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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 |  |
The Dome Room
The correspondence in June 1825 between Jefferson and Brockenbrough regarding the
placement of Dr. Emmet's chemical laboratory also helps show the approximate progress of
the carpenters in completing the dome room (see appendix K). "In finishing the Library
room of the Rotunda," the proctor asked the rector, "in what way do you propose securing it
at the head of The stairs? whether by a partition around the well hole of the Stairs and a door
in the front of landing or a lobby extending to the rear of the columns next the stairs."[702]
Jefferson, who was again ill and thinking that "it may be weeks yet before I shall be able to
visit the University, even in a carriage," declared that he wished to erect a balustrade around
the wells of the staircases and enclosed for the workmen a "very beautiful form of a
balluster" suitable for both the balustrade and the staircases.[703] The proctor considered a
balustrade insufficient to protect the library from "any & every person" who might enter the
building but Jefferson, who did not live to see either the balustrade or the library room's
bookcases in place, fortunately did not deviate from his intention.[704]
The dome room at this time not only still lacked its balustrade (as did the staircases) and
bookcases, the room's columns also lacked their wooden composite capitals. The Richmond
artisan who contracted to carve the capitals, Philip Sturtevant, wrote to Brockenbrough on
18 June, saying that "I Have Ben More fortunate in Getting timber than I Expected that Is
White Pine from the State of Main for the Most important Part of My work that is the
Capitals . . . I Have Drawn the Capital and Shall Commence Cutting up my Stuff
tomorow."[705] Sturtevant, who also informed the proctor at this time that he would accept
$4 for each of eleven sets of wooden blinds that he had crafted and sent to the university,
wrote after finishing the capitals: "I never worked so Hard in all My Life Before I Worked
Nights till 12 and 1 Oclock Even in July and August [1826] untill I Got them done But I
think the work will Show for it Self."[706] Photographs of the dome room as it existed before
the Rotunda fire of 1895 attest to Sturtevant's skill as a woodcarver.[707]
Other work at the Rotunda progressed slowly, when at all. In July university plasterer
Joseph Antrim visited ornamentalist William J. Coffee in New York City to deliver drawings
of the decorative modillions and rosettes planned for the cornice of at least one room in the
building (that intended for the museum) and for the entablature of the portico.
Brockenbrough and Coffee exchanged several letters regarding what the latter called
"Compositions Ornaments for a corinthian Cornish." Dissatisfied with his earnings for the
composition work that he sent to the university at the end of the previous year, Coffee
informed the proctor that he did not wish to work in putty, "which is quite out of use and
never Employed," but only in lead and "my Composition."[708] Coffee instead proposed to
make 170 modillion leaves, a like number of rosettes, and 128 feet of frieze ornament in his
"baked earth" composition for $350, a fee the proctor called "extravagantly high."[709] By
September the proctor had convinced the artist to cut his price in half, but the two men
apparently discontinued their communication during the next month without settling an
agreement for the ornaments.[710] Not that it mattered much, for the unfinished state of the
plasterwork in the dome room would have prohibited the fastening of the ornaments in
place. (The joiners' dilatoriness in finishing their work apparently hindered the
plasterers.)[711]
703. TJ to Brockenbrough, 7 June 1825, ViU:PP; see also O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings at
the University of Virginia: The Rotunda, 36. The "beautiful form of a balluster" has not been
identified but see #17-14 in Lasala, "Thomas Jefferson's Designs for the University of
Virginia." Jefferson informed his granddaughter Ellen Wayles Randolph Coolidge on 27
August that his health had prevented him from stepping out of is house for several weeks
past "except to take the turn of the Roundabout twice; nor have of any definite prospect
when it will be otherwise" (ViU:TJ; see also Lipscomb and Bergh, Writings of Thomas
Jefferson, 18:340-42). On 13 October Jefferson informed Ellen's husband Joseph Coolidge,
Jr., that "I had sensibly improved, insomuch as to be able to ride 2. or 3. miles a day, in a
carriage, and on our level Roundabouts. but going backwards and forwards on the rough
roads to the University for five days successively, has brought on me again a great degree of
sufferance, which some days of rest and recumbence will, I hope, relieve" (MHi:TJ).
704. Brockenbrough to TJ, 9 June 1825, ViU:PP; see also O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings at
the University of Virginia: The Rotunda, 36. Brockenbrough wrote John Hartwell Cocke on
20 August 1826: "I find D & Neilson will not be able to get up the hand rail & Balasters to
the Stairs so as to secure the room in a fortnight from this agreeable to their own acct.--if we
are to be governed by their former promises and engagements, it will probably be double
that time--there are a sufficiency of Book cases made to begin with and as it will take some
four or five weeks to get them in place, perhaps it would be better that a temporary partition
be put up at the head of the Stairs, if you approve of this plan, you can direct D & N. to have
it done" (ViU:JHC). Jefferson wrote Brockenbrough on 3 January 1826 that "it is high time
to have our bookcases in hand" (ViU:PP).
705. Sturtevant to Brockenbrough, 18 June 1825, ViU:PP. Sturtevant said that the size of the
composite capitals was "14¾ inches at the Smallest Part of the Collum"; Brockenbrough
wrote a more detailed description of their sizes on the document's verso on 14 July after
consulting with housejoiner John Neilson. Sturtevant wrote on 26 February to inform the
proctor that he hoped to have "a parte of the Capitals Ready the 19 or 20 of March and the
Ballance alonge as fast as you will Probely Get them up in waggons if you Should Know of
any in the neabourhood you will Pleas ask them to Call about that time" (ViU:PP). When
Bernard Peyton wrote Brockenbrough on 19 April 1826, he informed the proctor that "I
cald. on Sturtevant about the Wooden Capitals, who tells me they will be done on friday
next, & that some person had cald. for them, if they are not forwarded by this person,
whoever he may be, I will send them forward by the next Boat, with a charge to keep them
dry as you wish" (ViU:PP). Maine pine lumber was exported as far south as Alexandria by
former Revolutionary War Major General Benjamin Lincoln during the 1780s (see Mattern,
Benjamin Lincoln and the American Revolution, 151-52).
706. Sturtevant to Brockenbrough, 5 November 1826, ViU:PP. By mid-July 1826 Sturtevant
had earned $700 for carving capitals (see Sturtevant to Brockenbrough, 13 July 1826, in
ViU:PP).
708. Coffee to Brockenbrough, 12 July 1825, ViU:PP. The drawings for the interior
ornaments of the Rotunda apparently have not survived (see #17-16 in Lasala, "Thomas
Jefferson's Designs for the University"), although John Neilson's undated Architectural
Detail of a Modillion Block is in ViU:PP. Lasala calls Neilson's drawing "the only known
drawing to have survived showing a detail of one of the classical features at the University
of Virginia" (#17-15).
710. See TJ to Brockenbrough, 24 July, and Coffee to Brockenbrough, 26 July, 4, 25
September, in ViU:PP, Coffee to TJ, 19 August, in DLC:TJ, and Brockenbrough to TJ, 1
October 1825, in ViU:PP; see also Brockenbrough's undated Memorandum of Frieze
Ornaments for the Rotunda, and TJ to the Board of Visitors, 12 October 1825, in ViU:PP,
and O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings at the University of Virginia: The Rotunda, 36-37, 41-43.
711. Jefferson informed Joseph Carrington Cabell on 4 February 1826 that the library "must
remain unopened until the room is ready, which unfortunately cannot be till the season will
admit of plaistering" (ViU:JCC; see also Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia,
363-64). John Hartwell Cocke and Alexander Garrett's Demands of the Resources of the
University, 31 May 1826, shows a charge of $250 for the "Cost of Plaistering" the library
room (DLC:TJ).
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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 | |