University of Virginia Library

Richmond Firms

Brockenbrough & Harvie, the first Richmond enterprise that the proctor appealed to,
shipped the university seven casks of nails weighing 1,430 pounds on 7 August and another
seven casks on 16 August. Altogether the two shipments, which included 8, 10, 12, 16, 24,
and 30 penny nails as well as number 6, 10, and 12 brads, represented $225.14 worth of
nails plus the $1.25 per hundred shipping costs that wagoner James Guthrie collected for
transporting the material. Guthrie, by the way, carried some beds and a dozen chairs to the
construction site for the proctor, who was anticipating his family's move.[315] From its initial
August shipment through June 1821, Brockenbrough & Harvie shipped $1,011.02 worth of
assorted nails to the university's carpenters (although only one other shipment was made in
1819, $26.39 worth in October).[316]

John Van Lew & Co. was probably the biggest Richmond firm to supply the early University
of Virginia with materials. On 9 August Brockenbrough purchased 24 dozen brass sash
pulleys for $39 from the company after James Oldham requested for his buildings 8 dozen
"Window Pullyes and the Screws for them, theare is none at Leitches."[317] Additionally, the
proctor spent another $38.34 for 25 gross of assorted screws and over 30,000 sprigs ranging
from ½ to 2 inches in size.[318] John M. Perry needed "Some locks and common but hinges
& Screws" and "5 boxes Boston Crown Glass 10 x 12" for his buildings that could not be
found locally,[319] and the firm obligingly shipped the 515 pounds of material to
Charlottesville via wagoner Andrew Jamison, who earned $7.72 for the four day trip.[320]
The glass turned up "somewhat broken," however, and Van Lew suggested that it "perhaps
may have been roughly handled by the Waggoner," who also had delivered "And Irons &
Candlestick" for the proctor's own use.[321] John Pollock, the wagoner who spent the spring
and summer hauling plank from the sawmills to the construction site, also hauled iron from
Richmond that the university purchased from John Van Lew & Co.[322] By July 1820, when
the firm handed in its account with Richard Morris's statement that "We are very needy, We
shall be pleased to receive the amount as soon as convenient," John van Lew & Co. had
shipped $1,448.50 worth of hardware, tools, and other building materials to the university.
Items the account lists include nails, screws, brads, locks, pulleys, hinges, glass, glue, tin
plate, sheet lead, sheet iron, tar, sandpaper, rope, cord, a dozen plane irons, 6 files and a
rasp, 4 hammers, 2 bells, a ripper, a bellows, an anvil, a vice, and a plow, plus sacks of salt,
4 barrels of herring and one of shad, and a charge for placing an advertisement for a
quarryman.[323]