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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 |  |
Opening Postponed
Representative William Cabell Rives, formerly of Nelson County and now of Albemarle
County, wrote to Jefferson on 19 December to voice his support for postponing the
institution's opening until the library was constructed and to update the rector on the
university's standing in the House of Delegates. "I enter myself entirely into your views,"
wrote Rives, ". . . & have endeavoured to impress on all of my acquaintances here the
exceeding impolicy of putting an institution, from which so much has been expected at
home & abroad, into operation, in a half-formed & unfinished state. . . . If the objections
which are now felt to the additional building should not yield to the influence of more liberal
sentiments, we may find ourselves under the necessity of temporising a little, in order to
acquire, at once, the means of erecting it."[542]
The "means" had grown another $10,000 by now, as Jefferson told Robert Walsh, Jr., two
days later. "Our univty. in which I know you are so good as to take an interest, is under
check at present. all the buildings for the accomdn of the Professors & students are
compleat. one only for a Library & other general purposes remains to be erected. it is
expected to cost about 60. M D. which sum our last legislature refused us. we have better
hopes of the undstdg & liberality of that now sitting. the buildings are in a classical and
chaste style of architecture, and the system altho' novel will when compleated I think meet
approbn."[543] Also before Christmas, Jefferson told his son-in-law that the initial $46,847
estimate to build the library "did not include two considerable appendages necessary to
connect it with the other buildings. An estimate including these, now recently made by the
principal undertakers and executors of the other buildings raises its amount to about one
third more. . . . Some finishings of small amount, to the garden walls and pavements also are
still wanting." The collection of the arrearages of private subscriptions to the Central
College would help alleviate the deficit somewhat, Jefferson was quick to add.[544]
After Christmas Jefferson informed Senator Cabell that at the present time securing money
to build the library was more desirable than having the debts of the university forgiven.
of the debt will come of itself. it is already remitted in the mind of every man,
even of the enemies of the institution. and there is nothing pressing very
immediately for it's expression. the great object of our aim from the beginning
has been to make this establishment the most eminent in the United States, in
order to draw to it the youth of every state, but especially of the South and
West. we have proposed therefore to call to it characters of the first order of
science from Europe as well as our own country; and, not only by their salaries,
and the comforts of their situation, but by the distinguished scale of it's
structure and preparation, and the promise of future eminence which these
would hold up, to induce them to commit their reputations to it's future
fortunes. had we built a barn for a College, and log-huts for accomodations,
should we ever have had the assurance to propose to an European Professor of
that character to come to it? why give up this important idea, when so near it's
accomplishment that a single lift more effects it? it is not a half-project which is
to fill up the enticement of character from abroad. to stop where we are is to
abandon our high hopes, and become suitors to Yale and Harvard for their
secondary characters, to become our first. have we been laboring then merely to
get up another Hampden Sidney, or Lexington? yet to this it sinks if we
abandon foreign aid. the Report of Rockfish gap, sanctioned by the legislature,
authorised us to aim at much higher things; and the abandonment of the
enterprise where we are would be a relinquishment of the great idea of the
legislature of 1818, and shrinking it into a country academy. the opening of the
institution in a half-state of readiness would be the most fatal step which could
be adopted. it would be an impatience defeating it's own object, by putting on a
subordinate character in the outset, which never would be shaken off, instead of
opening largely and in full system. taking our stand on commanding ground at
once, will beckon every thing to it, and a reputation once established will
maintain itself for ages. to secure this a single sum of 50. or 60. M Dollars is
wanting. if we cannot get it now, we will at another or another trial. courage and
patience is the watchword. delay is an evil which will pass; despair loses all. let
us never give back. the thing will carry itself, and with firmness and
perseverance we shall place our country on it's high station, and we shall
recieve for it the blessings of posterity. I think your idea of a loan and placing it
on the sinking fund an excellent one.[545]
Before he read the above letter, however, Cabell wrote Jefferson a letter indicating that he
already had arrived at the same conclusion after conferring with the university's most ardent
supporters in the General Assembly. "The almost unanimous opinion of us all," he wrote,
"is, that we should ask for another loan to finish the buildings, and to leave the debt
untouched for the present. We propose to move for one object at a time, in order not to unite
the enemies of both measures against one bill. Should we succeed in getting the loan, we
may afterwards try to get rid of the debt. . . . I am now in more dread of Mr. Johnson's
coming to town & advocating the doctrine of curtailing the buildings, than I am of any other
danger. But as the popular prejudice on that subject has abated, I hope he would go with
us."[546] After the first of the year Chapman Johnson in fact did vote with the university
faction in the senate to authorize the university to borrow more money.
By the end of 1822 the focus of building at the Academical Village had shifted completely
away from finishing the four rows of buildings on the lawn and ranges to financing and
constructing the grand central building that would seal off the north end of the square. The
progress of the work since the laying of the cornerstone of the first pavilion five years before
in October 1817 was a remarkable achievement considering the myriad obstacles faced by
the Board of Visitors and the workmen; its semi-completion was anticlimactic considering
the length of time it took to wind up the trivial matters, and since attention now was directed
to the library yet to be begun. Even without the Rotunda the scenes at the university grounds
were enough to fill Philip St. George Cocke with awe. Writing from Thornton Rodgers'
grammar school in Albemarle County to inform his father of his recent visit to the site and
to Charlottesville, he said, "I have not recieved a letter from you since I wrote to you abot a
faughtnight ago. I have been to Charlottsvile[.] I went there last monday, with Mr Rodgers
and I went to see the universaty also, It is the greates building that I ever saw. Charlottsvill
two is very mutch improved since I was there with you about two years ago."[547]
542. Rives to TJ, 19 December 1822, DLC:TJ. Jefferson's overseer Edmund Bacon recalled
in 1862 that Rives often visited Monticello as a guest of Thomas Jefferson Randolph
(Jefferson's grandson) when the boys were schoolmates together at Oglesby's school in
Charlottesville. He was "always a very modest boy," Bacon said, and "Mr. Jefferson thought
a great deal of him, and so did all the family." See Bear, Jefferson at Monticello, 87-88.
547. Philip St. George Cocke to John Hartwell Cocke, 8 December 1822, ViU:JHC. The
previous Monday was 2 December. Thornton Rodgers informed the senior Cocke in a letter
of 20 December that Philip and fellow student Gray "have been twice through the grammar
embracing the most essential rules and important parts--in this they have been very deficient
and in this I wish them to be well grounded. . . . I look with some hope to our University for
teachers duly qualified to raise the literary reputation of Virginia . . . I have found Philip
entirely tractable--Gray would flutter wild as a bird in its native element, did I not use a
determin'd conduct toward him--as far as I have gone I have confident hopes as regards
both" (ViU:JHC). Philip St. George went to West Point and not the University of Virginia,
however (see John Hartwell Cocke to Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough, 6 August 1828). Cocke
later built a Gothic style mansion on the James River in Powhatan County, Belmead,
designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. He was Davis's main patron in Virginia, chairing the
building committee that built the Greek Revival Powhatan County Courthouse in the late
1840s, and as a member of the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors, Cocke was an
ardent supporter of Davis's Gothic plan for the school's military barracks in Lexington,
began in 1850 (see Lyle and Simpson, The Architecture of Historic Lexington, 212-21).
Reminiscent of Jefferson's ideas for the University of Virginia, Cocke wrote in 1848:
"Would it not be well to form at once, an adequate and tasteful design for the future
extension of the buildings . . . until in the end a harmonious whole shall be procured--
beautiful and inspiring in style as well as commodious and well adapted to the purposes in
view (ibid., 211). Yankee General David Hunter burned the Barracks in June 1864 (rebuilt
after the war) but by that time Philip St. George Cocke, who himself served as a brigadier
general in the Confederate army, had killed himself because of ill health. Cocke is buried in
Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond (see Mitchell, Hollywood Cemetery, 61).
|
Chapter 7
The Building Campaign of 1822
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |