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Chapter 11
The Final Years: 1826-1828
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Drainage
When the Board of Visitors met shortly after Jefferson's eighty-third birthday the only
resolutions it passed pertaining to construction were those requiring the executive
committee "to provide for lighting the University if it can be effectually done at a reasonable
expense" and directing the proctor "to keep the drains in the grounds of the University
always free from obstruction, and to instruct such others as the Executive committee may
direct."[742] The subject of the first resolution is an example of one of the many incidentals
still awaiting completion at the site in the months before Jefferson's death, but the latter was
more necessary for the proper functioning of the site. Two days after the visitors' meeting
professor John Patton Emmet wrote the proctor: "As Mr Jefferson is Anxious that the
Botanic Garden should be Commenced immediatley I have to request that you will furnish
me with hands And one Cart or Waggon at least—The ground is at present so irregular that
the mere levelling & clearing away impediments such as the two brick Kilns &c will
steadily occupy as many as 5 or 6 hands—Drains must also be cut to clear the low ground &
the hills must be terraced—As all these operations will require great labour, the Sooner I get
the hands at work, the better."[743] The following week John Hartwell Cocke told Jefferson,
his aged partner on the committee of superintendence:
situation of the Eastern Range of Hotels & Dormitories—where it was decided
to be necessary, to construct two paved or brick-laid gutters in the rear of two
Sections of the Dormitories, with a graduated fall sufficient to take off rapidly,
all the falling water:—and, to enlarge a drain passing under the Street, giving it
more fall, as well as greater capacity, which in its present State, was thought
insufficient for its intended purposes, at Spottswood's Hotel.—This was all the
drainage thought necessary at present. I will here suggest, as a precautionary
measure against the injurious accumulation of filth in the back yards of the
Hotels, that small depots be constructed to receive all their Sweepings, &
Kitchen, & wash room offal—to be removed weekly—without some such
arrangement of police, as this, I think, there are appearances enough to excite
fear for the health of the plan in the course of the Summer.[744]
The matter of an efficient drainage system remained a problem in late summer when
Professor Dunglison wrote to the proctor to "beg of You to have proper drains constituted as
soon as possible to prevent Sickness in the dormitories which we formerly inspected."[745]
743. Emmet to Brockenbrough, 9 April 1826, ViU:PP. Jefferson wrote to Emmet on 27
April 1826 to discuss the details of building the botanical garden, including "our 1st. opern
the selection of a piece of ground, of proper soil & site, suppose of about 6. a[cre]s. . . . 2d.
opern. inclose the ground with a serpentine brick wall 7 f high this wd. take abt 80 M bricks
& cost 800 D . . . 3d. opern. form all the hill sides into level terrasses curving with the hills
of conven[ien]t. breadth & the level ground into beds & allies 4th. make out a list of the
plants thought necessary & sfft for botanical purposes and of the trees we propose to
introduce" (ViU:TJ; see also Lipscomb and Bergh, Writings of Thomas Jefferson,
16:163-67). Emmet apparently was hesitant in beginning the project (see TJ to Emmet, 28
April 1826, in DLC:TJ), and on 3 May Jefferson drafted a letter to James Madison
complaining that "I have percieved in some of our Professors a disinclination to the
preparing themselves for entering on the branches of science with which they are charged
additionally to their principal one" (DLC:TJ).
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Chapter 11
The Final Years: 1826-1828
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |