University of Virginia Library

XXXV. Diversions, continued

The Faculty must have decided that the party at Mrs.
Gray's was sufficient for thirty days, for on December 2
of the same year, they refused to permit the boarders of
Minor's hotel to repeat it. The entire body of students
united in giving a large ball on Christmas Eve of the
same year. It is not stated where this took place. Apparently,
the custom had not yet been introduced of holding
the University, as distinguished from the hotel, balls
in the noble circular room of the library,—an apartment
that would have lent splendor to any entertainment, however
imposing in itself. The middle hotels, as they were
called,—the two houses on West Range and East Range,
the one now used as the Jefferson Hall, and the other
formerly as the home of the proctor,—were hardly large
enough to allow free movement to so great throng as
two hundred and fifty or three hundred people, the number
quite certain to have attended a University ball in
those times. From January 1, 1829, down to 1842,
not a year went by that a dance was not given by the
boarders of each hotel, and in some instances, it took
place in the vacant middle building on West Range.
Such a party was given on October 14, 1829, by the
young men assigned to Mrs. Gray's tables, and on November
13, of the following year, by those assigned to
Colonel Rose's. The latter was held at Rose's hotel.
Only four days later, the boarders of Spotswood's hotel

obtained permission to invite their friends to a ball in
their turn. There were sixty students present on this
occasion, and as each was granted the privilege of inviting
a young lady, there was, with the escorts and members
of the professors' families, a large company in attendance.
Only one student appeared on the floor without
his uniform, and the entertainment was marked by
perfect decorum.[36]

Professor Harrison and his wife, just after their marriage,
were guests of honor at a ball at Conway's hotel
given by the members of the School of Ancient Languages,
a proof of the good will in which he was held
by those who attended his lectures. In the following
October, a ball was given at Wertenbaker's hotel. There
were ninety students present, with a proportionate number
of young ladies. Wertenbaker, as we have seen,
had become unpopular with many of the young men in
consequence of the vigilance and firmness which he had
shown as assistant to the proctor in the enforcement of
the police regulations; but this did not prevent them
from gathering under his roof in a great throng when
an opportunity for amusement was offered. A subscription
ball was held in this hotel twelve months afterwards.
The fee that was paid by each participant was four dollars.
When the chairman objected to this amount as too
large, the managers brought forward as an excuse the fact
that at least sixty students belonging to other hotels had

been present, and as the whole of the University was thus
really represented, it was as if one ball had been given
by the boarders of three hotels; or to describe it in their
own words, as if three balls had been given for a single
subscription. It was perhaps on the same ground that
the fee for a party at Conway's hotel was not long afterwards
put at a figure as high as five dollars. When this
was mentioned as a precedent for the ball at Mrs. Gray's
a few days later, the chairman refused to assent to its
propriety, and only with great reluctance finally agreed
to the amount being fixed at four dollars. By 1835, the
sum to be paid was ordered to be reduced to two. The
boarders at Colonel Ward's hotel complained of this
regulation because it would limit the liquid refreshments
to a weak sangaree, while a four dollar subscription
would enable them to buy at least sixteen gallons of wine.
It was the misuse of spirits, on these occasions, that
aroused the Faculty's opposition, and led them to debar
it in a measure by cutting down the sum to be expended in
its purchase. So much drunkenness disgraced the ball
given on the night of February 22, 1838, that the students
were refused permission to give a second one on
the night of April 13 of the same year.

The medical class invited Doctor Cabell to a large
party in honor of his appointment to his chair, and in his
turn, he, at the beginning of the next session, reciprocated
by feasting all its members. But it was not often that
the Faculty contributed to the students' recreation by
the like entertainments. This was perhaps to be explained
by those relations of friction which existed between
them as a body and the students, through so many
years. Had the professors been less aloof in their bearing,
the strain would have been less perceptible. They
must have sometimes acknowledged the truth of this in

their own breasts, for, in 1831, there seems to have been
at least a temporary disposition on their part to enter into
a more cordial' personal intercourse with their pupils.
There were two balls given by them in the month of
March of that year, and two, in addition, in October.
At one of the latter, several of the young men appeared
without uniform, an act so patently in the teeth of the
regulations that it had the aspect of an intentional affront
to their hosts. There was a fourth party in one of
the pavilions in November. Few records exist of other
entertainments by members of the Faculty in the years
that immediately followed; but it is probable that the
chairman gave an occasional party or reception.

It was only rarely that the students could obtain permission
either to give balls in the taverns of Charlottesville
or to accept invitations to balls given there by townsmen.
The reason for this refusal was, in general, a
sound one; liquor, owing to the existence of bar-rooms
in these inns, was so conveniently at hand that few of
the young men could resist the temptation to drink to
excess. In 1831, there were uncommonly deep potations
at a ball given at the Midway hotel, and in the same year,
at another given at the Central. It was their knowledge
of this discreditable indulgence that caused the Faculty
to decline to allow the boarders of Gray's and Conway's
hotels to hold a ball at the Midway in the following October,
and again in December. Many students, however,
attended a party given at Fitch's in January, 1832, and
it was so cold a night that some of them were detained
until next morning. There was a public ball given at
Midway's on the night of February 22; and on March 4,
a subscription ball at Fitch's to the young ladies of
Charlottesville. To the latter about fifteen students had
been invited to subscribe.

Fitch's hotel seems to have remained under a permanent
ban with the Faculty. Permission was usually refused
the students to hold balls there. The chairman,
however, consented to one at the Midway when told
by the pleading young men that it was to be "very genteel
and proper." "I thought," he said, "that it would
not be right to withhold my consent." "Indeed," he
added, "these parties at which ladies are present are the
least objectionable of all the indulgences that can be
granted to the students." The records reveal that the
collegians were sometimes very sly in their methods of
twisting around the Faculty's refusal to permit them to
hold a ball in an inn of Charlottesville. In January,
1833, the boarders of Col. Rose's hotel persuaded their
friends in town to become the patrons of an entertainment
at Ward's tavern, the cost of which the young men
promised to defray; they justified this furtiveness by asserting
that the dimensions of the University hotels
were too small to accommodate with comfort all the persons
whom they wished to invite. A very large public
ball was held at Boyd's tavern on April 12, 1833, and
no obstruction for once was placed in the way of the
students' attendance. The corresponding ball in 1835
was also celebrated with extraordinary distinction; on
this occasion the Faculty was scandalized by the arrival
of many of the young men in knee breeches and velvet
coats, ordered specially for the occasion; and these fine
clothes, by comparison, made the gray uniform worn by
the others appear drab and shabby. In the following
November, the students were permitted to give a dancing
party at the Mudwall boarding house[37] provided that the

only liquor to be served was a weak sangaree. Having
once obtained such permission in any case, they were often
disposed to push the privilege rather far. A ball in celebration
of Washington's birthday was held by them at the
Midway on the night of February 22, 1836. On the ensuing
day, the committee of eleven managers returned to
the hotel to settle the account, but before doing so,
summoned a number of their friends among the young
ladies of Charlottesville, and beginning at two o'clock in
the afternoon danced until nightfall. In explaining their
action to the chairman, they asserted that the night before
they had been so busy superintending the course of
the ball that they had been unable to take part in it on
the floor. They escaped with a reprimand.

Not all the balls attended by the collegians at this
time were given at the University or in Charlottesville.
On December 23, 1837, an entertainment of this kind
took place at Standardsville, in Orange county; and again
on December 27. Numerous students who had obtained
leave to visit their homes during the Christmas vacations
participated in these balls, which seem to have been given
by subscription. One of the party testified that it had
cost him six dollars; another, ten; and a third, fifteen.