 |
Chapter 1
Genesis of the Academical Village, 1814-1817
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Brickworkers Sought
With winter nearing, the building at the college slowed, but there was a need to line up
workers for the following year. Irishman Joseph Antrim, who later plastered the dining room
at Jefferson's octagonal country home Poplar Forest and who may have worked at
Monticello, offered a proposal in December "to Plaister the Central College," which was
accepted. "Mode of Measurement that of Richmond: which is all the openings to be
measured, Except the price of the Materials which will be deducted," Antrim suggested, "Or
if you Chuse Philad. Mode, the Mode of this place [Lynchburg] is to Make no deductions
for Opening & Nether for work Nor for Materials."[92] Antrim eventually executed the
interior plaster work at the Rotunda and all the pavilions, hotels, and dormitories, and
stuccoed the brick columns at the pavilions.[93] Awarding a contract for making the 300,000
to 400,000 bricks thought necessary for the ensuing year was a more serious consideration.
Jefferson's trip to Lynchburg in search of bricklayers brought him to Matthew Brown, an
area contractor well qualified and capable of making the required number of bricks.
Jefferson and Brown made a provisional verbal agreement based partly on Brown's 10
December proposal "For making & Laying Common Brick finding all the Materials &C,
15$ pr. thousand all hard, oil Brick 30$ Rubed & guaged work 10/6 pr. foot Superficial
measure Cornice & parepet walls 25 Cts pr. foot Runing measure Extra[.] the time mention
In which half of the work to be Done is too Short but the whole may be Completed In good
time In full or say by 1st. November 1818-which is safe for Brick work on account of
Frost."[94] This agreement was reached only after Jefferson failed to engage other
Lynchburg bricklayers, and it was not to the entire satisfaction of either Jefferson or Brown.
Brown's dissatisfaction with the provisional brickmaking contract grew out of Jefferson's
insistence that the current Lynchburg prices for brickwork govern the prices of the
agreement. "I have two objection to a Referance to the Lynchburg prices for Brickwork,"
Brown complained to Jefferson on 20 December, "1st as I have Some Influance as to the
price & wishh to avoid Suspician[.] 2ndly. Dislike the mode of doing business on that
account I Submit to It with Reluctance but am Satisfied the prices Should be no higher than
those of Lynchburg." Additionally, Jefferson wanted David Knight to be hired to lay the
brick facades of the buildings. Knight had proven his ability to do superior work during the
fall when working on Pavilion VII. "I would not be bound that Knight Shoud Do the front
work," Brown countered, "but would Say that the Franklin Hotell shoud be the model
Should your Brothern Concur with you In giving me the Job you'l be So good as to give me
the Earliest possible Information."[95] The four story Federal-style Franklin Hotel on the
west corner of Main and Eleventh streets in the Chestnut Grove area of Lynchburg, built by
Jefferson's Lynchburg friend Samuel Jordan Harrison, had just opened on the 1st of
November. Brown supplied the brick for the 68 by 50 feet slate-roofed structure, at the time
as "refined as anything yet seen in the Piedmont," and Jefferson is said to have chosen its
wines.[96]
The verbal agreement between Brown and Jefferson was to stand only long enough for
Jefferson to consult with the other visitors, and Jefferson lost no time in writing to Senator
Joseph Carrington Cabell to request him to advertise for brickworkers of the "1st. degree of
skill" in the Richmond area. "At what prices do they do the very best work?" Jefferson
wondered.
other half by the 1st. of October? our walls are generally 1½ brick thick. the
whole to be grouted; not a single sammel brick, and but 2. bats to be used for
every 9. whole bricks. the front wall to be oil-stock brick, the other outer walls
sand-stock mortar lime pure sand without any mixture of mould. the work to be
done as well as the very best in Richmond or Lynchburg. if you can make a
provisional bargain with an undertaker to be depended on, taking only time, for
the approbation of the visitors, this will give us choice between Brown & him.
but this must be immediate as I must answer Brown shortly. pray make a
business of it, turn out immediately, make such a bargain if you can and inform
me immediately that I may fix the one or the other as shall be best. . . . P.S. sand
is 2. miles off and lime 9. or 10. miles. it's price at the quarry 1/.[97]
Cabell was unable to find workmen willing to travel from Richmond to Charlottesville, but
Jefferson did not yet know this when he reported to James Madison on 30 December that "I
have not yet been able to engage our brickwork. the workmen of Lynchburg asked me 15. D.
a thousand, which I refused. I wrote to mr Cabell to see what engagements could be
obtained in Richmond. that & Lynchburg are our only resources, and I very much fear we
shall have to give 13. if not 14. D. it is this advance of price which has raised my estimate of
the pavilions & Dormitories to 7,000. D."[98] Sometime during the month Jefferson drew up
an advertisement for workmen, which he wanted published in the central Virginia
newspapers:
Charlottesville to contract for the making & laying there about 400,000. bricks,
the Undertaker finding every thing, & the work to be equal to the best
brickwork in Lynchburg; one half to be done by the 1st. of July, & the whole by
the 1st. of October. the lime quarries are about 10. miles & sand about 2. miles
distant from the place. payments will be accomodated to the Undertaker. written
proposals to be lodged in the Post office at Lynchbg, or sent to the subscriber at
Poplar Forest at any time before the 13th. inst."[99]
Concluding an agreement with the bricklayers for the upcoming year dominated Jefferson's
concerns for the college as 1817 drew to an end, and after the new year, when writing to ask
his colleagues on the Board of Visitors to consider for approval the draft of his report to the
new governor, James Patton Preston,[100] he informed them of his efforts to procure
bricklayers for the Central College and of his "provisional bargain with one of the best of
them, to give what shall be given in Lynchbg the ensuing season."[101] Cabell wrote back to
Jefferson on 5 January concerning his quest for workmen in Richmond, enclosing a letter
sent to him from Christopher Tompkins, the contractor for the governor's mansion, on the
previous day, "from which you will perceive that the rates here are very exorbitant, and that
you cannot do better than to close with Brown. There are some 6 or 8 skilful workmen in
Richmond; most of them have families; and all of them prefer working in town: each of
them contracts for one million or one million & a half of bricks every year, and has more
work offered than he can well attend to." Tompkins did manage to find one bricklayer for
Cabell, a "workman who is willing to come up and make bricks at $2 pr. m being found
every thing, is named Night, and is the brother of Night who worked on the College walls in
November. He is said to be a better workman. I regret that I am unable to send you a more
agreeable answer."[102]
Upon receiving Cabell's answer regarding Richmond brickmakers, Jefferson wrote Matthew
Brown in the middle of January to seal the bricklaying contract in accordance with the terms
of Brown's letter of 20 December, impressing on him the importance of his finishing
one-half the work by the beginning of July, and reiterating Jefferson's own desire that David
Knight would be engaged for the front-work.[103] When Brown contracted for the brickwork
at Pavilion III and sixteen dormitories on the west lawn the irritating matter of contracting
for bricklaying was taken care of for the present and there was nothing left for anyone to do
for the buildings of the Central College but sit back and wait out the rest of the Virginia
winter.[104]
93. Antrim's earnings included up to $588.53 for plaster and stucco work at the pavilions
and $21,177.18 for the Rotunda. See ViU:PP, Ledger 1, and Lay, "Charlottesville's
Architectural Legacy," Magazine of Albemarle County History, 46:28-95, and Lay,
"Jefferson's Master Builders," University of Virginia Alumni News, 16-19.
96. The Franklin Hotel underwent renovation in the early 1850s and from then until its
closing and demolition in 1885 it operated as the Norvell House. See Chambers, Lynchburg:
An Architectural History, 44-45, 269.
99. Advertisement for Bids for Work on Central College, December 1817, ViU:TJ. TJ later
wrote beneath this advertisement: "1818. Feb. 3. in this note I had omitted grouting. but in
my verbal agreemt. with mr Brown when I met him in Lynchbg, I stated it to him as an
article; and on his visit to me this day he agrees he understood he was to grout in the
presence of Clifton Harris."
100. The report to the governor is contained in TJ's letter to Preston of 6 January 1818,
located in ViU:TJ. In the long letter Jefferson gives Preston a succinct history of the
building to date when he writes that the visitors "adopted a scale, accomodated in the first
instance, to the present prospect of funds, but capable of being enlarged indefinitely to any
extent, to which more general efforts may hereafter advance them. they purchased at the
distance of a mile from Charlottesville, and for the sum of 1,518.75 Dollars 200. acres of
land, on which was an eligible site for the College; high, dry, open furnished with good
water, & nothing in it's vicinity which could threaten the health of the students. instead of
constructing a single & large edifice, which might have exhausted their funds and left
nothing or too little for other essential expences, they thought it better to erect a small and
separate building or pavilion, for each professor they should be able to employ, with an
apartment for his lectures, and others for his own accomodation, connecting these pavilions
by a range of Dormitories, capable each of lodging two students only, a provision equally
friendly to study as to morals & order. this plan offered the further advantages of greater
security against fire and infection; of extending the buildings in equal pace with the funds,
and of adding to them indefinitely hereafter, with the indefinite progress of contributions,
private or public: and it gave to the whole, in form and effect, the character of an
Academical village, workmen were immediately engaged to commence the first pavilion:
but the season being advanced, it will not be finished till the ensuing spring, when one or
two others will be begun, together with the contiguous ranges of dormitories, two or three
sets of 20 for each pavilion, & sufficient consequently for the accomodation of from 80 to
120 students. these we count on finishing in the course of the ensuing summer & autumn."
102. Cabell to TJ, 5 January, and Christopher Tompkins to Cabell, 4 January 1818, in
ViU:TJ. Tompkins lived in Richmond at the house he built in 1810 at 604 East Grace Street,
which was sold in the 1830s to city attorney William H. Macfarland. The Tompkins-
Macfarland House was an excellent example of many early 19th-century residences with its
entrance high above the ground and off to one side, a pair of roof dormers, a high gabled
roof and diaphragm wall, and a large hall running through its interior, flanked by two large
rooms on either side and a staircase in the back; the house was torn down in 1908 to make
room for a Y.M.C.A. building, itself since demolished (see Scott, Old Richmond
Neighborhoods, 146-49).
104. Brown, who worked with carpenter John M. Perry on these buildings, received $7,000
for brickwork between 7 April 1821 and 22 August 1821, $2,006.88 for Pavilion III and
$3,993.12 for the west lawn dormitories nos. 10 to 26, (ViU:PP, Ledger 1). Brown did not
begin laying bricks at Pavilion III until 18 June 1818, according to Perry, who wrote
Jefferson on that date: "The Brick layers got here yesterday and will begin to lay Some time
this evening. I Should be glad you Could make it Convenient to Come to the building to
day—the dormetories will be laid of to day—the Circle next the road is Staked of So that you
Can See how to fix on the level" (ViU:TJ).
|
Chapter 1
Genesis of the Academical Village, 1814-1817
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |