 |
Chapter 2
The Building Campaign of 1818
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Progress is Slow
As the spring flowered forth a commensurate growth in the progress of building at the
college failed to materialize. Jefferson did write to Latrobe on 19 May to apologize for his
failure to keep up his end of their correspondence.
in which you were so good as to take an interest, and to contribute to it from the
store of your time and talents. the pavilion we had begun before the reciept of
your draughts is not yet pushed but will be so in the course of the month of July.
we shall within mutilated commence your Palladian Corinthian, being the left
hand figure of the upper row on your paper, in which we permit no alteration
but the Substitution of a flat, for the pyramidal roof, which, seen over the
pediment, has not, we think, a pleasing effect.[111]
Although Jefferson planned to utilize Latrobe's drawings in designing some of the individual
pavilions for the Central College, his mind was clearly thinking about the larger scheme that
might yet be accomplished through the assistance of the Virginia legislature, that of
designing the buildings of a full-fledged a university for the Old Dominion.
pavilion, which would probably be your 3d. & 5th. or perhaps 2d. in the same
line. but the legislature has appropriated 15,000. D. a year to an University, &
we think it nearly certain they will engraft it on our stock, which we offer them
if they will adopt our site. this will call, in the first instance for about 16.
pavilions, with an appendix of 20. dormitories each: and we expect each
pavilion with it's dormitories to cost about 10,000. D. our funds may be called
60,000. D. and the legislature will have to add about 100,000. more to compleat
these buildings, exclusive of your central one, which would be reserved for the
Center of the ground. we propose 10. professors, each of whom will have his
pavilion & dormitories, and for each two professorships we must erect an hotel
of the same good architecture. these we shall assign to French families, who
will undertake to board the students on their own account, and thus furnish the
means of their learning to speak French, by interdicting the utterance of an
English word within their doors. . . . this is our plan, resting at present on no
other uncertainty but that of the adoption of the Central College for the scite of
the University. several of your fronts, altho' beautiful, cannot be brought within
our limit of 34. or 36. feet.[112]
John Lewis, a nephew of Jefferson's law professor George Wythe and an attorney who
moved west from Virginia to Franklin County, Kentucky, in 1832, said in an interview many
years after Jefferson's death that while visiting Monticello in 1819 Jefferson told him that
the $15,000 annual appropriation from the Virginia legislature "would be so expended, that
they would amount to nothing, unless more were added. Finally, the amount would be so
great, rather than lose it all, they would go on and complete the work. By this I learned that
Mr. J. had a character for artlessness and simplicity, where in fact—he could accomplish his
measures by deep laid schemes."[113]
112. TJ to Latrobe, 19 May 1818, DLC:TJ. House of Delegates and Board of Visitor
member David Watson of Louisa also looked forward to the Central College being chosen
as the site for the new university. "I am really sorry that it is out of my power to attend [the
spring Board of Visitors meeting]," Watson wrote to his brother-in-law Peter Minor of
Ridgeway on 10 May, "for I am anxious to see the visitors, & know what's the prospect, &
what's to be done, about turning the Central College into the University of Virga., which I
think with good management, & the help of three presidents, may be done" (ViU: Watson
Family Papers).
113. Undated interview with John Lewis, Shane Historical Collection, vol. 13, 116-17
[314-15], WiHi: Draper Collection. "The University was a great political movement," Lewis
continued. "It was designed to provide an institution for the whole South and South-west,
and thus, to prevent that patronage from going to the north. To train up a democratic party,
under the influence of education. There was no hostility to William and Mary. But here was
a definite end. It was necessary, in order to attain it, to go up from the low-lands--which
were unhealthy, and which were forsaken at a given period of the year by all the
wealthy--who were able to leave. It was necessary to go up into the mountains. It was
moreover more central." Lewis also claimed that Jefferson at the same time read a letter in
his presence from John Adams "telling him of a report--that he had gotten the declaration of
Independence from the Mecklenburg resolutions." For Adams' duplicity with Jefferson
regarding the Mecklenburg document, see Ellis, Passionate Sage: The Character and
Legacy of John Adams, 121.
|
Chapter 2
The Building Campaign of 1818
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |