 |
Chapter 9
The Building Campaign of 1824
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Covering the Rotunda
If the weather permitted the members of the Board of Visitors to inspect the Rotunda at their
April meeting they probably were quite astonished to see that Dinsmore & Neilson had
framed the building's upper gallery floor and was preparing to raise its roof so early in the
season.[622] Brockenbrough had written to D. W. & C. Warwick on 19 March trying to find
out how cheaply the firm could provide copper or zinc plate for covering the dome and
portico but before he could receive a reply he presented the board with the heretofore
mentioned estimate of $2,000.[623] The proctor also solicited his brother Dr. John
Brockenbrough, Jr., to make inquiries about the price of the metals and to recruit someone in
Richmond to lay the sheeting. John Brockenbrough induced Warwick to sell copper to the
university for 26 cents per pound instead of the going rate of 35 cents, "provided the
quantity be considerable," and arranged for Frenchman Anthony Bargamin, who asked 10
cents the pound to put it on, to travel to the site to negotiate a contract with the proctor. "You
cannot have a better covering than he will make you in this way," Brockenbrough told his
brother. And instead of gutters, he added, "it will be better, I think, to extend the copper over
the parapet walls. Zinc might be somewhat cheaper, provided it could be procured
sufficiently thin, but we Know nothing of it's durability."[624]
Bargamin, who with his brother George was prominent in the capitol's business life, had
covered the dome of Richmond's city hall.[625] He "does not converse very intelligibly in
english," the proctor informed Jefferson when writing to notify him of Bargamin's
impending arrival by stage at Charlottesville, "if convenient I Should be glad if you will
come up on Thursday morning to see him on the subject. the job requires a man well skilled
in the working of metal."[626] Jefferson, it turned out, was once again too ill to travel to the
university. He replied to Brockenbrough that "My last ride to the University and return
without getting off of my horse, with the heat of the day so overcome me with fatigue that I
could scarcely reach home, and still leaves me so sore and languid that I have not been on
my horse since, nor shall I be able yet for some days. if therefore any consultation is
necessary with me I must ask the favor of yourself and mr Berjamin to take a ride here at
your convenience."[627] The Frenchman briefly visited the site a couple of weeks before the
actual construction began on the vault's large wooden ribbed frame, the plan of which was
taken, as Monticello's dome had been, from Philibert Delorme's Nouvelles Inventions pour
bien bastir et a petits Fraiz (1576). "I once owned the book," Jefferson recalled in the third
week of May when writing to General Joseph G. Swift to borrow a copy of the volume, "and
understood the principles of his invention, but my recollection is not particular enough in
every thing, our workmen are strangers to it, and I fear we may go wrong. if we could be
accommodated with this single volume it would be of singular service to us."[628] Over the
next few weeks, while the carpenters set up the wooden frame, the tin plate and copper
sheathing necessary to cover the arch began to come to Bargamin's hand at Richmond from
New York City, and then was forwarded on to the university.[629] Bargamin tried to leave
the Virginia capitol in mid-June but was delayed, so on 21 June he sent a workman to the
university to "proceed to the preparative Untile my Arival."[630] Bargamin reached the site
before the beginning of July, however, and no doubt the changes in the Rotunda's
appearance that had taken place by capping the structure during the six-weeks interval
greatly stirred his excitement for the task that lay before him, for by the end of the summer
he had completely finished covering the dome. The roof proved "perfectly tight" when
tested by the September rains but began leaking after workmen perforated the tin with
screws when fastening the supports to the steps that were raised around the dome's base.[631]
622. See Brockenbrough to TJ, 28 March, and TJ to Brockenbrough, 29 March 1824, in
ViU:PP (discussed above).
623. See Warwick to Brockenbrough, 6 April, and Brockenbrough's Estimate of the Cost of
the Rotunda, 5 April 1824, in ViU:PP.
624. John Brockenbrough, Jr., to Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough, 3 May 1824, ViU:PP. John
Brockenbrough also informed Arthur that their brother "Austin has taken a wife of
fifteen--last Thursday--Can anything be more foolish?"
625. Anthony Bargamin and his wife, Marie Thérèse Guyot, "a woman of much vivacity
and charm" who outlived her husband by many years, lived at 203 East Cary Street, next
door to George Bargamin (Munford, Richmond Homes and Memories, 79). The spelling of
Bargamin's name, which is rendered in a variety of ways, is taken from Anthony's signature
when writing to the proctor.
627. TJ to Brockenbrough, 4 May 1824, ViU:PP. In 1862 Edmund Bacon claimed to have
purchased Eagle, the horse that Jefferson rode as long as he was able to ride horseback:
"The last thing I ever did for poor old Mr. Jefferson was to buy Eagle for him for a riding
horse. The last time he ever rode on horseback, he rode Eagle; and the last letter I ever got
from Mr. Jefferson, he described that ride and how Eagle fell with him in the river and
lamed his wrist. I am very sorry I have lost that letter. I bought Eagle of Captain John
Graves, of Louisa County. He was a bay, with white hind ankles and a white spot on his
nose; full sixteen hands high and the finest sort of a riding horse" (Bear, Jefferson at
Monticello, 62; see also Betts, Jefferson's Farm Book, 88, 105, 108-9). Bacon confused
Jefferson's November 1822 injury to his wrist from a fall at Monticello with a subsequent
mishap on horseback, which Jefferson described in his letter to Bacon of 10 August 1823,
located in MHi:TJ. For a description of the fall at Monticello, when a decayed plank on the
steps at one of the terraces gave way, and for mentions of Eagle during Jefferson's last years,
see Randolph, Domestic Life of Thomas Jefferson, 382-83, 421.
628. TJ to Swift, 22 May 1824, DLC:TJ. Swift loaned TJ his copy of Delorme, and TJ
apparently returned it to Swift the next spring (see TJ to Swift, 21 June 1825, in ViU:TJ).
Philibert Delorme (c. 1515-1570) was a French architect who, according to Sowerby,
"studied in Italy, where he was employed by Pope Paul III. On his return to France he was
first employed by Cardinal Du Bellay, and later by Henri II and Charles IX. Delorme built a
number of chateaux in France, including those of St. Maur and Anet, and the Tuileries were
built from his designs. Delorme is considered one of the great masters of the Renaissance"
(Sowerby, Catalogue of the Library of Thomas Jefferson, 4:364 [4183]). TJ's architectural
detail for the wooden roofing frame is in ViU:TJ; see also O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings at
the University of Virginia: The Rotunda, plate 9, and #17-08 in Lasala, "Thomas Jefferson's
Designs for the University of Virginia."
629. See Brockenbrough & Harvie to Brockenbrough, 24 May, and 10 June, and D. W. & C.
Warwick to Brockenbrough, 7, 14 June, 6, and 13 July 1824, all in ViU:PP. Warwick
stopped furnishing tin to the university before the Rotunda was finished because of the
university's inability or unwillingness to pay cash for the purchases. See Brockenbrough to
William J. Robertson, 13 August, D. W. & C. Warwick to Brockenbrough, 14 August, 4
September, Thomas Brockenbrough to Brockenbrough, 16 September, Brockenbrough &
Harvie to Brockenbrough, 4 October, John Van Lew & Co., 5 October 1824, Warwick to
Brockenbrough, 28 January, and 8 February 1825, all in ViU:PP.
630. Bargamin to Brockenbrough, 21 June 1824, ViU:PP; see also D. W. & C. Warwick to
Brockenbrough, 21 June 1824, in ViU:PP.
631. See Bargamin to Brockenbrough, 4 February, John Brockenbrough to Brockenbrough,
11 March and 12 August 1825, in ViU:PP. Bargamin, who also installed the gutters at
Pavilion III (ViU:PP, Ledger 2), apparently was accompanied in his work on the dome by
James Clark, who had installed tin gutters at Pavilions V and IX and at all the hotels (see
Balance Sheet, 28 February and 31 December 1824, Loose Receipt, 4 February 1825, and
Ledger 1, in ViU:PP). The measurement of the dome from the "top of the last step to the
center of the Sky light," the proctor informed Jefferson in a letter of 2 December 1824, was
27 feet, 5 inches (ViU:PP; see also O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings at the University of
Virginia: The Rotunda, 33).
|
Chapter 9
The Building Campaign of 1824
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |