University of Virginia Library

XI. The Subscription List

Having acquired a suitable site for the College, the
next step was to erect the requisite buildings. Before describing
the remarkable architectural plan which Jefferson
had already drafted for use, it will be necessary to

dwell at some length on the sources upon which the Board
were relying for the funds that would be indispensable for
so expensive an undertaking. The most important was
the subscription list. Although a canvass had, with conspicuous
success, been made among the citizens of Albemarle
county and the surrounding region before the incorporation
of Central College, yet so far as it appears,
none of this money had been paid before May 5, 1817,
when the Visitors convened with a quorum for the first
time. It was at once perceived by them that a much
larger sum would be required for the new college than
was anticipated when the scheme had not as yet passed
beyond the stage of an academy. Jefferson, with characteristic
energy and promptness, submitted to the Board
the preamble for a new subscription list, the tone of
which reflected the extreme importance that he attached
to education. The right of self-government, he declared,
was among the greatest of political blessings, and only
an intelligent and instructed people could preserve it for
themselves. How was information to be disseminated
among them? By multiplying the number of seats of
learning, and thus bringing at least one within the convenient
reach of every parent or guardian. Central College,
he concluded, would "facilitate the means of education
to a considerable extent of country"; and it was
further recommended, he said, by the salubrity of its
climate, and by other local advantages. The subscriber
was asked to make a contribution payable as a whole on
April 1, 1818, or in four equal instalments, the first to
be handed in on that date, and the remainder, in annual
succession, during the ensuing three years.

Jefferson, Cabell, and Cocke led off with a subscription
of one thousand dollars apiece. So speedy was the
success following the appeal, that an early meeting of the

Board was desirable to authorize the beginning of the
building. Albemarle county alone had pledged, through
its principal citizens, the sum of nineteen thousand dollars.
"We are already sure of enough," Cocke informed
Cabell, in a spirit of high satisfaction, "to lay
the foundation of what I trust may be improved to be
a noble work." Cabell himself had, in the meanwhile,
been indefatigable in distributing the subscription lists
in many parts of Virginia,—he had sent copies to, among
others, Colonel Lewis, of Campbell county, Dr. Cabell,
of Lynchburg, Edmund Winston, John Camm, Stirling
Claiborne, Hill Carter, David Garland, Robert Rives,
Henry St. George Tucker, William Brent, and Ellyson
Currie, all of whom were influential citizens in their several
communities. Brent and Currie were residents of
the Northern Neck, which had not even yet recovered
from the ravages of the marauding British fleet; but this
did not discourage Cabell from asking them to solicit
subscriptions at the meetings of the county courts in their
district.

Colonel Lewis, of Campbell, made a counter proposition.
It appears that he was the owner of a virgin gold
mine situated in Buckingham county at a spot not far
from Cabell's home near Warminster. "It is the richest
mine of that metal ever discovered," he wrote, with honest
enthusiasm. He offered to convey a half interest in
this amazing underground storehouse of wealth to Central
College on condition that the whole was to be drawn
for in a lottery, in which twenty thousand tickets were to
be used, at a valuation of ten dollars a ticket; or ten
thousand issued at a valuation of twenty dollars. The
profit would, on this calculation, amount to two hundred
thousand dollars, which was to be equally divided between
Lewis and the College. The scheme, seductive as it was,

failed to dazzle Cabell's judgment, probably because the
mine was situated so close to his own plantation that he
had reason, from his own observation, to be skeptical as
to its richness. Only a week later, he was visiting Buckingham
courthouse, and still interested in the more prosaic
method of procuring funds by solicitation in person;
but neither he nor his friend, Eppes, the member of Congress
from that district, was encouraged by the upshot.

Jefferson too, about this date, found serious impediments
in the same path. The main obstruction which
he had to surmount, he wrote Cabell in September, 1817,
was the "idea that it was a local thing, a mere Albemarle
Academy. I endeavor to convince them it is a
general seminary of the sciences meant for the use of the
State. In this view, all approve and rally to the object.
But time seems necessary to plant this idea firmly in their
minds."

When the report of the Visitors was drawn up on
January 6, 1818, the total amount of the subscriptions
had grown to $35,102; and to this should be added
$3,195.86 derived from the sale of the glebes and now
in the custody of the court commissioner. Unhappily,
the larger proportion of the voluntary contributions was
payable in four annual instalments; none were due until
April 1, 1818; and some not until three years should have
passed after that date. At least one-half of the total
amount would be needed in the summer of 1818; and in
anticipation of this fact, Jefferson, on January 15, asked
Cabell, then in attendance in the Senate in Richmond, to
obtain a loan from the banks of ten to twenty thousand
dollars on the security of the subscription lists; but the
application was turned down until the Board should consent
to give their personal endorsement. Although additional
subscriptions continued to come in, this had no

influence in removing the uneasiness with which Jefferson
regarded the situation in several of its aspects. "I
should be much relieved," he wrote Cabell on the 16th,
"if the members of the Board, in the want of visitorial
full meetings, would individually call here whenever they
happen to pass. Even separate conferences with them
would lighten my mind of some of its load."

Taking the returns of the subscription as a whole, there
seems to have been no permanent reason for dissatisfaction.
In Albemarle county, where every prominent family
put its name in the list, the amount of the several
contributions ranged from one thousand dollars to
twenty dollars; seven citizens pledged themselves each
for the former sum and eleven for five hundred dollars
respectively; there were one hundred and twenty-nine
subscribers in all, and the total sum promised was $27,440.33.
In Richmond city, there were only eleven subscribers,
and the largest amount pledged was five hundred
dollars. Most of these contributors were bound to Jefferson
by ties of kinship or personal loyalty. The amount
pledged by the eleven aggregated $2,225.00. In Stafford
county but one subscriber was secured, and in Winchester,
but four, who together pledged themselves for
eight hundred dollars. All these subscribers were personal
friends of Cabell. In Amherst and Buckingham
counties, there was only one subscriber respectively, and
each pledged himself for a small sum. In Cumberland
county, which faced on the fertile low grounds of James
River, and contained the homes of many wealthy and
cultured families of gentle descent, the number of subscribers
rose to twenty-five. The sum contributed by
them was $2,190.00. In Fluvanna, there were fourteen
subscribers,—among them General Cocke,—and their
offerings amounted to $2,590.00; in Goochland, twenty

subscribers, with a total contribution of $1,185.00; in
Louisa, six, with a total of $1,400.00; in Lynchburg,
seven, with a total of $1,300.00; in Nelson, eighteen,
with a total of $2,952.00; in Orange, two,—one of whom
was Madison,—with a total of $1,030.00.

The list of the subscribers is a notable one, not simply
from a social point of view, but also for the high public
spirit and esteem for learning which their contributions
so plainly indicate. In the list for Albemarle, we discover
the following respected names: Carr, Divers, Coles,
Dawson, Duke, Garrett, Gordon, Garth, Harper, Harris,
Kinsolving, Lindsay, Maury, Randolph, Lewis, Leitch,
Minor, Monroe, Morris, Nicholas, Patterson, Shackelford,
Waddell, Southall, Watson, Shelton, Walker,
Winn, Wertenbaker, Wood and Woods; in Stafford
county, Brent; in Winchester, Carr, Holmes, Lee,
and Tucker; in Buckingham, Eppes; in Cumberland,
Bondurant, Deans, Daniel, Harrison, Hughes, Page,
Skipwith, Trent, Thornton, Walker, and Woodson;
in Fluvanna, Cocke, Scott, Cary, Fuqua and Winn; in
Goochland, Carter, Garland, Pickett, Pleasant, Pendleton,
Sampson, Randolph, and Watkins; in Loudoun,
Mason; in Louisa, Morris, Minor, Trueheart, and
Watson; in Lynchburg, Harrison, Pollard, and Yancey;
in Nelson, Rives, Calloway, Digges, Garland, Lewis,
McClelland and Mosby; and in Orange, Madison.

Many of the local subscribers, with the full concurrence
of the Board of Visitors, were anxious to pay the
entire amount of their contributions in a form that was
suggested by the needs of the College in the course of its
building. W. D. Garth, for instance, furnished many
feet of dressed plank in return for the release of his
pledge; Reuben Maury supplied a large quantity of
farm products on the same acceptable condition; so did

Garland Garth; and so did James Dinsmore with his
work as contractor.[17] As we shall see, a small number of
the subscriptions, chiefly because of death, insolvency, or
emigration, remained unpaid until as late as 1824, when
a collector was appointed at a handsome percentage to
obtain by suit or solicitation such as had not as yet been
settled. In order to swell the amount that was confidently
expected from the subscription list, the Board of
Visitors, at the meeting held on May 5, 1817, approved
the plan for the lottery which had been drawn up by the
trustees of Albemarle Academy; and they instructed the
proctor to carry it into execution at once through such
agents as he should appoint. The proceeds of the sale of
the voluminous tickets were to be deposited in the Bank
of Virginia in Richmond. It is to be inferred that the
lottery scheme remained in abeyance, for there is no
reference to any income acquired by this means. The
passage of the bill, in 1818, providing for the establishment
of a university, and appropriating an annual fund
of fifteen thousand dollars for its support, may have
caused the lottery to be put off indefinitely.