 | Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Notes
Chapter 1
19. Lewis Mumford, "The Universalism of Thomas Jefferson," in The South in Architecture,
43, 72.
20. TJ to Littleton Waller Tazewell, 5 January 1805, ViU:TJ; see also Norma Lois
Peterson,Littleton Waller Tazewell, 37-39. Littleton Waller Tazewell (1774-1860), who was
born in Williamsburg, was prominent in public service for nearly four decades: Virginia
House of Delegates, 1798-1801, 1804-1806, 1816-1817; United States House of
Representatives, 1800-1801; United States Senate, 1824-1832; Virginia Constitutional
Convention, 1829/1830; governor of Virginia, 1834-1836; died in Norfolk. Tazewell is
buried at Elmwood Cemetery in Norfolk.
21. TJ to Hugh White, c. 1810, DLC:TJ; see also Mulligan, Virginia: A History and Guide,
132-33.
23. The drawings are in ViU:TJ. For a description of the drawings, which were one time
thought to date from 1817, see Sherwood and Lasala, "Education and Architecture: The
Evolution of the University of Virginia's Academical Village," in Wilson, Thomas
Jefferson's Academical Village, 12-13, and Lasla, "Thomas Jefferson's Designs for the
University of Virginia," #00-01, and #00-02. Facsimiles of the drawings can be found in
ibid., and see also Nichols, Thomas Jefferson's Architectural Drawings, 26.
25. The specifications for Pavilion VII, ca August 1814, are in ViU:TJ; see also Sherwood
and Lasala, "Education and Architecture: The Evolution of the University of Virginia's
Academical Village," in Wilson, Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village, 11-14. One-time
Monticello farm manager Edmund Bacon did not overstate the case when he recalled that
"Mr. Jefferson was very particular in the transaction of all his business. He kept an account
of everything. Nothing was too small for him to keep an account of" (Bear, Jefferson at
Monticello, 78).
26. TJ to Peter Carr, 7 September 1814, ViU:TJ. A polygraph copy of the letter is in
DLC:TJ; see also Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, 384-90, Niles Register,
10:34-35, and Lipscomb and Bergh, Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 19:211-21. The letter
appeared in the Richmond Enquirer the following year after Cabell wrote to TJ seeking
permission to publish it (see Cabell to TJ, 24 January 1816, in ViU:TJ, and TJ to Cabell, 2
February 1816, in ViU:JCC; see also ibid., 50-51, 52-56). In late February 1816 Cabell
informed TJ that he had at last retrieved the original letter from the newspaper's editor (see
Cabell to TJ, 26 February 1816, in ViU:TJ, and ibid., 60-61).
28. David Watson, a member of the university's first Board of Visitors, "determined from
some cause or other that they should not be presented" to the legislature (see Cabell to TJ, 5
March 1815, in ViU:TJ; see also Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, 38-41).
29. See TJ to Cabell, 5 January 1815, Cabell to TJ, 5 March 1815, TJ's Bill for Establishing
a College in the County of Albemarle, 1815, and Cabell to TJ, 14 February 1816, in ViU:TJ;
see also Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, 35-38, 38-41, 391-93 (appendix
D), and 56. Joseph Carrington Cabell (1778-1856) of Amherst (later Nelson) County, the
brother of Virginia governor and judge William H. Cabell, served in the Virginia Senate
from 1810 to 1829 and in the House of Delegates from 1831 to 1835. He single-handedly
won legislative support in the General Assembly on behalf of the university, and for part of
his thirty-seven years as a Board of Visitor member he served as university rector. Cabell
also zealously promoted internal improvements in the state and served as president of the
James River and Kanawha Canal Company, and his family estate at Warminster on the
James River was the seat of one of central Virginia's busiest communities in the first half of
the nineteenthth century. For more on Cabell's role in founding the university, see Cabell,
Early History of the University of Virginia, Patton, Jefferson, Cabell, and the University of
Virginia, Bruce, History of the University of Virginia (vol. 1), and Tanner, "Joseph C. Cabell,
1778-1856."
30. TJ to Wilson Cary Nicholas, 2 April 1816, DLC:TJ; see also Lipscomb and Bergh,
Writings of Thomas Jefferson, 14:446-56. Wilson Cary Nicholas (1761-1820), who was born
in Williamsburg, spent three decades in public service: Virginia House of Delegates,
1784-1786, 1788, 1789, 1794-1800; Virginia Convention, 1788; United States Senate,
1800-1804; United States House of Representatives, 1807-1809; and governor of Virginia,
1814-1816. Nicholas died at Tufton, Milton, and is buried at Monticello.
31. TJ to the Board of Visitors of the Central College, 10 March, 1817, in ViU:TJ.
Ironically, all but Madison, who attended the College of New Jersey (Princeton University),
were alumni of the College of William and Mary (see A Provisional List of Alumni,
Grammar School Students, Members of the Faculty, and Members of the Board of Visitors of
the College of William and Mary in Virginia, from 1693 to 1888, 9, 10, 13, 23, 39).
32. See John Hartwell Cocke to TJ, 26 March, in CSmH:TJ, Madison to TJ, 10 April, in
ViU:TJ, and TJ to Monroe, 13 April 1817, in DLC:TJ.
33. The act establishing the college required the board of visitors to meet on the days of the
commencement of the spring and fall terms of the Albemarle circuit court, and made
provision for occasional meetings as may be called from time to time by any three members,
giving effectual and timely notice to the others.
34. John M. Perry, who was born in the late 1770s and who died in Missouri in
the late 1830s, was a major contractor for both carpentry and brickmasonry work
at the university. The owner of considerable property, including thirty-seven
slaves by 1820, Perry received over $30,000 for his work at the university, more
than any other contractor. See Lay, "Charlottesville's Architectural Legacy,"
Magazine of Albemarle County History, 46:40-43, 45, 48.
35. Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the Central College, 5 May 1817, PPAmP: UVA
Minutes; see also Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, 393-96, and
Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason, 338. Only three members of the Board of Visitors,
Madison, Monroe, and Cocke, joined TJ at the May meeting. At the meeting Garrett was
appointed treasurer for the college, a post he held after relinquishing the proctorship in July
1817. Valentine W. Southall was appointed the board's secretary, and Jefferson and Cocke
were appointed "a committee on the part of the Visitors with authority jointly or severally to
advise and sanction all plans and the application of monies for executing them which may
be within the purview and functions of the Proctor for the time being." The symbolic
importance of the visitors' first meeting was not lost on Jefferson's contemporaries, as
evidenced by a news release printed in the Richmond Enquirer on 13 May: "On the 5th of
this month, three men were seen together at Charlottesville (county of Albemarle), each of
whom alone is calculated to attract the eager gaze of their Fellow Citizens‐We mean,
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe. . . . They have been friends for
years, and are as sincere friends at this moment. . . . The appearance of three such men
together at a village where the citizens of the county had met to attend their court, is an
event, which for its singularity, deserves the notice of a passing paragraph" (quoted in
Malone's discussion of the visitors' meeting in Jefferson and His Times: The Sage of
Monticello, 254-57, and reprinted in the Washington, D.C., Daily National Intelligencer, 23
May 1817).
36. Bear, Jefferson at Monticello, 31-32. Edmund Bacon (1785-1866), who was in
Jefferson's employment from 29 September 1806 to 15 October 1822, migrated west in
search of cheap lands in the winter of 1822-1823 after postponing the move for several
years. After living in Kentucky for only a year Bacon's wife died and he considered
returning to Virginia; he appealed to Jefferson from Christian County on 22 August 1824 to
find him a farm "of good quality" or "any other situation which I am capable of. manageing
perhaps some sort of business connected with the University might be a tempory station
untill I could make further arrangements. I could bring two good waggons and teams with
me" (MHi:TJ). Jefferson offered to assist Bacon but in the end Bacon remained in Kentucky
(see TJ to Bacon, 9 October 1824, in CSmH:TJ). For a summary of Bacon's life and
relationship with Jefferson, see Martin, "Thomas Jefferson and Edmund Bacon," Magazine
of Albemarle County History, 50:1-27. John H. Craven owned an area sawmill (see DNA:
Records of the Bureau of Census, Manufactures of Fredericksville Parish, Albemarle
County, 1820).
38. George Wythe Randolph to J. L. Cabell, 27 February 1856, ViU: Cabell Papers, and
Malone, Jefferson and His Time: The Sage of Monticello, 255.
39. For the extensive building and architectural legacy that James Dinsmore (c. 1771-1830)
and John Neilson (c. 1775-1827) left in the Virginia Piedmont, see Lay, "Charlottesville's
Architectural Legacy," Magazine of Albemarle County History, 46:32-40, Lay, "Dinsmore
and Neilson: Jefferson's Master Builders," Colonnade, 6 (Spring 1991), 9-13, Cote, "The
Architectural Workmen of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia," 21-28, 71-72, 84-90, 93, and Lay,
"Jefferson's Master Builders," University of Virginia Alumni News, 80 (October 1991),
16-19. Both men were born in Northern Ireland and began working for Jefferson shortly
after becoming naturalized citizens in Philadelphia, Dinsmore in 1798 and Neilson in 1804.
Dinsmore executed the carpentry work at Pavilions III and V and, with John M. Perry,
Pavilion VIII; Neilson the same at Pavilion IX; and the partnership of Dinsmore & Neilson
performed the carpentry work at both the Rotunda and the Anatomical Hall (ViU:PP,
Ledgers 1 and 2). Both men met untimely deaths not long after completing their work at the
university; and material relating to their estates and families can be found in the ViU:
George Carr Papers.
41. Dinsmore to Thomas Jefferson, 22 April 1817, ViU:TJ. Jefferson's overseer Edmund
Bacon recalled in 1862 that James Dinsmore lived with Jefferson "a good many years" and
"was the most ingenious hand to work with wood I ever knew. He could make anything. He
made a great deal of nice mahogany furniture, helped make the carriage, worked on the
University, and could do any kind of fine work that was wanted" (Bear, Jefferson at
Monticello, 70).
42. TJ to Thornton, 9 May 1817, ViU:TJ. Facsimiles of this letter can be found in Wilson,
Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village, 16, and in Stearns and Yerkes, William Thornton: A
Renaissance Man in the Federal City, 46-47. For Thornton's role in designing the capitol,
see Scott, Temple of Liberty: Building the Capitol for a New Nation, 36-37, 50-52, 68-71,
and Jeanne F. Butler, "Competition 1792: Designing a Nation's Capitol," Capitol Studies, 4
(1976), 63-70. TJ sent a similar letter to Benjamin Henry Latrobe of 12 June.
43. Lasla, "Thomas Jefferson's Designs for the University of Virginia," #00-06. The pavilion
facade drawings, which have been separated from the letter they were enclosed, are in
ViU:TJ. For a discussion of TJ's adaptation of the top sketch for his final design for Pavilion
VII, see Lasala's description of #00-06, and for descriptions of Jefferson's studies for
Pavilion VII, see Lasla, #07-01 through #07-05.
44. Thornton to TJ, 27 May 1817, DLC:TJ. On 9 January 1821 Thornton complained to TJ
that "I have never been honoured with a line from you since your favor of the 9th. of May
1817. which I answered on the 27th. relative to the College about to be established in your
Vicinity.—I am in hopes my Letter reached you, not so much from any advantage it could
possibly offer you, as to shew my desire to fulfil to the utmost of my ability every wish with
which you have honored me.—I am in hopes that your long silence may arise more from
your retirement from active life, than from any disinclination to preserve my name in the list
of your friendship: for it has been almost the only consolation of my life that I have been
honored with the friendship of the good & great" (DLC:TJ).
45. TJ to Latrobe, 12 June 1817, DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and
Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:901-3.
48. Operations at and for the College, 18 July 1817, ViU:TJ, and TJ to Latrobe, 3 August
1817, DLC:TJ; see also ibid., 900-901, 916, and Malone, Jefferson and His Times: The Sage
of Monticello, 257-61. In his letter of 3 August Jefferson informed Latrobe that he would
leave the north end of the square open in case the "state should establish there the University
they contemplate, they may fill it up with something of the grand kind."
50. When depicting an enlarged version of the Pantheon for the United States Capitol in the
early 1790s, Jefferson placed the "Passages and Stairs" in a central hall surrounded by four
oval rooms. See Scott, Temple of Liberty: Building the Capitol for a New Nation, 48-49.
51. See Patton, Jefferson, Cabell and the University of Virginia, 187. Wilson gives the
dimensions of the spacing of the pavilions (as provided by James Murray Howard, the
University of Virginia Architect for the Historic Buildings and Grounds): "The first four
numbers—I-III on the west, and II-IV on the east—are 53 feet and 64 feet apart respectively.
Number V on the west is 89 feet from III, and number VI on the east is 90.5 feet from IV.
The next on the west, VII, is 104 feet, then IX is 122 feet, and for the east, numbers VIII and
X, nearly the same dimensions hold. The small differences result from the different widths
of the pavilions" ("Jefferson's Lawn: Perceptions, Interpretations, Meanings," in Wilson,
Thomas Jefferson's Academical Village, 90). Wilson also asserts that the illusion of
perspective was not by design but resulted from the "constraints of the site and the need to
provide more pavilions for the professors" (ibid., 71).
52. John M. and Frances T. Perry, Land Indenture to Alexander Garrett, 23 June 1817,
ViU:TJ. See also Alexander Garrett, Micajah and William Woods, Commission and
Certificate of Examination for Frances T. Perry, 7 July 1817, in ViU:TJ. Perry apparently
used part of the proceeds from the land sale to pay off a debt of $1,066.81 to John Winn (see
Perry to Alexander Garrett, 23 June 1817, in ViU:PP). Perry received the balance of the
money due him from Garrett on 16 September 1817, for which receipts are in ViU:PP.
53. TJ to James Dinsmore, 25 June 1817, ViU:TJ. Alexander Garrett wrote James Madison
on 24 June to inform him of Perry's obstinacy in requiring a building contract as part of the
settlement of the land sale: "After you left this, a difficulty occured in obtaining the title to
the lands purchased for the Central College, that difficulty was not removed untill yesterday,
when a title was obtained" (DLC:JM). When writing to Joseph Carrington Cabell on 8 July,
Garrett used the same phrase, adding that "this difficulty retarded the progress of the Proctor
in executeing the plans and designs of the Visitors" (ViU:JCC).
57. TJ to Dinsmore, 25 June 1817, ViU:TJ. Hugh Chisholm, who was born in the 1770s,
began working for Jefferson as a bricklayer at Monticello in 1796. He worked not only as a
brickmason but as a carpenter and plasterer at Montpelier, James Madison's Orange County
home, and at Poplar Forest, Jefferson's Bedford County home. See Lay, "Charlottesville's
Architectural Legacy, Magazine of Albemarle County History, 46:43, Cote, "The
Architectural Workmen of Thomas Jefferson in Virginia," 28, 63, and Lay, "Jefferson's
Master Builders," University of Virginia Alumni News, 80 (October 1991), 16-19. In 1812
Chisholm, for $28, laid the 7,000 bricks of the Tuscan-styled Palladian temple linking the
mansion house at Monticello with the vegetable garden, and later he laid the brick walls at
Poplar Forest, Jefferson's octagonal country home at Bedford (see Elizabeth Langhorne,
Monticello: A Family Story, 161, 202). Following his work as the principal brickmason for
Pavilion VII, for which he received $1,780, Chisholm worked as a plasterer on Pavilions I,
III, V, IX; he received $1,804.50 between 19 March 1819 and 18 November 1821 (ViU:PP,
Ledger 1).
58. See TJ to Benjamin H. Latrobe, 16 July 1817, DLC:TJ, and TJ to John Hartwell Cocke,
19 July 1817, ViU:JHC; see also Van Horne, Correspndence and Miscellaneous Papers of
Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:907-10.
59. Operations at and for the College, 18 July 1817, ViU:TJ; see also Malone, Jefferson and
His Time: The Sage of Monticello, 6:257-61, and Cunningham, In Pursuit of Reason,
338-39.
60. TJ to John Hartwell Cocke, 19 July 1817, ViU:JHC. On 4 August Jefferson informed
William Branch Giles that "the buildings are begun, those for one professorship, embracing
several branches of learning, are expected to be compleated by the next spring, and a
professor will be engaged to commence instruction at that time, and we hope to be able to
erect in the ensuing summer two or three others professorships, which will take in the mass
of the useful sciences. the plan of this institution has nothing local in view. it is calculated
for the wants, and the use of the whole state, and it's centrality of situation to the population
of the state, salubrity of climate, and abundance and cheapness of the necessaries of life,
present it certainly with advantage to the attention of parents and guardians throughout the
state, & especially to those who have not in their immediate vicinity a satisfactory
establishment for general science. whatever we do will have a permanent basis, established
on a deposit of funds of perpetual revenue adequate to it's maintenance" (WiHi: Simon
Gratz Autograph Collection).
61. Latrobe to TJ, 24 July, DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and Miscellaneous
Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:914-17. Facsimiles of the letter can be found in
O'Neal, Pictorial History of the University of Virginia, 13, and O'Neal, Jefferson's Buildings
at the University of Virginia: The Rotunda, 18. For a description of the drawing, see Lasala,
"Thomas Jefferson's Designs for the University of Virginia," #00-08.
62. See TJ to Latrobe, 3 August 1817, in DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and
Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:917.
63. Latrobe to TJ, 12 August 1817, DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and
Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:928-34.
64. Jefferson retreated to Poplar Forest, "one of his most consummate architectural works,"
for up to four times a year from 1806 to 1823, when he deeded it to his grandson, Francis
Wayles Eppes. See McDonald, "Poplar Forest: A Masterpiece Rediscovered," Virginia
Cavalcade, 42 (1993), 112-21.
65. TJ to Latrobe, 24 August 1817, DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and
Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:933.
66. Nelson Barksdale served as proctor at the Central College and at the University of
Virginia until Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough was hired to fill the position in the spring of
1819. Barksdale supplied plank, scantling, and sawing for university carpenters working at
Pavilions VI, VIII, and X, Hotels D and F, the Rotunda, and some of the dormitories on the
west range (ViU:PP, Ledgers 1 and 2).
68. "I have engaged a young man of the name of Johnson," wrote Latrobe on 25 July, "to
undertake your Stone Cutting, should the terms be approved. He is not only capable to cut a
Doric Capital, or a Base, but to execute the common Architectural decorations, as foliage &
Rosettes, with great neatness & dispatch, for, in the scarcity of Carvers, I have, for some
time past, put him under Andrei, & have lately employed him to carve the rosettes in the
Caissons of the cornice of the H. of Rep. which he has done quite to my satisfaction. He also
possesses that quality, so essential to the workmen, you employ, good temper, & is besides
(which is not always compatible with good temper) quite sober. His terms are 2.50 a day,
finding himself. This is what our journeymen earn here, in Summer. If he is to have the
charge of more men, he will expect his wages to be encreased, and he expects constant
employment while engaged, & well, & that his actual expenses to the spot, & back again
(should he return to Washington) shall be paid. He is ready to depart at a few days notice. I
observe in the newspaper a letter from a gentleman in Virginia dated July 20th, mentioned
his visit to Monticello, & that you were then at your Bedford Estate. If so I cannot expect an
early answer to this letter or to my last, but I shall keep Johnson for you whenever I do hear
from you" (DLC: Latrobe Papers; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and Miscellaneous
Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:910).
70. TJ's undated draft of the article for the Richmond Enquirer, and the polygraph copy of
the letter it was enclosed in, TJ to Ritchie, 28 August 1817, are in DLC:TJ.
72. TJ to Martha Jefferson Randolph, 31 August 1817, quoted in Betts and Bear, Family
Letters of Thomas Jefferson, 418-19. Alexander Garrett married Evelina Bolling, the
granddaughter of TJ's sister Mary Jefferson Bolling, in 1808.
74. TJ to Samuel J. Harrison, 5 October 1817, in ViU:TJ. TJ informed Harrison that
following the cornerstone ceremony "we are then ready for mr [David] Knight and hope he
will come off the morning after he recieves this, as the front wall will be kept back for him. I
ask your friendly influence if necessary to urge his immediate departure."
76. Ibid., 33. Bear says that Jefferson's hair at this time was "not white but a soft, sandy
reddish color" (ibid., 130).
77. See TJ to David Knight, 5 October 1817, DLC:TJ. Knight contracted with TJ to "Work
faithfully, upon the Central College at the rate of five Dollars per Day & his Diet found,"
plus traveling expenses (David Knight's Agreement for Bricklaying, 11 October 1817, in
ViU:PP). Garrett rendered Knight's account for work on Pavilion VII on the verso of the
agreement, indicating that Knight earned $142.50 for 28½ days work and was allowed $28
for traveling expenses for 4 days. Knight, who also worked on three dormitories with
Matthew Brown, received payments of $30 and $140.50 cash on 25 October and 12
November 1817, for a total of $170.50 (see TJ to Nelson Barksdale, 11 November 1817, and
Ledger 1, in ViU:PP).
78. The description of the cornerstone ceremony on 6 October 1817 is taken from Alexander
Garrett's undated Outline of Cornerstone Ceremonies, in ViU; see also Malone, Jefferson
and His Time: The Sage of Monticello, 265. The Richmond Enquirer published a brief
account of the ceremony in its 10 October 1817 issue: "We understand, that agreeably to
appointment the first stone of the Central College was laid, at Charlottesville, on Monday
last, (the 6th,) and that with all the ceremony and solemnity due to such an occasion. The
society of Free Masons, and a large company of citizens, attended. The scene was graced by
the presence of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe, late Presidents of the United States,
and of James Monroe, the actual President" (quoted in Cabell, Early History of the
University of Virginia, xxv).
80. Latrobe to TJ, 6 October 1817, DLC:TJ; see also Van Horne, Correspondence and
Miscellaneous Papers of Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 3:955-56. "You will perceive that the
pavilions are only sketches," Latrobe continued, "but they have been perfectly studied, & I
can furnish drawings in detail of any of them which may please You. Of the long range I
have a copy, but not of the others: but the slightest reference to them will be sufficient to
enable me to send you the working drawings."
81. The death on 3 September of Henry Sellon Boneval Latrobe (1792-1817), who had
served as his father's assistant on the Capitol in Washington before "making a name for
himself as an architect and builder" on the New Orleans waterworks project, had a
devastating effect on Latrobe (see Hamlin, Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 427, 449, 473, 477,
and Latrobe to his sister-in-law Martha Sellon, 15 November, in ibid., 600-602; see also
Latrobe to John Trumbull, 10 October, and Latrobe to James Monroe, 22 October, in
951-55, 956-57). Jefferson sent Latrobe his condolences when he replied to Latrobe on 12
October, "I sincerely console with you on your great and irreparable loss. experienced
myself in every form of grief, I know what your's is. but time & silence being it's only
medicine, I say no more, assuring you always of my sincere sympathy, esteem & respect"
(DLC:TJ; see also ibid., 955-56). For the obituary notice of Henry Sellon Boneval Latrobe,
see the Washington, D.C., Daily National Intelligencer, 1 October 1817, and ibid., 945-48.
82. Latrobe, says his biographer Talbot Hamlin, realized that the sketch of the university that
Jefferson sent him lacked focus and thus began thinking about the group of buildings "as a
whole—its large size, its opportunity for monumental composition. To him the pavilions
must above all be parts of the whole, and their design must be developed in accordance with
it. Especially he felt that the pavilions should be large in scale, to count at the great distances
involved. . . . He used a monumental order running from ground to roof and carried the
columns in front of the general line of the plan to count as strong rhythmic verticals in
contrast with the long horizontals of the colonnades in front of the students' rooms."
Jefferson adopted Latrobe's designs for Pavilions V, VIII, and X, modified some others, and,
most importantly, says Hamlin, realized the "advantages, practical and artistic and
symbolical," of focusing the entire scheme upon a central domed building (Hamlin,
Benjamin Henry Latrobe, 468-70).
83. See Nicholas' Appointment of Central College Board of Visitors, 18 October 1817, in
DLC:TJ. All members of the board were reappointed.
84. TJ's undated draft for his Bill for Establishing a System of Public Education, is in
ViU:TJ, and a contemporary printed copy is in ViU:JHC. Cabell wrote a note on the first
page of the draft that reads: "This Bill was written by Mr. Jefferson: and has been rejected
by a large majority in the House of Delegates, in favor of a bill providing for the poor only.
J.C.C."
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.
91. See Madison to TJ, 29 November 1817, in DLC:JM, and TJ to Madison, 30 December
1817, in ViU:JM.
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).
| Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |