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Chapter 10
The Building Campaign of 1825
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Funds Still Needed
Shortly after the first of the year the proctor estimated that $25,000 was needed to finish the
Rotunda,[669] not counting the $5,000 owed for work already performed at the building,[670]
and Jefferson figured that another $5,000 would be required to erect the Anatomical
Hall.[671] Knowing that the university lacked those funds Jefferson recommended leaving
the Rotunda in its unfinished state "for the present" rather than risk "renewing the
displeasure" of the Virginia legislature by hinting of additional aid.[672] In early March
Dinsmore & Neilson calculated the "Probable expence of finishing the wood work of the
library Room and finding the materals" to be $3,000, "exclusive of the Columns," which
would demand another $2,000. Supposing another $1,000 for "Plast & Paintg," the firm
reckoned that it would cost $6,000 to finish the Rotunda's dome room.[673] With the
approach of spring when Jefferson was engaged "in preparing a general view of the state of
our finances on the 1st. day of January last," he wrote Brockenbrough: "I have had so many
terrible rides to the University lately that I must now ask the favor of you to take one to this
place to confer with me."[674] The resulting financial statement, dated 15 March and sent to
the members of the Board of Visitors exactly one month later, accounts for $29,713 and
shows that on the first day of 1825 over half of the university's funds were allocated for
items other than construction costs, such as "Ordinary current expences" and professors'
salaries. In fact, the only future building expense included in the statement is the $6,000
estimate for finishing the "Library room" that Dinsmore & Neilson had submitted to the
proctor a few days earlier.[675]
669. See TJ to Joseph Carrington Cabell, 11 January 1825, in ViU:TJ; see also Cabell, Early
History of the University of Virginia, 330-32, and Randolph, Memoir, Correspondence, and
Miscellanies, from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 4:411-12.
670. Brockenbrough was in "utmost distress" for the $5,000 by mid-January, and the
university borrowed the money from a Richmond bank so that it could meet the obligation.
See TJ to Joseph Carrington Cabell, 19 January 1825, in ViU:TJ, and Brockenbrough's
Statement of Funds, 4 March 1825, in ViU:PP; see also Cabell, Early History of the
University of Virginia, 334, and O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings at the University of Virginia:
The Rotunda, 34.
671. Jefferson estimated that the Anatomical Hall would "take 4,000 bricks for every foot of
it's height from the foundation to the roof" (TJ to Brockenbrough, 9 March 1825, ViU:PP).
The Board of Visitors at their meeting on 4-5 March 1825 resolved to build the Anatomical
Hall "as nearly as may be on the plan now exhibited to the board" (ViU:TJ; see also
Lipscomb and Bergh, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 19:361-499, and TJ to Brockenbrough,
9 March 1825, in ViU:PP). Jefferson apparently drew the elevation and plans for the
Anatomical Hall (located in ViU:TJ) in February 1825 (see Sherwood and Lasala,
"Education and Architecture: The Evolution of the University of Virginia's Academical
Village," in Wilson, Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village, 44-45, and #365 in Nichols,
Thomas Jefferson's Architectural Drawings).
672. TJ to Joseph Carrington Cabell, 11 January 1825, in ViU:TJ; see also Lipscomb and
Bergh, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 16:97-100.
673. Dinsmore & Neilson to Brockenbrough, 5 March 1825, ViU:PP; see also
Brockenbrough's Statement of Funds, 4 March 1825, in ViU:PP.
675. See TJ's Statement of University Funds, 15 March, in ViU:TJ, and TJ to the Board of
Visitors, 15 April 1825, in ViU:JHC, ViU:JCC, and DLC:JM; see also Cabell, Early History
of the University of Virginia, 348-50. TJ's draft of the letter to the Board of Visitors is dated
16 April (DLC:TJ). On 5 March the Board of Visitors resolved to advance the $6,000 to the
university's building fund "for the purpose of finishing the interior of the library room
(Board of Visitors Minutes, that date, ViU:TJ; see also O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings at the
University of Virginia: The Rotunda, 34.
|
Chapter 10
The Building Campaign of 1825
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |