University of Virginia Library

Privies

In this way matters stood uninterrupted until the summer except for some small work on the
"two public Privies" destined to be used by the students which the proctor initially wanted to
place in a "valley to the east of the Eastern Street, some distance to the south of the Hotels
the other in a valley to the west of the Western Street a little to the North of the Hotels."
Jefferson already had approved of the locations for the privies but Brockenbrough now
thought that the latter one was "thrown too much in view of the public road." That objection
"might be prevented in time by planting trees &c," however. Even though he intended to
delay the privies' brickwork until Cocke's planned visit to the site in June, Brockenbrough
wanted to contract with Lyman Peck and Malcom F. Crawford for the interior partitions, to
be constructed of wooden "Plank & about 6 or 7 feet high with a small door to each
apartment." As for a number of "small scale" privies planned to be located in the gardens,
the proctor did not think it "worthwhile" to begin them in the present year because he
considered it "highly probable" that when the pavilions became inhabited it would be
necessary to make "other little conveniencies, and which may perhaps enable us to put those
little articles in a more private situation."[527] (Peter Maverick's 1822 engraving of the
ground plan of the university shows privies on the serpentine brick walls that formed the
northern and southern boundaries of each of the gardens lying between the lawn and the
ranges, a total of twenty).[528]