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Chapter 5
The Building Campaign of 1820
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 |  |
Coffee in New York
As the end of the summer of 1820 neared, the English ornamental sculptor William John
Coffee wrote to Jefferson two times, first to give him the result of his inquiry into the cost of
fire engines and next to update him on the frieze ornaments he promised to make for Poplar
Forest and the university. Coffee visited Albemarle County earlier in the year and arrived
back at New York on 18 July, he said, "much fatigued with a Journey of 1,203 miles by
Land, that is from Monticello to Canada & from Canada to N. York Via—Albany." Once in
New York City, Coffee visited No. 293 Pearl Street, the home of Able W. Hardenbrook, a
maker of "fire Engins." Hardenbrook's prices per foot "For Hose or Leaders as they are
Called her[e]" were "$1—that is 8 Shillings this City money" for 3½ inches diameter, 50
cents for ½ inch, and $3 for "the Suckers or Suction Pipes." New York City fire engines used
3 to 400 feet of hose, Hardenbrook told Coffee, but the common length of leaders was about
100 feet.[413] Coffee wrote again a week later from Newark, New Jersey, to inform Jefferson
that the ornaments for "Bedford House" and "The University" were in "great fordwardness,"
claiming that "no time has been Lost Sines I have been at home or have I applyed a Single
hour to any other Employment so very Laboreous & difficult has been this undertaking."
The shipment of the ornaments to Virginia, however, would depend on the "unfortunate
State" of New York City, which had become, according to Coffee, so dangerous to the health
and life of its inhabitants that it was draining off "all that Can any way Convenintly leave
Such a Smite of disease and Corruption, I need not say to you that it will Continue its
Scourgeing March ontill the first part of november at which time we are Visited by the
Healthy nor'west winds and a Black frost. So much do I dislike this Stinking Pestilential
City, and so dread the prevailing fever that I thought it Proper to leave The City for this little
Town." Coffee also added that he had waited upon Peter Maverick (who worked in Newark)
and "gave him your Drawing," and he "Promised to Send you a Proofe Plate I hope by this
time he has don So."[414] This was the first step in the production of the famed Maverick
group of engravings, the first printed ground plan of the Academical Village (see appendix
O).[415]
413. Coffee to TJ, 1 September 1820, DLC:TJ. Contrast New York's fire fighting apparatus
with Dr. James Mease's description of that of Philadelphia's nine hose companies in The
Picture of Philadelphia, Giving An Account of Its Origin, Increase and Improvements in
Arts, Sciences, Manufactures, Commerce and Revenue. . . . (Philadelphia, 1811): "The
occurrence of a fire in 1803 . . . gave the idea of attaching a hose to the fire plugs of the
hydrants in the streets, by which the fire engines might be more rapidly filled than by means
of men standing in a lane, or even before a lane could be formed . . . and through which the
water would also be forced, and might be directed to the part of a house on fire. . . . The
hose is of leather, two and a half, or two and one eighth inches diameter; generally a
thousand feet in extent, and divided into sections of fifty feet, all capable of being united,
each section being connected by brass swivell screws." Philadelphia owned 7,850 feet of
hose for 35 engines, or 221 feet for each engine, and its total fire fighting apparatus was
valued at $65,000.
415. See O'Neal, An Intelligent Interest in Architecture, volume 6 of The American
Association of Architectural Bibliographers, 75-80, and Betts, "Groundplans and Prints of
the University of Virginia, 1822-1826," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society,
90:87. O'Neal's chronology of the production of the two American editions of the Maverick
engravings does not begin until 30 November 1821.
|
Chapter 5
The Building Campaign of 1820
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |