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Chapter 2
The Building Campaign of 1818
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Bernard Peyton Recruited
In the week before the arrival of the brickmasons at the college, Jefferson had written
Richmond merchant Bernard Peyton laying claim to a "right to give you occasional trouble
with [the college's] concerns." For the next decade Peyton proved to be an unflagging
supporter of the university's interest in Richmond, caring for important details like arranging
for the purchase of pork for the university and managing the difficult and dangerous job of
loading the heavy marble capitals onboard the small vessels that would carry them by water
from Rockett's wharf on the James River in Richmond to Milton, the busy village on the
Rivanna River just east of Charlottesville near Monticello.[119] Jefferson's immediate
request for the college was the recruitment of a slater, preferably "a mr. Jones, a Welshman
who did some excellent work in Charlottesville, and who is supposed to be now in
Richmond," to come and examine the slate on "all our lands on Henderson's & B. island
creeks," to see if it would serve to cover the buildings. Promising Jones, or "some other
good slater," expenses and wages if he would come without delay, for he was to set out for
Bedford in 3 weeks for a month's stay, Jefferson enclosed "a specimen of our slate from
which he may form some judgment of the probability of finding what will answer."[120]
119. Rockett's Landing was a major wharf on the James River in Richmond in the vicinity of
31st and Mains streets where "various steamers plying between Richmond and Norfolk,
Fortress Monroe, Baltimore, and New York" arrived and departed. Robert Rockett operated
a ferry there as early as 1730 and tradition has it that Abe Lincoln walked from Rockett's to
the Davis mansion when he visited Richmond on 5 April 1865. See Weddell, Richmond
Virginia in Old Prints, 190, 216, and Lutz, A Richmond Album, 70, 82. Jefferson's former
farm manager Edmund Bacon recalled in an interview given in Kentucky during the Civil
War that Milton "was the head of navigation for bateaux. A great deal of flour, grain, and
other produce was brought from the western part of the state and shipped there, the wagons
carrying back groceries and other things that the bateaux had brought from Richmond. This
and other business employed a good many families. Nearly all the families in Milton were
supplied with firewood from Mr. Jefferson's estate" (Bear, Jefferson at Monticello, 80).
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Chapter 2
The Building Campaign of 1818
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |