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Chapter 1
Genesis of the Academical Village, 1814-1817
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Philadelphia Price Book and Workmen's Wages
One of the issues employing Jefferson's energies about this time was how to determine the
method of payment to the contractors. Jefferson decided to standardize prices along the lines
printed in Mathew Carey's 1812 Philadelphia Price Book. The problem lay in the fact that
neither Jefferson nor anyone he knew could lay their hands on a copy of the book, and to
complicate matters, a spurious edition was rumored to be floating about. On the first of
November Jefferson fired off two letters in search of the book, one to Latrobe and the other
to Thomas Carstairs, a "practical contractor" who worked with Jefferson, William Thornton,
Stephen Hallet, and James Hoban on the Capitol building in Washington in the 1790s.[86]
The letter to Carstairs, renewing an acquaintance "after a separation of near 20. years," must
have surprised the contractor, but Jefferson did not hesitate to ask Carstairs the favor of
finding, in addition to a copy of the book, "whatever percent" on the prices that is
"habitually now allowed there as the advance of prices since the date of that book." Latrobe
experienced trouble in locating the Philadelphia Price Book, promising to send instead the
"Pittsburg pricebook, compiled from that of Philadelphia," but Carstairs in January 1818
finally sent Jefferson a copy of the book, provided by Carey himself.[87] As for the prices,
Carstairs informed Jefferson, "I find the only material difference is the new book allows
about twenty per cent on floors & ten per cent on common stairs more than the book I have
sent you, our present working prices and for some years past, is from ten to twenty per cent
discount from the book prices or what is generaly termd the old price[.] The expence of a
measurer from Philad. would not cost much, if you should want one, three per cent is a
regular charge and pays there own expenses-I daresay would be agreed to."[88] Jefferson's
decision to base the workmen's wages on the 1812 Philadelphia Price Book came back to
haunt the University of Virginia later when it became involved in a prolonged lawsuit with
the principal contractor of Pavilion I, James Oldham, who earlier had built the interior doors
for Monticello (see appendix J).[89]
In addition to not having the Philadelphia Price Book, Jefferson told James Madison two
weeks later that "we are sadly at a loss for a Palladio. I had three different editions, but they
are at Washington, and nobody in this part of the country has one unless you have. if you
have you will greatly aid us by letting us have the use of it for a year to come." Moreover,
Jefferson complained to his old friend, "we fail in finishing our 1st. pavilion this season by
the sloth and discord of our workmen, who have given me much trouble. they have finished
the 1st. story and covered it against the winter. I set out to Bedford tomorrow, on a short
visit, and at Lynchbg shall engage undertakers for the whole of next summer's
brickwork."[90] Madison dutifully sent by stage the college his copy of Palladio's Four
Books of Architecture.[91]
86. TJ's letters to Latrobe and Carstairs are in DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence
and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:977. For Carstairs, see Dos
Passos, "Builders for a Golden Age," American Heritage, 76, and Butler, "Competition
1792: Designing a Nation's Capitol, Capitol Studies, 4 (1976), 73. The Philadelphia Price
Book, published by Mathew Carey as The House Carpenters' Book of Prices, and Rules for
Measuring and Valuing all their Different Kinds of Work (Philadelphia, 1812), was based on
a carpenter's rule book that was published originally in 1786 and revised and republished in
1801, 1812, and 1819. The Winterthur Museum owns an original copy of Carey's edition, a
photocopy of which is in The Library Company of Philadelphia. Cote discusses the
Philadelphia Price Book in "The Architectural Workmen of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia,"
64-65.
87. For Latrobe's attempts to get a copy of the Philadelphia Price Book, see Latrobe to TJ,
20 November, and 6 December, and William Thackara to Latrobe, 22 December 1817, all in
DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin
Henry Latrobe, 977. Latrobe finally sent a price book (possibly the Pittsburgh price book,
based on the Philadelphia Price Book) to Jefferson on 7 March 1818 (see Latrobe to TJ, and
7 March, and TJ to Latrobe, 19 May 1818, both in DLC:TJ; see also ibid., 975-77, 987-89).
Thackara, who did the "Plaisterer's work, so much & deservedly admired, of the Capitol,"
told Latrobe that "there is an express rule of the Carpenter's Company that the book is not to
be seen out of the pale of their Church." Thackara later came to Charlottesville to measure
work when James Oldham sued the University of Virginia in a dispute about his contract for
Pavilion I.
88. Carstairs to TJ, 26 January 1818, DLC:TJ. Jefferson had written Carstairs again on 16
January 1818 (DLC:TJ). For Carstairs and the United States Capitol building, see Jeanne F.
Butler, "Competition 1792: Designing a Nation's Capitol," in Capitol Studies, (1976), vol.
4., no. 1, 87.
89. Oldham to Brockenbrough, 20 June 1819, in ViU:PP. James Oldham (c. 1770s-1843),
who was apprenticed in Philadelphia, worked at Monticello from 1801 to 1808. He
manufactured over three dozen doors for Monticello in Richmond, where he had moved in
search of his fortune, and where he submitted plans for a powder magazine for the state
penitentiary. Oldham considered moving to St. Louis in 1818 but decided instead to return
to Charlottesville, where he contracted for the carpentry work for Pavilion I, Hotels A and
D, and thirteen dormitories. While working on these buildings Oldham argued with
university Proctor Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough and eventually he filed a lawsuit against
Brockenbrough and the university over misunderstandings surrounding the terms of his
contracts. Oldham, who owned a small brick house on the corner of 3d and I streets in
Richmond, purchased several tracts of land in Albemarle County after completing his
university work and later ran an ordinary west of Ivy on land that he purchased from
Benjamin Hardin's estate in 1828. See my "'To Exercise a Sound Discretion': The
University of Virginia and Its First Lawsuit," at http://jefferson.village.virginia.edu/grizzard
/Archive/lawsuit/home.html (1996), Cote, "The Architectural Workmen of Thomas
Jefferson in Virginia," 26-29, 82-83, 101-9, and Lay, Charlottesville's Architectural Legacy,"
Magazine of Albemarle County History, 46:28-95.
|
Chapter 1
Genesis of the Academical Village, 1814-1817
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |