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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 |  |
Money Requested from Literary Fund
On the same fall day that Jefferson wrote to Michele Raggi to absolve himself and the
university from the stonecutter's ire, he sent a desperate plea for money for the university to
his son-in-law and governor, Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., who was also president of the
Literary Fund. The institution had exhausted the first two-thirds of the $60,000 loan it
obtained from the Literary Fund and on 13 August had requested the remaining $20,000
which the fund's board of directors refused to provide.[423] Alexander Garrett, the bursar,
with "demands now pressing hardly" on him, called on Jefferson on 7 October asking him to
"sollicit from your [Literary Fund] board an immediate attention to the supplementary loan
of 20,000. D."[424] The Board of Visitors at its fall meeting a few days before on 2-3
October had decided to include in its annual report to the president and directors of the
Literary Fund a financial statement drawn up between February and April 1820 that listed
the existing debts and projected costs of completing the buildings at $93,600.[425] Of course
that statement, covering the university's first year of operation (from the spring of 1819 to
the spring of 1820) did not accurately represent the university's financial situation in
October 1820 because another half-year had passed. Accordingly, the proctor made a
detailed statement of the university's expenditures covering the previous twelve months,
which Jefferson sent along with the report to the Literary Fund in December.[426] Although
there was no business concerning the buildings' construction to be discussed by the visitors
at their meeting, the account summarized the disbursements to the undertakers over the past
year. Despite the desperate state of the university's finances, shifting the debts owed to the
workmen to the Literary Fund allowed the building process to continue at the rate initially
planned, although it meant postponing the hiring of professors and the opening of the school
to students.
424. TJ to Randolph, 8 October 1820, ViU:TJ; see also Literary Fund, Resolution
Authorizing Loan, 30 July, and TJ to Thomas Mann Randolph, 16 September 1820, in
ViU:TJ.
425. See Minutes of the Board of Visitors of the University of Virginia, 2-3 October 1820,
PPAmP:UVA Minutes; see also Alexander Garrett's Estimate of University Costs, 7
February, in ViU:JCC, TJ's Proposal for University Expenditures, 10 April, in ViU:TJ, TJ to
Brockenbrough, ca 10 April, in ViU:PP, and TJ's Statement of Probable Costs for the
Buildings, 28 November 1820, in ViU:TJ.
426. Jefferson drafted a letter to Randolph in early November explaining the differences
between the two statements but inadvertently failed to include it with the visitors' report to
the legislature. See TJ to Randolph, 9 November and 25 December, and TJ to Joseph
Carrington Cabell, 25 December 1820, all in ViU:TJ.
|
Chapter 5
The Building Campaign of 1820
Documentary History of the Construction of the Buildings at the University
of Virginia, 1817-1828 | |