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Chapter 7
The Building Campaign of 1822
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Progress Report
At its fall meeting in early October 1822 the Board of Visitors approved a progress report of
the construction taking place at the university for enclosure in its annual statement to the
president and board of directors of the Literary Fund. The work had been performed, the
report reminded the directors, in compliance with the plan submitted to the General
Assembly by the Rockfish Gap Commission in 1818, and all the proposed buildings, "except
one," have been completed, it further asserted,
with generally four other apartments for the accommodation of a Professor and
his family, and with a garden and the requisite family offices; Six Hotels for
dieting the Students, with a single room in each for a Refectory, and two rooms
a garden and offices for the tenant; and an hundred and nine dormitories,
sufficient each for the accommodation of two Students, arranged in four distinct
rows between the Pavilions and hotels, and united with them by covered ways,
which buildings are all in readiness for occupation except there is still some
plaistering to be done, now on hand, which will be finished early in the present
season, the garden grounds and Garden walls to be completed, and some
Columns awaiting there Capitels not yet received from Italy. . . . The remaining
building necessary to complete the whole establishment . . . to contain rooms
for religious worship, for public examinations, for a library, and for other
associated purposes, is not yet begun for the want of funds. It was estimated
heretofore by the Proctor, according to the prices which the other buildings
have actually cost, at the sum of 46,847 Dollars. The Visitors, from the
begining, have considered it as indispensable to complete all the buildings
before opening the institution . . . that it is better to postpone, for a while the
commencement of the institution, and then to open it in full and complete
System, than to begin prematurely in an unfinished state, and go on perhaps
forever, on the contracted Scale of local accademies, utterly inadequate to the
great purposes which the Report of 1818. and the Legislature have hitherto had
in contemplation.[534]
Although the above account accurately delineated the university's progress in the
construction of its buildings when it was written, the visitors had ample reason to distrust
the estimate of the cost of the Rotunda by the time the report was transmitted to the Literary
Fund two days before Christmas.[535] The board at its October meeting resolved to instruct
the proctor to "enter into conferences with such skillful and responsible undertakers as he
would approve" for the purpose of procuring "declarations of the smallest sums for which
they will undertake the different portions of the work" of the Rotunda. The responses that
Brockenbrough received from the workmen were not very satisfactory to him or to the
committee of superintendence, and on the same day that Jefferson sent the visitors' annual
report to Literary Fund President Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., Senator Cabell wrote to
Jefferson from Richmond to inform him that university contractor James Dinsmore had
written to William Fitzhugh Gordon, the Albemarle County representative in the House of
Delegates, "stating that the undertakers had ascertained that they could not afford to build
the Library for less than $70,000. At my instance, Mr. Gordon threw the letter in the fire.
My object was to prevent it from being made an improper use of, in the event of its being
seen by our enemies." Cabell also had spoken confidentially about the matter to "one or two
friends" in the General Assembly who agreed with him that if the cost of the Rotunda
should rise above $50,000, "& more especially if it should reach $70,000," that it "would
probably blow up all our plans. Perhaps a conditional contract for $60,000, might not do
harm, as it would bar the door to all doubt about the price of the House. But if $70,000,
should be asked for, I fear we shall be totally overthrown."[536] In the long run the cost of
building the Rotunda exceeded Jefferson's optimistic estimate and the middle figure came
closest to the actual expenditures; the latter figure proved to be less inflated than the board
must have wished.
534. Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, 7 October 1822,
PPAmP:UVA Minutes; see also Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, 470-76.
A clipping of an extract from the minutes published in the Charlottesville Central Gazette
on 10 January 1823 is in ViU:TJ. At its meeting the board also appointed John Hartwell
Cocke and George Loyal (named to the board upon the resignation of Robert B. Taylor) to a
committee to examine the bursar's accounts for the previous year.
535. A copy of TJ's letter to Randolph of 23 December 1822 transmitting the visitors'
October report to the Literary Fund is in PPAmP:UVA Minutes.
536. Cabell to TJ, 23 December 1822, ViU:TJ; see also Cabell, Early History of the
University of Virginia, 257-59. "Mr. Gordon & Mr. [William Cabell] Rives left this for
Albemarle on yesterday and will not probably return for eight or ten days," Cabell began his
letter. "The latter went for his family, & the former to visit Mrs. Gordon in her distress for
the loss of a child. I am very sorry that they were obliged to leave town, as we want the aid
of all our friends at this time."
|
Chapter 7
The Building Campaign of 1822
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |