University of Virginia Library

Money Still Scarce

The accounts for the rest of the spring and into the summer of 1821 indicate that the
building activity at the university picked up with the knowledge that the school would soon
receive an additional $60,000 loan (although it would be late summer before the money was
actually in hand). All that can be gleamed from the workmen's papers is that George W.
Spooner, Jr., purchased from John M. Perry's sawmill $102.46 worth of lumber (4,618
running feet) that he used on "Hotel B West" and on his eastern range dormitories for
scantling, ceiling joist, dormitory flooring, window sills, and "Strips of Hart,"[478] and that
James Dinsmore bought 2,050 feet of "pannel" and shingling plank costing $37.25 from
"Colnl James Monroe" for use on "Pavillion No 4 East & its Dormetorys."[479] But the
merchants' accounts reveal a more lively situation. In the next three months, John Van Lew
& Co. kept wagoners Jacob Fauver, Robert Cason, Jacob Harner, David Baylor, William
Deitrick, John Craddock, and Samuel Wilson busy by supplying nails, screws, sprigs,
hinges, sash pulleys, sand paper, lead, glue, shovels, and spades to the university.[480] Carter
B. Page provided screws and Russian hemp for window sashes and other purposes,[481] and
Brockenbrough & Harvie sent another 28 boxes of window glass and a cask of whiting in
addition to nails and brads.[482] Edward Anderson shipped "Two Hhds best Nova Scotia
ground plaister from Richmond by wagoner John H. Woods on 24 April.[483] Jacob Croft
delivered the 25 boxes of tin remaining from the previous fall for D. W. & C. Warwick.[484]
Blackford, Arthur & Co. hired John Glenn and Samuel Hollyman to haul from Isabella
Furnace 14 "Small Franklin Stoves" for Pavilions I, II, IV, and V, and 338 sash weights
intended for Pavilions II, IV, and VI, and dormitories 1 to 13 east and 5 to 10 west, and "22
& 26" and "27 & 28."[485] Edward Lowber supplied more paint to the institution,[486]
although Andrew Smith's offer to supply Boston Crown Glass edged out the need for
Lowber's English glass.[487] Smith also sold the university on the quality of Roman Cement,
"unrivall'd for Brilliancey and Strength," although he initially experienced some problems
obtaining the English-made material from his supplier in Baltimore (see appendix T).[488]
Bernard Peyton managed the university's bill of exchanges at the Farmers Bank and the
Bank of Virginia and arranged for tar to be shipped from Richmond.[489]

The promise of money would only carry the building process so far, however. On 7 July the
proctor wrote to Alexander Garrett to relay a message from plasterer Joseph Antrim, who
was "out of hair and can't get any without the money the plastering will be obliged to stop
for the want of it, can you in any way raise as much as he may want for that purpose & let
him have it, I will give you a draft for it on sight."[490] (Animal hair, hemp, or thread were
mixed in plaster as a binding material.) The bursar scrounged up $25 the next day so that
Antrim could continue his work but the university construction could not continue operating
long on such a policy. On 21 July Jefferson wrote to Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., to inform
him that "our Proctor is now engaged in bringing up the settlement of disbursements &
debts" and to ask for the first half of the $60,000 loan.[491] About the time that the Board of
Visitors made a bond to the Literary Fund for the loan,[492] D. W. & C. Warwick's wagoners
delivered 30 boxes of tin plates to the university, along with the firm's bill for $1,129.88
"which we hope to receive as the Loan you spoke of from the Lity fund is at last
completed."[493] By the same wagon John Van Lew & Co. sent up some sprigs, butt hinges,
and sheet lead, with the note that "we are verry much pressed for money at this time."[494]
Money problems aside, though, by mid-August Jefferson could brag to Richard Rush in
England that "Our University is fast advancing in it's buildings, & will exhibit a body of
chaste architecture which Greece, in her classical days, would have viewed with
approbation."[495]