University of Virginia Library

2. WILLIAM WERTENBAKER (1797–1882)
Librarian 1826–1831, 1835–1857, 1865–1881
Librarian Emeritus 1881–1882

By contrast, the second Librarian, William Wertenbaker,
holds the record for length of service. He was a
native of Albemarle County, was present at the birth of
the University of Virginia, and was a part of its life until
he died at the age of eighty-five. He came of German stock
which had migrated to Maryland about 1740. Sometime
between 1783 and 1790 his father, Christian Wertenbaker,
had moved to Virginia and settled at Milton in Albemarle
County, his lot being next to one owned by Thomas Jefferson.
It was there that William was born 1 June 1797.
Later his mother, who had been Mary Grady of Caroline
County, Virginia, inherited a farm northwest of Charlottesville,
and the family moved thither. The farm was on
the Old Barracks Road, so-called because it led to the
encampment where in 1779 had been settled prisoners
taken in the Revolutionary War. That location probably
gave rise to the erroneous tradition that Christian Wertenbaker
had been one of the Hessian soldiers.

While a boy of fourteen, William Wertenbaker obtained
employment in the Clerk's Office in Charlottesville,
Alexander Garrett then being Deputy Clerk. Only a year
or two later, when a local company of militia was organized
for service in the War of 1812, young Wertenbaker enlisted.
The company was assigned to the brigade, under command
of John Hartwell Cocke, which operated in eastern Virginia,

to protect the approaches to Richmond. Shortly after being
mustered out, Wertenbaker, who had returned to his
position in the Clerk's Office, was appointed Deputy Sheriff
of Albemarle County. He also began the study of law in
the office of Valentine Wood Southall, one of Charlottesville's
leading lawyers; and it was with the intention of
becoming a lawyer that Wertenbaker enrolled as a student
at the opening of the University.

It is noteworthy that those early occupations of his
attached this young man to persons intimately connected
with the beginnings of the University of Virginia. General
Cocke was one of the Founders of the University, and he
was for thirty-three years an extraordinarily valuable member
of its Board of Visitors. Alexander Garrett was a Trustee
of Albemarle Academy, a member of the Board of Visitors
of Central College, the Proctor of Central College, and
the University's first Bursar. Valentine Wood Southall
presided at the banquet held in the Rotunda in 1824 in
honor of Lafayette. When on 6 October 1817 the cornerstone
was laid of the pavilion that was to give visible form
to Central College, it was Southall who delivered the
address to the general audience and it was Garrett who, as
Worthy Grand Master, officiated in the Masonic ritual.
Moreover, on the contract for the erection of that pavilion
there were the signatures of Alexander Garrett as Proctor
of Central College, of William Wertenbaker as witness, and
of Thomas Jefferson as endorsing approval in behalf of the
Central College Board of Visitors.

It is altogether likely, therefore, that Rector Jefferson
had some previous acquaintance with this student of the
University's first session; and when Librarian Kean
resigned, it seems not improbable that Jefferson chose
Wertenbaker as Kean's successor because of his knowledge
of the young man's previous experience with civic records,
military discipline, and law enforcement. There is apparently

no record that Wertenbaker had made application for
the position.

It was Wertenbaker, therefore, who moved the library
books into the Rotunda and was the first to put into operation
in that building the regulations for library use. It was
he, also, who performed the clerical task of compiling the
1828 printed catalogue. He continued as a student during
the second session, a part of his courses being under John
Tayloe Lomax, Professor of Law, who had joined the Faculty
with that session. But Librarian Wertenbaker then
had to interrupt his college work, and his intention of
becoming a lawyer had eventually to be abandoned. For in
1829 he married Louisiana Timberlake, a sister of the wife
of Warner Minor, one of the University's “Hotel-Keepers,”
and there ensued the responsibilities of a growing family.
As his hours as Librarian were still few, Wertenbaker began
to take on other income producing occupations, until he
had, at one time or another, filled nearly all the positions
available at the University except a Professor's chair. His
collection at this time included Assistant Proctor, University
Postmaster, and Bookstore Manager. Coincident with
undertaking as a student the post of Librarian, he had also
been appointed Secretary of the Faculty. There was at first
some faculty objection at having (to quote Robert Burns)
“a student child amang them taking notes” of the very
frank discussions in those early faculty meetings. But Wertenbaker's
serious mien seems soon to have allayed apprehension
on that score. In fact his demeanor could be so stern
that there were reactions to his disadvantage. By performing
the duties of Assistant Proctor with the methods of a former
Deputy Sheriff, he aroused violent opposition on the part
of spirited students who were approximately of his own
age. There were incidents of violent language and of
attacks directed at him, and one student was expelled in
1831 for repeated threats to flog Wertenbaker.

The Wertenbaker career as Librarian was interrupted
for two periods, and the first interruption came at this
time, in 1831. It has been conjectured that he wished to
resume legal studies. But he did not register again as a
student; and it is possible that there was some loss of
confidence in him on the part of faculty members inclined
to find reason in the student complaints. This is merely a
guess. But he did at this time resign also as Secretary of the
Faculty, and he ceased to be Assistant Proctor. He seems,
however, to have continued as the local Postmaster and as
Manager of the bookstore.

However, after four years of notoriously lax conduct
of the Library by William Henry Brockenbrough, the Faculty
and Visitors were quite ready to have Wertenbaker
reappointed. During his next and longest term as Librarian,
from 1835 to 1857, he added for one year, 1854–1855, the
post of University Hotel Keeper to his collection of stipend
producing activities. In all this he was meeting household
expenses, not serving Mammon; and he freely devoted his
efforts to causes which brought no monetary returns. For
many years he was an active and respected member of the
Session of the Charlottesville Presbyterian Church; and he
was a leader, along with John Hartwell Cocke, his Commanding
General in the War of 1812, in the early temperance
movements at the University of Virginia.

In a preceding section of the historical sketch we have
seen that the second interruption to Wertenbaker's career
as Librarian came in 1857 as the result of the decision of
the Board of Visitors to separate the library post from any
other position. Wertenbaker continued to be Secretary of
the Faculty through the war years and on until his retirement
because of illness in 1881. As he held that secretaryship
from 1826 to 1831 and from 1836 to 1881, a total of
fifty years, and as he was also Secretary of the Board of
Visitors for six years, 1865 to 1871, this scribe, who made no

claim to devotion to literary pursuits; probably has to his
credit more pages in his handwriting than any other contributor
to the University Archives.

A veteran of the War of 1812–1814, he was too old for
active service in the War of 1861–1865. But there was no
question of his convictions. A memorable gathering at his
house in March 1861, the month before the firing on Fort
Sumter, was one of the early occasions of the raising of a
Confederate flag. Of his three sons, the eldest, his namesake,
had been killed as a boy by being thrown from a horse. The
others, Charles Christian and Thomas Grady, had both
been students in the University of Virginia, and both were
officers in the Confederate Army. Thomas, who was one of
the student organizers of the Young Men's Christian Association
at the University of Virginia in 1858 and was studying
for the Presbyterian ministry, lost his life in the war.
Charles Christian survived and became a manufacturer in
postwar Charlottesville. To a distinguished son of his,
Professor Thomas Jefferson Wertenbaker of Princeton and
Oxford Universities, acknowledgment is gladly made for
friendly assistance in supplying some of the details here
given concerning his grandfather, the Librarian.

Librarian Wertenbaker's last “tour of duty” at the
Rotunda was from 1865 to 1881. He zealously continued his
guardianship of the books. It was in this period that he
made his vigorous protests against the holding of dances in
the library room. By this time he had come to be the sole
survivor of the original group of professors and administrative
officers; and when illness made it impossible for him to
continue the daily trips to the Library, the Board of Visitors
took the unusual but heartily approved action of naming
him Librarian Emeritus and of continuing his salary, then
$700 a year, as long as he should live. But this new title he
held for only one year, for his death came on 7 April 1882.

At the close of his long service, the estimated size of the

library collection was 36,000 volumes. This was between
four and five times the 8,000 of 1830, but it was essentially
an expansion of the nucleus originally selected by Jefferson.
Wertenbaker was spared the knowledge that the nucleus
and the additions were thirteen years later to be in large
part destroyed by fire; and that his own agency in adding
to the original collection was fated to have little effect on
the new University Library collection that was to date
from 1895.

Wertenbaker's agency in collection building was mainly
in the purchase of the books, not in their selection, which
had continued to be a faculty function. There was a pleasant
exception, however. In the poverty-stricken period after
the war, in November 1868 to be exact, a visitor from New
York, Abiel Abbot Low, was so impressed by the Library
and by its custodian's courteous demeanor, that, on leaving,
he handed to Wertenbaker a cheque for five hundred dollars.
The surprised Librarian inquired how the donor
desired this money to be spent. “Do with it as you please,”
said Mr. Low. “I leave it entirely to your discretion.” “My
first love is the library,” was Wertenbaker's prompt
response. He immediately reported the gift to the Faculty,
with the modestly offered recommendation that the money
be used for “such standard works, of permanent value, on
History & Biography, Geography & Travels, Religion and
General Literature as may be of common interest to all the
Professors and especially useful to the students of the University.”
The formal, comprehensive, and precise nature
of the statement excellently reveals Wertenbaker's characteristic
manner and motives. Maybe it is also a reminder
of his absorption of Jefferson dicta concerning books and
a library.

There is ample indication that during his terms as
Librarian, Wertenbaker impressed students, faculty, and
visitors not only as a disciplinarian but also, as University

Historian Bruce expressed it, by his “conspicuous fidelity,
integrity, and efficiency.” From his portrait, with a beard,
by John Adams Elder and from a Bohn album engraving,
without a beard, by A. B. Walter, and from word pictures
by university graduates writing of their student days, an
attempt at a composite delineation of William Wertenbaker
is possible. The writers of reminiscences were Paul Brandon
Barringer and Francis Henry Smith, who became Professors
at the University of Virginia; David Marvel Reynolds Culbreth,
physician of Baltimore; Richard McIlwaine, Presbyterian
clergyman and President of Hampden-Sydney College;
and Crawford Howell Toy, Professor of Hebrew at
Harvard University.

This delineation is of his later years. He was of medium
height—about five feet, eight inches—and he weighed approximately
one hundred and forty-five pounds. He walked
with a cane, leaning slightly forward, and his gait was
deliberate. His face was small, with a high forehead, strong
features, a long upper lip, and a firm mouth. He was commonly
addressed as “Mr. Wert”—but student references to
him were likely to be to “Old Wert.” His usual greeting
to students, whatever the time of day, was “Good morning.”
For, he would explain, “These young men are in the
morning of life.” In general his manner was reserved,
never familiar or obtrusive, friendly, but strictly businesslike.
By interested and appreciative listeners he could be
induced to expand into stories of the early days of the
University, of his conversations with Jefferson and Madison
and the other Founders, and of his impressions of the early
Professors—of the time, for example, when at a faculty
meeting the Professor of Mathematics kicked the Professor
of Modern Languages under the table, and the latter
retorted: “You kick like an ass.” He was an early defender
of Poe against his detractors. He had a retentive and
accurate memory; it enabled him readily to locate books

on the shelves, to know the names of the students and to
be able to enumerate what books each had borrowed, and
to greet graduates by name when they returned to visit the
University. He seemed never to be idle. For relaxation from
his varied duties, he would settle down comfortably to a
game of chess.

There were, it is true, some derogatory comments on
the management of the Library during those days. As one
critic stated it—it may be noted that he was anonymous—
“The Library was not the heart of the University.” He
pointed out that students were “allowed” the use of the
Library, that stiff regulations were strictly enforced, and
that the hours of opening were not liberal. In part, however,
this condition was not so much the result of the administration
of the Library as it was of the methods of instruction.
The methods were those of lectures and textbook recitations,
not of collateral and reference readings from books
reserved in the Library. The close cooperation of the
Library with the curriculum came much later. Indeed it
was years after Wertenbaker's time that, according to an
unauthenticated tale, one faculty member's objection to
evening hours of opening was, forsooth, that the students
might be tempted to read books when they should be studying
their lessons!

Yet some of those very criticisms of the Library in
Wertenbaker's day are capable of another interpretation.
His greatest treasure, which he would display as a climax
to an especially friendly conversation, was Jefferson's letter
to him of 30 January 1826. There, in the well-known handwriting,
were these words:

We have seen that this letter grew out of an emergency
action by Jefferson, the appointment of a student as
custodian of the books in order to maintain the operation
of the Library, and that it does not necessarily limit the
Founder's conception of the functions of librarianship. But
from 1826 to Wertenbaker's last active hours in 1881, those
were his marching orders from Thomas Jefferson; and
whatever else might happen, those orders were to be obeyed.
He had been entrusted with the Library by Mr. Jefferson,
and he spent his manhood years in being faithful to that
trust.