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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 |  |
Memorandum and Instructions
The unfinished state of the buildings clearly disappointed Jefferson, whose health was
failing fast. On 20 May he expressed to John Hartwell Cocke his extreme dissatisfaction
with the progress of the work: if it "were it not for my great confidence in the integrity of
those we employ, I should be unable to resist the suspicion of a willingness in them to make
the job last for life. I am at present suffering under a relapse so serious as to put it out my
power to go there as frequently as is requisite." He made a list of notes for "their joint efforts
and consultations as soon as your own affairs will permit your coming to us. altho' always
injured by the ride there I should be able to accompany you & endeavor to apply a spur to
those needing it."[750] The memorandum gives us an idea of the work still being done at the
university:
-
Notes. the Dome leaks so that not a book can be trusted in it until remedied. this
is from the ignorance of the workman employed. how shall it be remedied? my
opinion is by a new tin cover put on the present, to be done by Broke of
Staunton whose competence to it we know. this will cost us 8. or 900. Dollars. I
know nothing else which experience will justify. -
2. the wells and water fail there and at Charlottesville; and they are proposing to
send our pipe borer, mr Ziegler to the North to learn the art of boring, now in
practice there, & then to return and bore for us. but why not in this, as in other
cases, employ a man already taught and exercised in his trade? a borer can be
had from thence as easily as a bricklayer or carpenter. besides this however the
pipes which bring water to our cisterns must be repaired. they have rotted from
too shallow covering originally. no log should lie less than 3. feet deep. this will
cost more than I should be willing to risk on my own opinion. yet I believe
must be done, and immediately.[751] -
3. the Faculty recommend strongly Gas lights instead of oil lamps on account of
economy and brilliancy. I suspend therefore the former until we can consult
together on the subject.[752] -
4. Congress have remitted the duties on our marbles. we are now to take
measures as to the clock. -
5. Dr. Emmett and myself think we have found a piece of ground for the
Botanical garden far superior to any other spot we possess. this work should be
begun immediately; but I should request your advice in it. -
6. but a stimulus must be applied, and very earnestly applied, or consultations
and orders are nugatory. come then, dear Sir, to our aid, as soon as possible. our
books are in a dangerous state. they cannot be opened until the presses are
ready, nor they be got ready, till the Domeroom is rendered dry.
-
Around this same time the impatient Jefferson made another, more detailed
memorandum of the work he hoped to see finished soon:
- Instructions to mr Brockenbrough.
-
1. Engage mr Broke to come immediately & put another cover of tin on the
Dome-room of the Rotunda, without disturbing the old one. - 2. the inside plaistering will then be to be coloured uniform with Whiting.
-
3. the finishing the Dome room to be pushed by every possible exertion, as also
the Anatomical building by employing all the hands which can be got. - 4. Repair the water-pipes from the mountain, & let their ditch be 4. f. deep.
-
5. ascertain, by a very exact level, the point nearest to the Precincts to which
Maury's spring can be brought, leaving the trace pins firmly fixed -
6. I shall write to the North to know the terms of boring for water; and to know
if a skilful workman can be engaged there. -
7. I shall also write to Boston to engage a clock and bell. but I must be
furnished immediately with very exact measures of the dimensions of the
tympanum of the portico of the Rotunda, that is to say of it's base and
perpendicular, to wit the lines a.b. & c.d. also the diameter & depth of the well,
for the descent of the weights.[753] - [drawing]
-
8. have 200. wooden guns made, with real locks, half barrels of tin and ram
rods. -
9. a copy of the enactments is to be given to every student now there, and to
every one coming hereafter, at his entrance. -
10. go on McAdamising in preference to any hauling which can be dispensed
with. -
11. the botanical garden, after being laid off under the direction of Dr. Emmet,
is to be pursued at all spare times. -
12. Dr. Emmet will provide the chemical substances necessary to be used in a
chemical course, their amount to be paid for by the University. -
1[3]. he is to make enquires as to Gas lights. in the mean time suspend makg.
the lantherns.[754]
750. TJ to John Hartwell Cocke, 20 May 1826, ViU:JHC; see also O'Neal, Jefferson's
Buildings at the University of Virginia: The Rotunda, 47.
751. Jefferson wrote to his grandson-in-law Joseph Coolidge, Jr., on 4 June 1826 to inquire
about the matter of a pipe borer from the north: "The art of boring for water to immense
depths, we know is practised very much in the salt springs of the Western country. and I
have understood that it is habitually practised in the Northern states generally for ordinary
water. we have occasion for such an artist at our University, and myself and many
individuals round about us would gladly employ one. if they abound with you, I presume we
could get one to come on and engage in the same line here. I believe he would find abundant
employment. but should it be otherwise, or not to his mind, we could by paying his
expences coming and returning and placing him at home as we found him, save him from
any loss by the experiment. will you be so good as to make enquiry for such a person, to
know the terms of his work, and communicate them to me, so that we may form a general
idea of the cost of this method of supply. I could then give him immediate information of the
probabilities & prospects there. I am anxious myself on behalf of the University, as well as
the convenience it will afford to myself" (ViU:TJ; see also Lipscomb and Bergh, Writings of
Thomas Jefferson, 18:354-57). Jefferson died before Coolidge had time to inquire into the
matter, however (see Coolidge to TJ, 15 June 1826, ViU:TJ), and seven weeks later, on 20
August 1826, Brockenbrough wrote John Hartwell Cocke asking him to follow up on the
matter of additional water for the university: "Some additional water works are absolutely
necessary--whether it shall be by pumps or otherwise I am at a loss to determine--If Water
from the Mountain could be gotten in sufficient quantity I should prefer it, the stream is
weak, and would hardly justify the expence--if brought from the Mountain the best way
would be to have a large cistern in my yard (being the highest situation near the University,)
the water from thence to be conveyed in pipes to every part of the University the works to
be so constructed to let off any quantity at a given time that may be required for the supply
of the buildings or in case of fire--This requires money tho' of which we have very little"
(ViU:JHC). In December 1826 Brockenbrough estimated the "Probable cost of an additional
& adequate supply of water" to be $1,000 (Brockenbrough's Statement of the Debts and
Resources of the University as of 1 October 1826, in his letter to the Rector and Board of
Visitors, 11 December 1826, ViU:PP).
752. Perhaps Edgar Allan Poe was remembering back to an evening spent in a room in a
professor's pavilion or in the Rotunda when in an essay he wrote favorably about Argand
lamps at the expense of gas lamps: "We are violently enamored of gas and of glass. The
former is totally inadmissible within doors. Its harsh and unsteady light offends. No one
having both brains and eyes will use it. A mild, or what artists term a cool, light, with its
consequent warm shadows, will do wonders for even an ill-furnished apartment. Never was
a more lovely thought than that of the astral lamp. We mean, of course, the astral lamp
proper--the lamp of Argand, with its original plain ground-glass shade, and its tempered and
uniform moonlight rays. . . . an Argand lamp, with a plain crimson-tinted ground-glass
shade, which depends from the lofty vaulted ceiling by a single slender gold chain, and
throws a tranquil but magical radiance over all" ("Philosophy of Furniture," in The Complete
Tales and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe, 462-66).
753. Shortly after requesting these dimensions Jefferson prepared the south elevation and
partial first floor plan of the Rotunda, which is located in the Williard Homestead in Grafton,
Massachusetts (see Guinness & Sadler, Mr. Jefferson, Architect, 135, and #17-11 in Lasala,
"Thomas Jefferson's Designs for the University of Virginia"). Jefferson apparently enclosed
the drawing in his letter to Joseph Coolidge, Jr., of 4 June 1826 (ViU:TJ; see also Lipscomb
and Bergh, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 18:354-57).
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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 | |