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Chapter 3
The Building Campaign of 1819, Part 1
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Proctor Recruited
On the last day of the month, Jefferson's old friend and former governor Wilson Cary
Nicholas wrote him that Arthur Spicer Brockenbrough was willing to contract with the
university for the carpenter's work and also could engage to "undertake the superintendence
of all your work of every sort at that place." This proved a great boon for the university and
for Jefferson as the amount of work increased greatly the ensuing spring and summer, for
the capable Brockenbrough served as a reliable and zealous promoter of the institution's
interests. A brother of Judge William Brockenbrough, Thomas Brockenbrough, Dr. Austin
Brockenbrough, and Dr. John Brockenbrough, Jr., and like them a man of "excellent
character," Arthur Brockenbrough was known as a "compleat workman" and said to be
"more scientific than any of our public," asserted Nicholas.[178] He built the new banking
houses in Richmond, his brother's new house (either John's White House of the Confederacy
or William's "simpler house of red brick on Broad Street, across Ninth from the Swan
Tavern, and on the site of the present [1923] Smithdeal College"),[179] and many others,
including one for Judge Spencer Roane. "If you want such a person," the enthusiastic
Nicholas said,
your account that you shou'd have his services, as I am sure he wou'd save you
much trouble & fatigue. Mr. B. has been employed here either as contractor or
superintendent for the execution of much brick work. I do not know that he has
any idea of the sort, but as soon as the subject was mentioned to me, I thought
he possibly might be useful in another way in the progress of the institution &
that I wou'd suggest it to you . . . I believe there is but little chance of your
employing a person more likely to command the respect & confidence of
parents or boys. This however is entirely a thought of my own. Before it is
acted upon in any way I shou'd be glad you coud know him & judge for
yourself."[180]
Jefferson responded positively to Nicholas' suggestion, calling Brockenbrough "exactly such
a character" as the institution needed but pessimistically added, "I fear much that altho. he
would suit us, our salary would not suit him." Sandy Garrett traveled down to Richmond to
consult with Nicholas and Senator Cabell before contacting Brockenbrough directly, and the
three men decided to encourage Brockenbrough to visit the site of the university.[181] The
day after their meeting, Nicholas wrote Jefferson again to inform him that "Mr. B. is not a
common workman, I understand he is a competent architect. His brother the Doctor, who
has both experience & taste, tells me he is master of all the different orders of Architecture. I
hope you will pardon my anxioustness upon this subject, it proceeds entirely from my desire
to save you trouble."[182] (Nicholas also stated his opinion that the price of brickwork in
Richmond was expected to fall under $10 per thousand for the summer due to "a total
suspension of every thing like building.") Brockenbrough left Richmond on 27 March to
talk to Jefferson and the Board of Visitors about the position,[183] and the university Board
of Visitors at their first meeting on Monday 29 March authorized its committee of
superintendence (Jefferson and John Hartwell Cocke) to engage Brockenbrough as
proctor for $2,000 a year.[184]
After Brockenbrough's return to Richmond, Governor Nicholas continued to negotiate with
him for the university but did not feel authorized to make a deal because Brockenbrough's
prior commitments prohibited his moving to the university before August.[185] In mid-April
Brockenbrough traveled to Cocke's James River plantation in Fluvanna County located
about half-way between Richmond and Charlottesville, called Bremo, at the urging of
Senator Joseph Carrington Cabell. Brockenbrough carried letters from Cabell to Cocke, who
wrote his friend that "I hope you will hold on upon Brockenbrough,"[186] and one from
Governor James Patton Preston to Cocke introducing Brockenbrough as the executive
superintendant of repairs at the capitol and of the improvements of the public square. "He is
judicious œconomical and industrious in this business . . . a man possessing good taste and
understands the mode of executing work as well as any person, having been regularly bred
to the business of building. He possesses a most Amiable & unexceptionable character & I
think he would not engage in any business that he was not perfectly competent to."[187]
Brockenbrough accepted the position while at Bremo but could not move his family to the
university site until the end of July.[188]
178. The five Brockenbrough brothers were the sons of Dr. John Brockenbrough, Sr. (d.
1801), who studied medicine at the University of Edinburgh in the early 1790s and is buried
at Doctor's Hall in Richmond County, and Gabriella Harvie Randolph, daughter of Colonel
John Harvie of Richmond and widow of Thomas Mann Randolph of Tuckahoe, whom
Herman Blennerhassett (Aaron Burr's accomplice in the conspiracy and fellow jailbird)
called "the nearest approach in this town to a savante and bel esprit" (see Blanton, Medicine
in Virginia in the Nineteenth Century, 216, 367, 370, Weddell, Richmond Virginia in Old
Prints, 1737-1887, 162, and Stanard, Richmond: Its People and its Story, 100). Dr. John
Brockenbrough, Jr. (d. 1853), a native of Essex County and a leader of the Republican
political power, the Essex Junto (or Richmond Junto) with Judge Spencer Roane and editor
Thomas Ritchie, was chosen cashier of the Bank of Virginia when it was chartered in 1804.
He served as one of the jurors in the Aaron Burr conspiracy trial, and in 1818 built a
residence on the corner of 12th and Clay streets which was used as the executive mansion
for the Confederate government and as a public school by the city in the 1880s.
Brockenbrough, whom John Randolph of Roanoke described as "A one among men," later
became the proprietor of the Warm Springs and lived there until his death (see Dabney,
Richmond: The Story of a City, 64, 66, 72, 84, and Mordecai, Richmond in By-Gone Days,
89). Thomas Brockenbrough was a Richmond merchant who often sold building materials
to the university. Dr. Austin Brockenbrough remained in Tappahannock and served in the
House of Delegates in 1820 and 1824. His son William Austin Brockenbrough (1809-1858)
and grandson Austin Brockenbrough (b. 1846) were also doctors. Judge William
Brockenbrough, who served on the Virginia Court of Appeals, served with Judge Spencer
Roane, Colonel Wilson Cary Nicholas, and others on the 1817 commission to overseer the
building in Richmond of Philadelphian Thomas Crawford's Washington Monument. The
laying of the cornerstone for the monument was delayed, however, until 1850, the equestrian
statue was not unveiled until 22 Feb. 1858, and the symbolic groups were set up only after
the war in 1868 and 1869. By then the monument's total cost of $259,913.26 nearly equaled
the cost of building Jefferson's original Academical Village (see Weddell,
Richmond Virginia in Old Prints, 1737-1887, 119-20).
179. Stanard, Richmond: Its People and its Story, 95. Brockenbrough also built a "typical
city house of the early 1800's" in Richmond at 314 East Clay Street that remained in the
family until the late 1880s (Scott, Old Richmond Neighborhoods, 233-34).
180. Nicholas to TJ, 28 February 1819, DLC:TJ. According to his docket, Jefferson received
Nicholas' letter on 4 March.
181. After meeting with Garrett and Nicholas, Cabell wrote Jefferson on 12 March that
"from every thing I can learn in regard to Mr. Brockenbrough it would be important to
engage him, and as any salary we could give a Proctor would not procure his services,
neither Mr. [Chapman] Johnson nor myself, as at present advised, see any impropriety in
combining for that object, the appointment of Proctor, with that of Undertaker of the
wooden part of the buildings" (ViU:TJ; see also Cabell, Early History of the University of
Virginia, 173-74).
183. See Nicholas to TJ, 27 March 1819, in DLC:TJ. Nicholas wrote Jefferson to introduce
Brockenbrough, "who I anxiously hope you will be able to employ on some terms or other, I
wish it most on your account, as I am sure he wou'd save you much trouble & vexation."
Jefferson replied to Nicholas on 1 April, instructing him to attempt to engage
Brockenbrough for $1,500 a year, and "we shall be all tolerably contented. if you are
obliged to go as far as 2,000. D. we shall not be contented but will submit to it of necessity"
(DLC:TJ).
184. See the Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, 29 March 1819,
in ViU:TJ.
188. Brockenbrough married Lucy Gray in 1811 (see Eva Eubank Wilkerson, Index to
Marriages of Old Rappahannock and Essex Counties, Virginia, 1655-1900, 33). Jefferson
later said that "Hotel E. was planned and built particularly for the Proctor, and supposed to
be sufficient for him including his office" (TJ to Brockenbrough, 13 December 1825,
ViU:PP), but Brockenbrough apparently never occupied the building. After eleven years of
dedicated service to the university, the Board of Visitors demoted Brockenbrough to the
office of sheriff of the university (see appendix V).
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Chapter 3
The Building Campaign of 1819, Part 1
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |