More Proposals
When the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia met for the first time several
workmen were yet preparing their proposals for the coming year. Painter and window glazer
Thomas Smith showed up in person while the visitors were meeting to submit his bid,
saying that he would install window glass for 10 cents per square foot for precut glass and
15 cents otherwise. As for outside painting, Smith's price for one "collor and the work is
plain no Carved work attached" was 25 cents per square yard for 2 coats, 10 cents for
additional coats. For inside work he charged 30 cents per yard for two coats and 12 cents for
additional coats for one color. "Imitating Mahagony on Doors or Elsewhere and varnishing
the same with Copal varnish," cost 75 cents per yard, and he suggested the "same price for
painting in imitation of Sattiny wood or Norway Oak."[222] John Percival addressed a letter
to Jefferson proposing to work at 40 percent advance on the Philadelphia Price Book but not
before he offered the former president a "fiew remarks" of admonishment. "It is very
astonishing," wrote Percival, "that the first men in this very extensive & riseing Empire
Should fix as a standard perhaps the most Antient in the present Day the most illiberal the
most Obsolete & the least Scientific of all Books extant and by this means to enslave with a
yoke & reduce to Vassalage the most extinsive & useful Branch of the Republic."[223]
[222]
222. Smith to Barksdale, 29 March 1819, ViU:TJ. Wood graining and marbleizing are
painting techniques employed to simulate more expensive wood or marble and granite
patterns.
[223]
223. Percival to TJ, 29 March 1819, ViU:TJ.
