University of Virginia Library

Riots disturb
Virginia serenity

—Thomas Jefferson.

This quotation led an editorial which
appeared in The Cavalier Daily in
November 1958 following a "riot" in
which students protested the encroachment
of their freedoms by the administration.
The controversy was over car
regulations.

Periodically throughout the entire 150
year history of the University the grounds
have provided the scenario for incidents
that many have called "riots."

—ed.

For the biggest and best in quality
riots we can start with the earliest years
of the University's life. These were the
years of high spirit, insubordination, and
the most destructive of student mischief.
Philip Alexander Bruce, the official
historian and collector of fact and myth
about the University, devotes a great
amount of space (sixty-three pages) to
those riots occurring in the years between
the first matriculation and the Civil War.

The first of the great "vicious
irregularities" (as the verbose Thomas
Jefferson described student outbreaks)
came on the night of October 1, 1825.
Students had for some time been seething
in resentment of "the foreign professors"
on the Faculty. After dark, a crowd of
masked students assembled on the lawn,
and the cry "Down with the European
professors" went up. Dr. John P. Emmett
and George Tucker who were two of the
three American professors on the faculty
attempted to quiet the noisemakers, but
Tucker was assailed with a cane, and a
brick was thrown at Emmett. The latter
had history as his judge; his memory is
eternally enshrined in magnificent
Emmett House. A bottle of foul-smelling
liquid was tossed into the pavilion of
Professor Long who, along with fellow
Englishman, Professor Key, was a target
of the up-risings. Both professors soon
resigned their chairs.

In 1833, an ordinance was passed
which provided that in case of a riot at
night all students were to retire to their
rooms at a signal from the college bell.
The student body resented this order, and
was eager to test it with a new riot.
Arriving at "Hotel C" now Jefferson Hall,
for a scheduled mass meeting, students,
finding the doors locked, promptly
battered them down, held their meeting,
and adopted a resolution condemning the
regulation.

These early disturbances were mere
trifles which set the stage for the great
student rebellion of 1836. The captain of
the military company of the University
(their version of R.O.T.C.) refused to
acknowledge University jurisdiction over
the company and declared unacceptable
the usual University rules that the
regulation uniform be worn, that no
musket be fired on the Lawn or in the
Ranges, and that the muskets be handled
only in the course of military exercises.

The professors began to arm themselves
in defense of their families, and on
the third day of rioting a military guard
was placed around the Rotunda. A grand
jury convened, and several students were
indicted. The student body was quick to
oppose Faculty blame with resolutions of
their own, and in the end, no serious
measures were taken against the writer.

The anniversary of this "rebellion"
became a kind of Independence Day of
the University and was celebrated annually.

In 1838, a serious not occurred when
the Faculty refused to allow students to
celebrate Jefferson's birthday with a ball,
because on the preceding February 22,
some amount of drunken and disorderly
conduct had honored the deceased
Washington on his birthday. Because
permission was refused, students gathered
on the lawn, suitably masked, and rang
bells, fired muskets and stormed the
pavilions of the professors. Burning
barrels of tar, which threatened Lawn
buildings, were brought up, and students
danced around them singing obscene
songs. Rioting which continued into the
next day and night found Professor
Rogers sitting in his pavilion - though his
door and windows had been smashed
away - armed with a pistol and ready to
shoot the first student to cross his
threshold

It is surprising that in such
disturbances as these no one had been
killed. This record was broken in the Riot
of 1840, a celebration in honor of the
anniversary of the rebellion of 1836.

John A. G. Davis, a well-liked and
competent Professor of Law, hearing a
great noise under the arcade of his
pavilion on the East Lawn, went out to
determine its cause and attempted to
unmask one of the rioters assembled
there. A struggle ensued, and Professor
Davis was fatally wounded. The principal
and accessory students involved were
arrested. None of the rioters had held any
grudge against Davis, though the principal
had announced during the riot as had
others, that he would shoot any faculty
member who tried to unmask him. Both
students were not prosecuted, though the
principal left the University.

In April 1845, the Calathumpians a
student organization originally formed as
a college band - a kind of musical Lawn
Chowder and Marching Society - began a
little mob mischief because of a recent
dismissal of three students for disorderly
conduct. Blowing horns and beating
drums, the society marched, masked, past
the pavilion of Professor Robert Rogers
breaking windows and frightening Mrs.
Rogers The disturbance was repeated on
the 14th, the night following, with the
breaking of more windows. On the 16th
the Calathumpians rode through the
arcades on horseback discharging pistols
as they rode. For three more nights, the
pavilions and the Rotunda were badly
damaged by bombardments of sticks and
stones.

On April 20th, after a week of
violence, it was reported that the State
militia and the local constabulary were
being summoned to suppress the rioting.
At this, student dispersed in hopes of
stalling such a barbaric appeal to force.
The militia, two hundred strong, arrived
anyway, so the students made like the
defenders of Budapest, and tranquility
was imposed by force.

art by gary kreger

Rioting as a tradition didn't end in the
1800's. The University has been the stage
for even more recent irregularities. In
November of 1958 students numbering
over 1000 gathered in Madison Bowl to
protest the tightening of car regulations,
as well as displaying their general
discontent with the administration. Cars
were burned, students hanged Dean Runk
in effigy, and local police were brought
out to disperse the mob with tear gas and
billy clubs. The students were not only
threatening President Shannon's house,
but the downtown area.

Again in 1961, not once but twice
within a seven day period police were
needed to quiet down students who were
apparently protesting the shortening of
their Thanksgiving holiday. Once again
the incident was broken up with tear gas
and police using their "billies."

Since the incident in 1961 there have
been no occasions when the police or
other civil authorities have had to use
violent means to break up students acting
in a disorderly fashion. For the most part,
student activity in recent times has taken
the form of what Robert Rosen liked to
call "responsible protesting."