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Chapter 9
The Building Campaign of 1824
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Visitors Draft Regulations
The Board of Visitors' meeting on 4 October was attended by six of its seven members
—Jefferson, Madison, Cabell, Cocke, Breckenridge, and Loyal—Johnson excusing himself
on the grounds that he was "quite unable to make the ride" on such an "inconvenient
journey."[652] The board's first order of business that Monday was to ratify the university's
agreements to purchase from the Pipers the two small tracts of land to the Rotunda's
north.[653] After passing other resolutions relative to the institution's finances, the visitors set
to work formulating the "regulations necessary to constituting governing and conducting the
institution," a process the board began at its previous spring meeting. The regulations
drafted by the board included decrees for managing the usage of the finished buildings at the
university. "The room provided for a School room in every Pavilion shall be used for the
School of its occupant professor," the board resolved, "and shall be furnished by the
University with necessary benches & tables." And furthermore:
its larger eliptical rooms on its middle floor shall be used for annual
examinations, for lectures to such Schools as are too numerous for their
ordinary schoolrooms, and for religious worship under the regulations allowed
to be prescribed by law. the other rooms on the same floor may be used by
schools of instruction in drawing, music, or any other of the innocent and
ornamental accomplishments of life, but under such instructors as shall be
approved and licenced by the Faculty.
The rooms in the basement story of the Rotunda shall be, one for a Chemical
Laboratory: and the others for any necessary purpose to which they may be
adapted.
The two open apartments adjacent to the same story of the Rotunda, shall be
appropriated to the Gymnastic exercise and games of the Students, among
which shall be reckoned military exercises. . . .
Work shops shall be provided, whenever convenient, at the expense of the
University wherein the students, who chuse, may exercise themselves in the use
of tools, and such mechanical practices as it is convenient and useful for every
person to understand, and occasionally to practice. These shops may be let rent
free to such skillful and orderly mechanics as shall be approved by the Faculty,
on the condition that they will permit the use of there tools, instruments, and
implements within the shop, to such students as shall desire and use the
permission discreetly, and under a liability for any injury they may do
them.[654]
Even the last of these regulations carries Jefferson's strong imprint. Isaac Jefferson, a
Monticello slave who traveled to Philadelphia with his master in 1790 when Jefferson
became George Washington's secretary of state, said of Jefferson: "My Old Master was neat
a hand as ever you see to make keys and locks and small chains, iron and brass. He kept all
kind of blacksmith and carpenter tools in a great case with shelves to it in his library, an
upstairs room."[655] Isaac's observation concerning Jefferson's tools is confirmed in part by
James Dinsmore's "Memdm of Carpenters tools belonging to Mr. Jefferson" that the
housejoiner made when leaving Jefferson's employment at Monticello in 1809 (see appendix
C).[656]
653. In the spring of 1825 John M. Perry sold the university a tract of land connecting the
two tracts purchased from the Pipers. See TJ to the Board of Visitors, 15 April, in ViU:JHC,
James Madison to TJ, 21 April, in DLC:JM, and Joseph Carrington Cabell to TJ, 6 May, in
ViU:TJ, and John M. and Frances T. Perry, Indenture, 9 May 1825, in ViU:PP; see also
Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, 348-50, 351
655. Bear, Jefferson at Monticello, 18. Isaac Jefferson (1775-c. 1849), the son of Jefferson's
slaves Great George (King George; 1730-1799) and Ursula (1737-1800), apparently trained
in tinwork and ironmongery while in Philadelphia and practiced the trades at Monticello
after returning to Virginia (see ibid., 13-16, 19, 126).
|
Chapter 9
The Building Campaign of 1824
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |