 | Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Notes
Chapter 7
515. James Oldham's complaints in early January that the proctor would not settle for his
work on Pavilion I, Hotel A, and 13 dormitories reveals the trivial nature of the work still
being carried on in some of the buildings at the university. See Oldham to TJ, 3 January
(document H ), TJ to Oldham, 3 January (document I ), Brockenbrough to Oldham, 3
January (document J ), all in Oldham vs University of Virginia, ViU:UVA Chronological
File.
516. See TJ to Cabell, 25 January 1822, in ViU:TJ; see also Cabell, Early History of the
University of Virginia, 239-40.
517. See Cosby to Brockenbrough, 18 April 1822, in ViU:PP. Cosby informed the proctor
from Staunton that "My exceedingly bad fortune in procuring employt. in this County
Makes it inconvenient for me to come to see you."
519. TJ to Brockenbrough, 8 February 1822, ViU:PP; see also O'Neal, "Workmen at the
University," Magazine of Albemarle County History, 17:39.
520. For plank, see Robert McCullock to John Neilson, 2 February, Neilson to
Brockenbrough, 11 February, 16 March, James Dinsmore to Brockenbrough, 23 February,
16, 25 March, McCullock to Dinsmore, 15 March, Thomas Draffin, Account with John
Harrow, 6 June, and John Harrow, Account with James Oldham, 7 June 1822, all in ViU:PP.
For shipments of hardware, glass, iron, "Spanish Whiting," and mahogany boards from
Richmond, and sash weights and "Small Franklin Stoves" from Isabella Furnace, see John
Van Lew & Co. to Brockenbrough, 9 January, 28 March to 1 April, W. F. Micow, Invoice,
24 January, Brockenbrough & Harvie to Brockenbrough, 11 March, 3 May, Robert Johnston
to Brockenbrough, 11 March, 15 April, John Van Lew & Co., Account, 2 May, and
Blackford, Arthur & Co. to Brockenbrough, 18 June 1822, all in ViU:PP. Local merchant
Alexander St. Clair Heiskell's Account for Sundries, 11 March to 7 September 1822, is also
in ViU:PP.
525. Coffee and Brockenbrough, Agreement for Ornamentation, 18 March 1822, ViU:PP.
The contract lists the quantity and price of each type of ornamentation (i.e., human masks,
ox sculls, flowers, egg and anchor, roses, lozenges) required for each pavilion. See also
Brockenbrough to TJ, 8 July 1822, in DLC:TJ, for an extract of the agreement.
526. TJ to Madison, 7 April 1822, DLC:JM. Jefferson undoubtedly intended a pun at the
expense of the very obese Chapman Johnson. An undated nineteenth-century engraving of
Johnson is in ViU: Grinnan Family Papers.
528. See Guinness and Sadler, Mr. Jefferson, Architect, 136-37, 150, and O'Neal,
"Iconography of the Nineteenth-Century Prints of the University of Virginia," in American
Association of Architectural Bibliographers, Papers VI, 75-80.
529. For Jefferson's impending departure for his Bedford County home, see his letter to
James Madison, 12 May 1822, in DLC:TJ.
533. For flooring plank, see John Fretwell, Account with Richard Ware and George W.
Spooner, Jr., 10 July, Jonathan Mechick, Account with James Oldham, 19, 20 July, John
Rodes, Account with John Harrow, 24 July, James Clarke, Account with James Oldham, 6
August, James Dinsmore to Brockenbrough, 30 August, John Rodes, Account with James
Oldham, 1 October, Dinsmore & Perry to Brockenbrough, 9 November 1822, all in ViU:PP;
for painting supplies, see Brockenbrough & Harvie to Angus MacKay and to John Vowles,
both 12 September, Brockenbrough & Harvie to Brockenbrough, 16 September, and C. L.
Abraham, Account for Painting Supplies, 7 October 1822, all in ViU:PP; for gutters see
Daniel A. Piper, Account for Laying Pipes, 8 October 1822, and Ledger 1, in ViU:PP.
Additionally, one load of hardware was shipped from Richmond in September and some
more sash weights were sent from Isabella Furnace in August (see Peter Johnston to
Brockenbrough, 16 September, and Blackford, Arthur & Co. to Brockenbrough, 13
November 1822, in ViU:PP). John Rodes ran a sawmill in Albemarle County (see DNA:
Records of the Bureau of Census, Manufactures of Fredericksville Parish, Albemarle
County, 1820).
534. Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, 7 October 1822,
PPAmP:UVA Minutes; see also Cabell, Early History of the University of Virginia, 470-76.
A clipping of an extract from the minutes published in the Charlottesville Central Gazette
on 10 January 1823 is in ViU:TJ. At its meeting the board also appointed John Hartwell
Cocke and George Loyal (named to the board upon the resignation of Robert B. Taylor) to a
committee to examine the bursar's accounts for the previous year.
535. A copy of TJ's letter to Randolph of 23 December 1822 transmitting the visitors'
October report to the Literary Fund is in PPAmP:UVA Minutes.
536. Cabell to TJ, 23 December 1822, ViU:TJ; see also Cabell, Early History of the
University of Virginia, 257-59. "Mr. Gordon & Mr. [William Cabell] Rives left this for
Albemarle on yesterday and will not probably return for eight or ten days," Cabell began his
letter. "The latter went for his family, & the former to visit Mrs. Gordon in her distress for
the loss of a child. I am very sorry that they were obliged to leave town, as we want the aid
of all our friends at this time."
538. Richard Cosway, Royal Academician and principal painter to George IV, died on 4 July
1821 at the age of 80. See Cosway to TJ, 15 July 1821, in DLC:TJ; see also Bullock, My
Head and My Heart, 177-80.
540. TJ to Gallatin, 29 October 1822, DLC:TJ. TJ's letter to Gallatin itself was sent to
Daniel Brent of the state department on 31 October to be transmitted to Paris "by the first
safe conveyance, with your official dispatches to him" (DLC:TJ), and Brent informed TJ on
7 November that he would "take great Pleasure in forwarding" the letters to Gallatin
(DLC:TJ).
542. Rives to TJ, 19 December 1822, DLC:TJ. Jefferson's overseer Edmund Bacon recalled
in 1862 that Rives often visited Monticello as a guest of Thomas Jefferson Randolph
(Jefferson's grandson) when the boys were schoolmates together at Oglesby's school in
Charlottesville. He was "always a very modest boy," Bacon said, and "Mr. Jefferson thought
a great deal of him, and so did all the family." See Bear, Jefferson at Monticello, 87-88.
547. Philip St. George Cocke to John Hartwell Cocke, 8 December 1822, ViU:JHC. The
previous Monday was 2 December. Thornton Rodgers informed the senior Cocke in a letter
of 20 December that Philip and fellow student Gray "have been twice through the grammar
embracing the most essential rules and important parts--in this they have been very deficient
and in this I wish them to be well grounded. . . . I look with some hope to our University for
teachers duly qualified to raise the literary reputation of Virginia . . . I have found Philip
entirely tractable--Gray would flutter wild as a bird in its native element, did I not use a
determin'd conduct toward him--as far as I have gone I have confident hopes as regards
both" (ViU:JHC). Philip St. George went to West Point and not the University of Virginia,
however (see John Hartwell Cocke to Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough, 6 August 1828). Cocke
later built a Gothic style mansion on the James River in Powhatan County, Belmead,
designed by Alexander Jackson Davis. He was Davis's main patron in Virginia, chairing the
building committee that built the Greek Revival Powhatan County Courthouse in the late
1840s, and as a member of the Virginia Military Institute Board of Visitors, Cocke was an
ardent supporter of Davis's Gothic plan for the school's military barracks in Lexington,
began in 1850 (see Lyle and Simpson, The Architecture of Historic Lexington, 212-21).
Reminiscent of Jefferson's ideas for the University of Virginia, Cocke wrote in 1848:
"Would it not be well to form at once, an adequate and tasteful design for the future
extension of the buildings . . . until in the end a harmonious whole shall be procured--
beautiful and inspiring in style as well as commodious and well adapted to the purposes in
view (ibid., 211). Yankee General David Hunter burned the Barracks in June 1864 (rebuilt
after the war) but by that time Philip St. George Cocke, who himself served as a brigadier
general in the Confederate army, had killed himself because of ill health. Cocke is buried in
Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond (see Mitchell, Hollywood Cemetery, 61).
| Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |