
by a telegram conveying the information that the
Rotunda and Annex were destroyed and the fire
no engine, as the elevation of the water supply above
that city makes one unnecessary. Lynchburg sent
men, hose, an engine, and the visitors from both
cities contributed largely to the suppression of the
conflagration.
By twelve o'clock, less than two hours from the
time that Mr. Foshee, a student, saw the smoke issuing
from the Annex, the fire had destroyed that
building and the Rotunda, reaching Mr. Jefferson's
clock in the pediment of the South portico before
the hands had quite reached twelve. The one-story
structure uniting the basement of the Rotunda with
the East and West sides of the Lawn were in ruins,
having been demolished to prevent the spread of fire
to the pavilions and dormitories of East and West
Lawn. No description can adequately realize the
picture of desolation and disaster as it appeared
that Sunday afternoon. By the faculty, students,
alumni, and all others who through association and
sentiment regarded the Rotunda with reverence it
was looked upon as a supreme calamity, and the
faces of even men were wet with tears.
The men to whom the State had committed the
fortunes of the University were not dismayed.
The chairman of the faculty had the gifts of a
leader and his colleagues were men capable of coping
with the emergency. The fire was under control
by 2.30—at 3 the faculty was in session in the
chemical lecture-room. Before they adjourned
they had decided that not a lecture should be lost
and had made out a schedule of places and hours.
Every academic and law lecture-room had been
destroyed and so there was a scattering of the
schools. Jefferson Hall, the rooms over the postoffice,
o'clock the next morning found the students assembled
and lectures in progress in each of these
places. The Washington Hall was assigned to the
law department. The temporary office of the chairman,
Professor William M. Thornton, was number
5 West Lawn.
No time was lost in vain regrets. The hour was
critical and prompt action essential both for immediate
needs and for the larger matter of the public
relation to the problems the disaster had precipitated.
Supineness in the chairman and his colleagues,
and a failure of the Visitors to comprehend
the full extent of the material loss, would have left
the State and country unguided and free to yield
to a hopeless resignation. But a wise readiness and
co-operation gave convincing proof that the loss
was material and not spiritual, and that the University
of Virginia was the same and undiminished.
Faculty and Visitors faced the loss without a delusion
as to the problems it brought them. The
property burned represented an expenditure of a
quarter of a million and was worth more. The Rotunda
had originally cost $60,020; its clock, bell,
books, plates, &c., $107,330; the Annex and the
School of Athens $61,839.99, not to speak of the
contents of the several departments housed in it,
nor of the gifts to the Library, whose destruction
added immensely to the total. The basement
rooms, the "old chapel" and the students readingroom,
in construction and repairs, would probably
add $10,000.
The assets available to replace this loss consisted
of the walls of the Rotunda, happily uninjured, less
than $50,000 derived from insurance and some
the alumni, and philanthropic friends. From these
sources it was soon seen that rehabilitation and extension
would require nearly half a million of dollars.
It was a time of faith and works indeed, and
in a marvelously brief period plans were agreed upon
and contracts entered into for the rebuilding and
the additions regarded as absolutely necessary to
provide an adequate arena for the constantly expanding
life of the University.
In 1893 the Fayerweather Gymnasium was
erected and equipped out of money from a bequest
by Daniel B. Fayerweather of New York. This
edifice, complying with the canons of good taste
from the architect's point of view, and harmonizing
with its surroundings, is distinguished as being the
first structure erected at the University after the
death of its founder that is at all worthy of the place
excepting the Gothic chapel, which, while of a different
order of architecture, finds favor for its very
beauty. It makes one shudder to think what would
have resulted if the Rotunda had been destroyed in
1850, or thereabout. Ordinarily, restoration in
matters of this kind is but another word for desecration,
accomplished through the operation of bad
taste or stinginess. Happily, the fire came when
the reign of architectural horrors had ended. From
that day to this good luck has seemed to attend the
institution. Some wise person must have suggested
McKim, Meade & White to the faculty, as
the architects for this emergency, and no doubt the
same sage made fortunate suggestions to these gentlemen
while they were studying the conditions and
deciding upon the extent and manner of restoring
what had been lost and of extending the original
crisis, as it has at other crises, in the history of the
University.
The Visitors at the first engaged McDonald
Brothers, architects of Louisville, Kentucky, under
whose direction the Rotunda received a temporary
roof for the protection of its walls against weather.
The basement wings were rebuilt with fire-proof
roofs, and the debris of the destroyed Annex removed.
The same firm on January 4, 1896, reported
general plans to the building committee,
which consisted of Dr. W. C. N. Randolph (rector),
A. C. Gordon, L. R. Watts, and Daniel Harmon,
of the Visitors, with Wm. M. Thornton and W. H.
Echols of the faculty. This committee on the 18th
of January selected as the architect Mr. Stanford
White of the firm of McKim, Meade & White of
New York, McDonald Brothers relinquishing the
completion of the designs of the Rotunda to the
latter firm.
Mr. White presented alternative plans on March
2, and the one selected used the site at the foot of
the Lawn for the new buildings. It involved the
construction of another terrace, 200 by 300 feet,
and the erection of five buildings; the Rotunda, the
Academic Building, the Physical Laboratory, the
Mechanical Laboratory and the boiler house. The
further chronology of this undertaking embraces the
acceptance of the plans by the Board of Visitors on
March 13, the submission of detailed plans to the
committee, their modification and adoption on
April 16, and the letting of the contracts on May 2.
The limit fixed by the Board was the expenditure
of $250,000.
The Rotunda, already described to some extent,
in accordance with the original plans. This course
was in obedience to the fitness of things and in response
to a universal sentiment. The capitals remained
for some years simple blocks of Carrara
marble, for lack of the means to carve them, but the
means, about $8,000, was provided by Mr. John
Skelton Williams of Richmond, in honor of his
father, Mr. John L. Williams, a very loyal alumnus,
and the work done promptly and satisfactorily by
P. Copinni of New York, the sculptor of the bust of
Charles Broadway Rouss which adorns the Physical
Laboratory.
All combustible material was eschewed. The
floor, arches, and dome are of tiles made by the Gustavino
patents. The northern elevation is a copy of
the southern except that the portico is not so deep.
The approach to this portico from the esplanade,
which is coextensive with the area of the enclosing
ramparts of the old Annex, gives the northern front
a noble aspect.
Further additions to the external arrangement of
the Rotunda are the four basement or terrace wings,
joined together on the east and west by colonnades
which are really continuations of those on the Lawn.
The flat roof of these colonnades and terraces, together
with the floors of the porches of the Rotunda,
form a promenade around the entire chief structure
of the University, guarded by a handsome balustrade.
Originally the Lawn was divided into four terraces
descending from the Rotunda to the Triangle.
A fifth was added in Mr. White's plan, and enclosed
on three sides by new buildings, which, viewed from
the portico of the Rotunda, seem but one story in
was allowed to appear above the terrace. The central
one of these erections at the southern end of the
Lawn, balancing the Rotunda at the opposite extremity,
is the Academic Building, the largest and
most significant of its immediate group. It contains
numerous lecture-rooms and an imposing auditorium
adorned with Breck's copy of the School of
Athens. The facade delights those interested in
architecture. Its portico is upheld by columns carrying
Ionic capitals, while the tympanum bears a
group modeled by Zolnay in illustration of the University's
motto—"Ye shall know the truth and the
truth shall make you free." This text appears in
Greek among the details of the facade. Peristyles
connect this structure with the Mechanical Laboratory,
or Hall of Mechanic Arts, on the western side,
and the Rouss Physical Laboratory on the eastern,
and are covered with vines to afford a shade for belvederes,
from which there is a fine view.
The destruction of M. Balze's copy of Raphael's
School of Athens has been mentioned. An unknown
friend of the University furnished the money
to have another copy of the famous fresco made, and
Mr. George W. Breck of New York executed it in
Rome, having gained permission to make the replica
directly from Raphael's work. It was formally presented
to the University on April 12, 1902.
The estimate of nearly half a million for restoration
and expansion did not call for more than was
used. The resources were—
| $200,000 | from proceeds of 5 per cent. bonds sold at par. |
| 123,425 | from the Fayerweather bequest. |
| 35,000 | from Charles B. Rouss. |
| 56,973 | from contributions of alumni and friends. |
| 25,831 | from insurance and interest. |
| $441,229 |
The expenditures on the restoration of the Rotunda
and the adjoining terraces, the erection of new
buildings, the improvements to the grounds, etc.,
were divided, approximately, as follows:
| Rotunda and terraces, | $147,000 |
| Academic Building, | 132,000 |
| Physical Laboratory and equipment, | 60,000 |
| Mechanical Laboratory and equipment, | 65,000 |
| Boiler House, | 18,000 |
| Lawn and grounds, | 18,119 |
| $440,119 |
In all that has been done to repair the ravages of
the fire and to expand the University good taste has
controlled, with pleasing results. The Randall dormitory
is an attractive structure viewed in its necessary
relations to its site, and the hospital when finished
as planned will be a worthy member of the
general group. The last erection, Madison Hall, is
beautiful, and apparently without fault under scrutiny
from without and within.
Before passing from the consideration of University
buildings something should be said as to the
dwellers on the Lawn, the dwellings themselves having
passed under review. The houses of professors
have been designated from the beginning by numbers—the
pavilions on East Lawn having the even
ones and those on West Lawn the odd.
Considering West Lawn first: Pavilion I was
first occupied by Professor Emmet. He moved to
Morea, on the western limit of the University lands,
in 1833 or 1834, and it was seven or eight years before
the next professor occupant arrived. During
Ryland, Tustin, Wilmer, Doggett, J. B. Taylor, W.
S. White, and W. M. Jackson. In 1842 Professor
Courtney succeeded the chaplains, and members of
the faculty have succeeded each other from that day
to this, the order being Professors Bledsoe, Gildersleeve,
John R. Page, and Tuttle.
Pavilion III: Professors Lomax, John A. G.
Davis, Magill, Griffith, Howard, Peters, James F.
Harrison, W. C. Dabney, Garnett, Proctor Thomas
H. Carter, and Professor R. C. Minor.
Pavilion V: Professors Long, Patterson, Gessner
Harrison, F. H. Smith, and Kent.
Pavilion VII: Was not occupied by a professor
until 1849 or 50, when Dr. John Staige Davis, Sr.,
became incumbent. Upon the death of Dr. Maupin,
Dr. Davis moved across the Lawn to Pavilion VIII,
and was succeeded in number VII by Professor
Boeck, and he in time by Professor Noah K. Davis.
In the beginning this pavilion was used for the Library
until 1826, and in its lecture-room, now a
drawing-room, many a culprit student has been "before
the faculty," for many of the meetings of that
body were held there. The Board of Visitors convened
there for many years. One whose memory
goes back much more than a half century recalls the
preparations for the visitation, among them being
"a large decanter with nine glasses and a place for
loaf sugar." When the chaplains could no longer
use Pavilion I they occupied VII. These were probably
Chaplains Rosser, Robinson, White, W. G.
Jackson, Manning and Wood.
Pavilion IX has had but four occupants—Professors
George Tucker, McGuffey, Peters, and FitzHugh.
On East Lawn: The first occupant of Pavilion
II was Dr. Johnson, but the date of his entrance has
not been preserved. His successors were Professors
Warner, Cabell, W. C. Dabney, Buckmaster, and J.
A. Harrison.
Pavilion IV: Professors Blaettermann, Kraitsir,
Schele De Vere, and Kent. When Dr. Alderman
accepted the presidency this pavilion was fitted up
for the offices of administration, and Dr. Kent became
joint occupant with Professor Smith of No. V.
Pavilion VI: Professors Key, Gessner Harrison,
W. B. Rogers, J. L. Smith, Maupin, J. S. Davis, Sr.,
Venable, and Echols.
Pavilion VIII. Professors Bonnycastle, R. E.
Rogers, J. L. Smith, Maupin, J. S. Davis, Sr., Venable,
and Echols.
Pavilion X: Professors Dunglison, John A. G.
Davis, H. St. George Tucker, J. B. Minor, and Lile.
Some of the pavilions were evidently vacant at
times. Professor Key left the University in 1827.
The next occupant of his pavilion was Gessner Harrison,
who was not a professor until 1828. He
moved across the Lawn in 1835 to take Pavilion V,
when Professor Patterson went to Philadelphia to
be director of the United States Mint. Professor
John A. G. Davis also crossed the Lawn. He succeeded
Professor Lomax in Pavilion VI in 1830,
and when Dr. Dunglison left the University in 1833
and Pavilion X was vacant he moved into it. It
proved to be his last home, for, seven years later, he
was shot down nearly on its threshold. After moving
from Pavilion X Dr. Dunglison occupied Pavilion
VII temporarily.
Professor W. C. Dabney succeeded Dr. James F.
Harrison in No. III in 1886, and Dr. James L. Cabell
there five years later.
Hotel E, at the south end of West Range, was intended
as the proctor's residence and office, but he
preferred the Monroe house, and it was there that
Mr. Jefferson went for the transaction of business.
Whether it was ever moved between Mr. Brockenbrough's
death, which occurred in 1831, and the time
of Colonel Kemper's occupancy (1846-53) does not
appear by anything written, and the memory of
men is too infirm to rely upon. Certainly, in 1846,
the office was on Monroe Hill. In 1853 it was in a
room adjoining the hotel at the south end of East
Range, now known as Levering Hall, and Colonel
Prentis, the incumbent, dwelt in the hotel. The hotel
was assigned to William Jefferies as a boardinghouse,
and the proctor's office was returned to Monroe
Hill. It migrated again to East Range when
John E. Johnston became proctor in 1867. The
proctor's residence was the present Alumni Hall, and
his office was in a dormitory adjoining, and remained
there until Col. Thomas H. Carter, the last
of the proctors, moved it to the quarters now occupied
by the bursar.
The postoffice was migratory, too. An early location
was in the present Jefferson Society Hall or a
dormitory adjoining it; thence it was moved to the
proctor's office when that office was kept on East
Range by Colonel Prentis. Its next location was in
Washington Hall. In 1855-6 the building at the
entrance to the University grounds was erected and
the postoffice transferred to it, where it has been
since.
| CHAPTER XXI Jefferson, Cabell and the University of Virginia | |