University of Virginia Library

Workmen's Progress

Changes in Jefferson's design, of course, would have long-term implications for the physical
layout and characteristics of the lawn and ranges but for the most part did not effect the
immediate practical considerations of the actual contractors involved. James Dinsmore and
John Perry, in addition to carrying on the building that they had contracted for with the
Central College, began taking on new responsibilities, and two other contractors, James
Oldham and Richard Ware, began work on their pavilions, hotels, and dormitories. The
foundation for Perry's new building was delayed until mid-August, when he was scheduled
to "commence as soon as they have succeeded in blowing a rock which has impeaded there
progress in diging his foundation."[281] Perry, however, besides working on the buildings he
contracted for earlier, kept busy supervising brickmaking and cutting lumber at his sawmill.
Dinsmore did spend time in mid-May laying off the grounds for the new pavilion and its
adjacent dormitories on the eastern side of the lawn following the previously discussed
meeting of the committee of superintendence on 11 May. He agreed to lay off the grounds
along the new plan for the eastern side of the square so that the proctor would not have to
return so soon from Richmond since the "hands now engaged diging out the foundation for
the 2. buildings on the West of the lawn, would be idle after those are compleated."[282] By
early June Dinsmore was back at work on Pavilion II, and the proctor, making a visit to the
Academical Village for a few days, submitted an alternate second floor plan for the building
that "saves the running of the 2nd staircase immediately before the front door."[283]
Jefferson acknowledged that the two staircases "is a very exceptionable thing. but the
changes proposed to avoid it appear to me to produce greater disadvantages."[284] Early
August found Dinsmore putting up the "Modellians on the Cornice of his Pavillian"[285] and
by mid-August he was calling for stone door sills, so George W. Spooner, Jr., finding it
impractical to procure them from the "presant Quarry without the assistance of a man
aquainted with blowing," went hunting for stone that could be more readily procured and
discovered a number of "well shapen Blocks that will answer the purpose" on William D.
Meriwether's land, about three-fourths of a mile "farther than the presant" quarry.[286]

The enterprising James Oldham, a most superior woodworker, immediately set to work on
Pavilion I and by the middle of June was anxiously seeking quality lumber from which to
fashion his window sashes. The building's ornamental "Ordre Dorique" entablature was
inspired by Charles Errard and Roland Fréart de Chambray's beautiful depiction of the Baths
of Diocletian in Parallele de l'Architecture Antique avec la Moderne (1650; Paris
1766).[287] On 21 June Oldham wrote to the master of Monticello with questions about the
pavilion and sent his old employer