XIII. The Actual Building
The Board of Visitors of the College, it will be recalled,
authorized on May 5 (1817) the erection of
the first pavilion, and empowered a special committee,
composed of Jefferson and Cocke, to supervise the successive
stages of construction. The first step was to lay
off the plat of ground selected for the site of the institution.
It was not until July 18 that Jefferson staked
out his plan. The theodolite was fixed in the ground at
the middle point of the northern line of the square, on
which now rises the circular walls of the Rotunda. In
the beginning, there had to be embraced in the survey
an area sufficient to allow twenty dormitories to be attached
to each of the pavilions projected for the three
lines. The same area was still required when the number
of pavilions for the east and west lines, respectively,
was increased to five, for, at the same time, the number
of dormitories to be attached to each pavilion was reduced
to ten. At this period, as we have mentioned, the
site was simply an open worn-out field rising high and dry
by itself, and without any obstructions in the way of trees
or bushes. The lay-off was completed under Jefferson's
eye, and certainly partly, if not entirely, with his actual
assistance. Ten working men, quite probably hired
slaves, were promptly turned in to change the surface,
with spade and hoe, to the exact condition required for
the foundation of the several buildings. The design of
East and West Ranges, as distinguished from East and
West Lawn, had not yet been considered; the lay-off in
the beginning was confined to the present lawn and the
sites of the structures that were to confront it.
It was not until October 6 (1817) that the cornerstone
of the first pavilion, the modern Colonnade Club,
was put in place. It is a fact tending to arouse some
speculation that the site of this pavilion should have been
selected at so obscure a point in the lines forming the
three sides of the square. Why was it not chosen nearer
the northeast or northwest corner? Why not on the
ground now occupied by the Rotunda? According to
the original plan, no pavilion was to be erected at a
corner, but Latrobe seems to have altered Jefferson's
resolution in this detail. The suggestion from Thornton
in favor of a very handsome Corinthian pavilion at the
centre of the northern line, and from Latrobe of a
Rotunda there, may also have decided him at this time
to reserve this spot for a more imposing use in the
future.
The morning that was to witness the ceremony of laying
the corner-stone was at first fair, but the clouds later
on began to gather;—happily, however, only to disperse
and leave the weather clear again. The county and superior
courts, with their promiscuous attendance of citizens,
set upon business or amusement, were in session in Charlottesville;
but when informed of the impending event,
the judges left the bench, and accompanied by the crowd
of hangers-on, repaired to the scene. The doors of
all the stores were locked, private houses shut up, and the
entire population of the little town darkened the road to
the College. They were animated, some by an interest
in learning, some by a spirit of diversion, and some, perhaps,
by a desire to gaze at a group of three men composed
of two former Presidents of the United States,
Jefferson and Madison, and the present incumbent of that
office, Monroe. Among the persons who occupied the
seats of prominence at the ceremony was David Watson,
a member of the Board of Visitors, who seems, on this
occasion, to have shown his first, and, with one exception,
his last interest in Central College.
The corner-stone was laid with the customary state by
Lodges 60 and 90. Rev. William King was the chaplain,
John M. Perry, the architect, and Alexander Garrett, the
worthy grand-master. President Monroe applied the
square and plumb, the chaplain asked a blessing on the
stone, the crowd huzzaed, and the band played "Hail
Columbia." Corn was now scattered, and then Valentine
W. Southall delivered the address to the general audience.
With the grand-master's address to the Visitors,
the ceremony was concluded.
Alexander Garrett, as proctor, had already contracted
with John M. Perry for the erection of the first pavilion.
It was to be built of brick and was to contain one large
room on the lower floor, two on the upper, and offices
and a cellar in the basement. All the carpenter's and
joiner's work was to be done by Perry; and he was also
to supply the lumber as well as the ironmongery. Payment
was to be made in three instalments: two hundred
dollars to be delivered in cash at once; five hundred so
soon as the roof was raised; and the remainder when the
house was accepted as satisfactorily finished. This contract
is interesting for a reason additional to its being the
first: it not only bore the signature of Jefferson, but it was
witnessed by William Wertenbaker, then a young man,
but afterwards to become one of the most useful and
honored officers of the institution through more than half
a century.
Jefferson had early taken steps in person to procure
bricklayers of the highest expertness. With that purpose
in view, he, during his sojourn at Poplar Forest, in
Bedford county, in the summer of 1817 visited Lynchburg,
for "they have there," he wrote Latrobe, on July
16, "the new method of moulding the stock-brick in
oil, and execute with it the most beautiful brick which I
have ever seen."
So dilatory were the workmen in constructing the first
pavilion that he grew doubtful as to whether it would be
finished before the ensuing January. He rode down to
the College on alternate days, although, at this time, in
his seventy-fifth year, to quicken the laborers by the stimulus
of his presence. "I follow it up," he wrote Cabell
on October 24, "from a sense of the impression which
will be made on the Legislature by the prospect of its immediate
operation. The walls should be done by our
next court, but they will not be by a great deal." In the
following December, while again stopping at Poplar
Forest, he visited Lynchburg a second time to hire bricklayers
to construct the two additional pavilions which the
Board of Visitors had ordered to be erected. At that
time, this class of workingmen were asking fifteen dollars
a thousand for laying place-brick and thirty for laying
oil-stock, there having been recently a sharp advance in
prices owing to the increased charge for corn. Jefferson
entered into a provisional engagement with Matthew
Brown, a local builder, to pay him as much as was obtainable
for similar jobs in Lynchburg; but he hoped that, for
a contract involving the purchase and use of three hundred
thousand to four hundred thousand bricks, a cheaper undertaker
might be found in Richmond; and for that reason
he urged Cabell, then attending a session of the Senate,
to look about for one in that city. "Pray make a
business of it," he wrote, "make such a bargain as you
can and inform me immediately." Cabell, although assisted
by Major Christopher Tompkins, a builder of experience,
was unable to conclude a satisfactory arrangement,
and Jefferson, in consequence was constrained to
close with Brown.
He preferred to use slate for roofing, and in June,
1818, corresponded with Colonel Bernard Peyton, of
Richmond, for the purpose of obtaining a man with sufficient
practical information to pass correctly upon the
quality of the products of certain quarries in Albemarle
county and willing to undertake the contract for covering
the pavilions and dormitories, should that quality
sustain the requisite test. One Jones, of Wales, who
had already done work of this character in Charlottesvills,
had removed to Richmond, and it was he whom
Jefferson was anxious to employ. It was soon shown
that the stone in the strata around the College was not
suitable for a delicate tool,—it proved both expensive
and tedious to chisel it. In July, 1817, Jefferson had
been authorized by the Board of Visitors on his own
motion to import a stone-cutter from Italy; he had decided
to construct the two additional pavilions on a more
ornate and ambitious model than the one followed in the
first pavilion; and for this reason, he thought that it
would be imprudent to depend exclusively on the domestic
workingman, and that he ought to go abroad for the
most highly trained skill that could be found there. One
of the most competent of the domestic builders was James
Dinsmore, whom Jefferson had, in 1798, discovered in
Philadelphia and brought to Monticello, where he remained
as his principal employee in house joinery for ten
years. "I have never known," said Jefferson, "a more
faithful, sober, discreet, honest, and respectable man."
Associated with Dinsmore at Monticello was John Neilson,
whom Jefferson had also come to know in Philadelphia,
in 1804, and who continued under contract to him
during a period of four years. Both of these men were
at one time in the service of Madison at Montpelier; but
Neilson was, at the beginning of the building at Central
College, engaged in working for General Cocke; and it
was not until the construction of the University itself was
fully underway that he took an important part in it, in
partnership with Dinsmore.
Jefferson was sanguine that the first pavilion, with its
dormitories, would be completed before the end of 1817,
but it was not finished by August 4, 1818, although it
was, on that date, reported to be "far advanced." A
second pavilion, with its dormitories too, was expected,
—without good reason, however,—to receive the final
stroke of the hammer and trowel by the ensuing January
(1818).
