5. ROBERT RIDDICK PRENTIS (1818–1871)
Acting Librarian 1861–1865
The place of Robert Riddick Prentis in the roll of
Librarians is unlike that of any other incumbent of the
office. He was not appointed by the Board of Visitors, but
temporarily and as an emergency measure by the Faculty.
His “charge of the Library” was an added and not a major
part of his duties. During his four years as Acting Librarian,
from December 1861 to July 1865, there were fewer student
readers than at any other period in the history of the University
of Virginia, the hours of opening were at a minimum,
additions to the book collection were infrequent,
and there were no purchases. Moreover there is not much
uplift of spirit for those who have to remain at home during
war time. Yet by faithful day-by-day performance of this
additional duty of his, Acting Librarian Prentis was able
not only to protect the Library but also to keep it in continuous
use. If the influence of such a collection of books in
such a period (or in any period) could be weighed, it would
surely be found that this servant returned more than a
talent hidden in the earth.
Robert Prentis came from a distinguished family in
Nansemond County, Virginia, his paternal grandfather
being Judge Joseph Prentis of Williamsburg and his maternal
grandfather Col. Robert Moore Riddick of “Jericho”
in Nansemond County. He was a student at the University
of Virginia during the sessions 1838–1840, and was
appointed Proctor and Patron in 1853, eight years before
the wartime care of the Library was added to his responsibilities.
In 1855 he was one of the guarantors for the cost
of the erection at the University of Temperance Hall,
others in the group being General Cocke, Professor Minor,
and Librarian Wertenbaker. In addition to his varied
duties during the war, he seems to have been a Collector of
Internal Revenue for the Confederate Government. At the
close of the war, the office of Proctor (the title Patron had
been dropped in 1861) was temporarily suspended. But the
services of Prentis were not long allowed to remain dormant,
for in 1867 he was appointed Commissioner of
Accounts, and he was continued in that office until his
death on 23 November 1871. From November 1870 until
his death he was also Clerk of Albemarle County. His
years as an administrative officer thus covered periods of
prosperity, of disaster, and of reconstruction.
Four years after his student days at the University, in
1844, Prentis married Margaret Ann Whitehead, and he
was the father of twelve children. (He himself had ten
brothers or sisters.) One of the twelve, Joseph Prentis, a
Sergeant in the Confederate Army, was killed at the battle
of Malvern Hill. Another, Robert Riddick Prentis II,
became Chief Justice of the Virginia Supreme Court of
Appeals. The Prentis home at the University was on “Monroe
Hill”; and he is buried in the University Cemetery.
As in the case of John Vaughan Kean, there is a later
link between Robert Prentis and the University and its
Library. For the great great nephew of the Acting Librarian
of 1861–1865, namely, Robert Henning Webb, was Professor
of Greek at the University from 1912 to 1950, a member
of the Faculty Library Committee from 1929 to 1950,
and its Chairman, succeeding Dean Metcalf, from 1940 to
1950. An endowment fund for the purchase of books on
Ancient Languages was in 1953 presented in his memory by
friends and former students of Professor Webb.
