University of Virginia Library

Attic Cisterns

The bricklayers' work on the Rotunda progressed so rapidly during the spring of 1824 that
by early June the proctor could inform Jefferson that the firm of Thorn & Chamberlain was
about to begin laying the bricks of the building's "attic." Brockenbrough suggested that
reservoirs "nearly the depth of the Attic and as large in diameter as the space will admit of"
be placed in the two north corners of the attic so that in case of fire water could be thrown
by "pipes or hose" to any part of the building beneath the dome. Water for those reservoirs
could be collected at a reservoir on the university-owned mountain where Jefferson hoped to
build an observatory and piped from there to the Rotunda and other principle buildings. The
mountain reservoir, Brockenbrough contemplated, should be built of brick or rock and
plastered with Roman cement, in size about 16 feet in diameter and perhaps the same depth,
and situated about 50 or 60 feet above the level of the ground at the buildings so that the
weight of the water could "propell itself with as much power as an engine would supply it."
The proctor, well aware that all buildings of his era were particularly vulnerable to fire,
asserted that a gravity-fed water supply system was both cheaper and more efficient than
buying a fire engine.[638] The system he proposed to replace "the present defective
arrangement for the supply of that article [water]" to the university offered other benefits as
well: the university's existing cisterns could be filled occasionally from the pipes and water
might be taken from some stop cocks for "culinary purposes."

The proctor's suggestion to build reservoirs in the attic of the Rotunda was not adopted but
Brockenbrough rightly judged that the mountain to the west could help to solve the problem
of the university's inadequate water supply. Previous efforts to provide water had been
confined to the local area of the university and seemed meager in comparison to the more
ambitious plan which Brockenbrough now proposed. "at present besides the two cisterns we
have one pump in operation, two wells walled up ready for pump, one other well not
entirely finished on west street, I propose puting another between Pavilions 4 & 6—to the
south we have a fine Spring about two hundred yards from the buildings." Before going to
any "great expence" in pursuing his scheme, however, Brockenbrough recommended that
the university should purchase "the right of using the water from the Mountain of Capt
[John] Perry or a Slipe of land including the spring the latter would be preferable as thereby
we should connect the two tracts of Land and give us a road to the Mountain." The proctor
concluded by giving Jefferson his opinion that the university should execute his plan before
the coming winter, as the "ensurance on the buildings would amount to a much greater sum
and one or the other would be prudent."[639] Jefferson agreed that consolidating the
university's two separate tracts of land by gaining the 132-acre interjacent tract with the
"very bold spring" would be in the university's long-term interest but withheld pressing
Perry about the matter lest the carpenter ask an unreasonable price. Perry felt obliged to sell
the land in the spring of 1825 and the university purchased it for $50 an acre.[640]