New Board of Visitors
In the third week of February Jefferson received Joseph Carrington Cabell's letter from
Richmond written to inform him that Governor James Patton Preston had named the first
Board of Visitors for the University of Virginia and fixed the date of their first meeting for
the last Monday in March. Besides Jefferson, Cabell, James Madison, and John Hartwell
Cocke, who all had served on the board for the Central College, three new men received
appointments, Chapman Johnson, who was born at Boswell's Tavern in Louisa and lived in
Staunton, James Breckenridge of Botetourt County, and Robert B. Taylor of Norfolk. James
Monroe and David Watson, visitors for the college, were not reappointed.[168] In his reply to
Cabell, Jefferson called the makeup of the new board "entirely unexceptionable," noting
only that Breckenridge and Taylor lived at such a distance as to "render their attendances
uncertain." Calling attention to the "lateness of the day" (March 29) for the new board's first
meeting, Jefferson considered it indispensable for the old board to meet and apply all its
funds to building so as not to lose the chance of employing workmen for the coming year.
Otherwise, there would be a delay in the opening of the institution for a year, and, he
thought, the university should not be opened "until we can do it with that degree of splendor
necessary to give it a prominent character." He requested that the college's visitors meet at
Madison's Orange County home, Montpelier, on the following Friday (26 February) "to
determine at once" what buildings could be undertaken during the coming season. He
believed their funds would permit two pavilions in addition to the two already being
constructed, one "boarding house" (hotel) and 20 or 30 more dormitories.[169]
Cabell, of course, could not travel from Richmond to Montpelier in late February; Jefferson
notified Watson in Louisa and Cocke in Fluvanna that their presence was necessary to form
a quorum.[170] Jefferson himself (nearly 76 years of age and not fully recuperated from the
severe illness he developed at the springs following the meeting at Rockfish Gap the
previous August), informed General Cocke that "the roads being impassable for a carriage, I
shall take it on horseback, dividing the journey into two days. if the weather is good I shall
probably go to Colo. Lindsay's on Wednesday & to mr Madison's the next day, if you have
time for such leisurely movements I shall be happy in having your company."[171] On the
day of the meeting, however, Watson sent a missile informing the board that the "badly of
the weather, & the state of my health . . . absolutely forbid my attempting to meet you" at
Madison's. He did plan to go to Albemarle on the 28th, though, and he proposed that in the
mean time the board meet and "do as if I were personally present, & assenting to whatever
you & the visitors you may advise with, think necessary & proper; use no ceremony, but
affix my name to any paper or papers that may require it."[172] The board did just that, and
Jefferson, on his way back home following the meeting, obtained Watson's signature on the
minutes of the visitors.[173]
[168]
168. Cabell to TJ, 15 February 1819, ViU:TJ; see also Cabell, Early History of the
University of Virginia, 161-63. Governor Preston sent the commissions to the members of
the board on 27 February. See Preston's letters of that date to TJ, in ViU:TJ, to Madison, in
DLC:JM, and to Cabell, in ViU:JCC; see also the governor's copies in Vi: Executive
Letterbook. Preston's letter to Cabell and Cabell's reply of 17 March 1819 are printed in
ibid., 160. On 3 March Jefferson sent letters to the new visitors, copies of which (for
Johnson and Breckenridge) are located in DLC:TJ, inviting them to Monticello on the "day
before our appointed meeting, which gives us an opportunity of talking over our business, at
leisure, of making up our minds on it, & even of committing it to paper in form, so as that
our report to the College (where there is no accomodation) is a mere legal ceremony for
signing only" (TJ to Breckenridge, 3 March 1819, DLC:TJ). Chapman Johnson (1779-1849)
of Louisa graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1802, studied law under St.
George Tucker, and set up practice in Staunton after being admitted to the Virginia bar. A
member of the state senate from 1815 to 1831 and of the Virginia Constitutional Convention
in 1829, Johnson served on the Board of Visitors from 1819 to 1845. James Breckenridge
(1763-1846) of Fincastle graduated from William and Mary in 1785 and was admitted to the
Virginia bar in 1787. One of the most prominent Federalists in the Virginia General
Assembly before representing the Botetourt district of Virginia in the United States
Congress from 1809 to 1817, Breckenridge served on the Board of Visitors from 1819 to
1833. Robert Barrand Taylor (1774-1834) returned to his native Norfolk to study law after
graduating from William and Mary in 1793. He soon became a respected attorney and was
elected to the Virginia General Assembly, and towards the end of his life he became Judge
of the General Court of Virginia. Taylor also served as a brigadier general in the state militia
during the War of 1812, and in the Virginia Constitutional Convention of 1829. Taylor
served on the Board of Visitors from 1819 to 1822.
[169]
169. TJ to Cabell, 19 February 1819, ViU:TJ; see also ibid., 164-65.
[170]
170. See TJ to Watson, 19 February, and Watson to TJ, 21 February 1819, in DLC:TJ.
[171]
171. TJ to Cocke, 19 February 1819, ViU:JHC.
[172]
172. Watson to TJ, 26 February 1819, DLC:TJ.
[173]
173. In the postscript of Jefferson's letter to Madison of 3 March 1819, Jefferson wrote that
he obtained Watson's signature on the original visitors' minutes when "on my return I fell in
with mr Watson who signed our proceedings" (DLC:TJ).
