University of Virginia Library

XI. The Subscription List

Having acquired a suitable site for the College, the next step was to erect the requisite buildings. Before describing the remarkable architectural plan which Jefferson had already drafted for use, it will be necessary to

dwell at some length on the sources upon which the Board were relying for the funds that would be indispensable for so expensive an undertaking. The most important was the subscription list. Although a canvass had, with conspicuous success, been made among the citizens of Albemarle county and the surrounding region before the incorporation of Central College, yet so far as it appears, none of this money had been paid before May 5, 1817, when the Visitors convened with a quorum for the first time. It was at once perceived by them that a much larger sum would be required for the new college than was anticipated when the scheme had not as yet passed beyond the stage of an academy. Jefferson, with characteristic energy and promptness, submitted to the Board the preamble for a new subscription list, the tone of which reflected the extreme importance that he attached to education. The right of self-government, he declared, was among the greatest of political blessings, and only an intelligent and instructed people could preserve it for themselves. How was information to be disseminated among them? By multiplying the number of seats of learning, and thus bringing at least one within the convenient reach of every parent or guardian. Central College, he concluded, would "facilitate the means of education to a considerable extent of country"; and it was further recommended, he said, by the salubrity of its climate, and by other local advantages. The subscriber was asked to make a contribution payable as a whole on April 1, 1818, or in four equal instalments, the first to be handed in on that date, and the remainder, in annual succession, during the ensuing three years.

Jefferson, Cabell, and Cocke led off with a subscription of one thousand dollars apiece. So speedy was the success following the appeal, that an early meeting of the

Board was desirable to authorize the beginning of the building. Albemarle county alone had pledged, through its principal citizens, the sum of nineteen thousand dollars. "We are already sure of enough," Cocke informed Cabell, in a spirit of high satisfaction, "to lay the foundation of what I trust may be improved to be a noble work." Cabell himself had, in the meanwhile, been indefatigable in distributing the subscription lists in many parts of Virginia, -he had sent copies to, among others, Colonel Lewis, of Campbell county, Dr. Cabell, of Lynchburg, Edmund Winston, John Camm, Stirling Claiborne, Hill Carter, David Garland, Robert Rives, Henry St. George Tucker, William Brent, and Ellyson Currie, all of whom were influential citizens in their several communities. Brent and Currie were residents of the Northern Neck, which had not even yet recovered from the ravages of the marauding British fleet; but this did not discourage Cabell from asking them to solicit subscriptions at the meetings of the county courts in their district.

Colonel Lewis, of Campbell, made a counter proposition. It appears that he was the owner of a virgin gold mine situated in Buckingham county at a spot not far from Cabell's home near Warminster. "It is the richest mine of that metal ever discovered," he wrote, with honest enthusiasm. He offered to convey a half interest in this amazing underground storehouse of wealth to Central College on condition that the whole was to be drawn for in a lottery, in which twenty thousand tickets were to be used, at a valuation of ten dollars a ticket; or ten thousand issued at a valuation of twenty dollars. The profit would, on this calculation, amount to two hundred thousand dollars, which was to be equally divided between Lewis and the College. The scheme, seductive as it was,

failed to dazzle Cabell's judgment, probably because the mine was situated so close to his own plantation that he had reason, from his own observation, to be skeptical as to its richness. Only a week later, he was visiting Buckingham courthouse, and still interested in the more prosaic method of procuring funds by solicitation in person; but neither he nor his friend, Eppes, the member of Congress from that district, was encouraged by the upshot.

Jefferson too, about this date, found serious impediments in the same path. The main obstruction .which he had to surmount, he wrote Cabell in September, 1817, was the "idea that it was a local thing, a mere Albemarle Academy. I endeavor to convince them it is a general seminary of the sciences meant for the use of the State. In this view, all approve and rally to the object. But time seems necessary to plant this idea firmly in their minds."

When the report of the Visitors was drawn up on January 6, 1818, the total amount of the subscriptions had grown to $35,102; and to this should be added $3,195.86 derived from the sale of the glebes and now in the custody of the court commissioner. Unhappily, the larger proportion of the voluntary contributions was payable in four annual instalments; none were due until April 1, 1818; and some not until three years should have passed after that date. At least one-half of the total amount would be needed in the summer of 1818; and in anticipation of this fact, Jefferson, on January 15, asked Cabell, then in attendance in the Senate in Richmond, to obtain a loan from the banks of ten to twenty thousand dollars on the security of the subscription lists; but the application was turned down until the Board should consent to give their personal endorsement. Although additional subscriptions continued to come in, this had no

influence in removing the uneasiness with which Jefferson regarded the situation in several of its aspects. "I should be much relieved," he wrote Cabell on the 16th, "if the members of the Board, in the want of visitorial full meetings, would individually call here whenever they happen to pass. Even separate conferences with them would lighten my mind of some of its load."

Taking the returns of the subscription as a whole, there seems to have been no permanent reason for dissatisfaction. In Albemarle county, where every prominent family put its name in the list, the amount of the several contributions ranged.. from one thousand dollars to twenty dollars; seven citizens pledged themselves each for the former sum and eleven for five hundred dollars respectively; there were one hundred and twenty-nine subscribers in all, and the total sum promised was $27,440.33. In Richmond city, there were only eleven subscribers, and the largest amount pledged was five hundred dollars. Most of these contributors were bound to Jefferson by ties of kinship or personal loyalty. The amount pledged by the eleven aggregated $2,225.00. In Stafford county but one subscriber was secured, and in Winchester, but four, who together pledged themselves for eight hundred dollars. All these subscribers were personal friends of Cabell. In Amherst and Buckingham counties, there was only one subscriber respectively, and each pledged himself for a small sum. In Cumberland county, which faced on the fertile low grounds of James River, and contained the homes of many wealthy and cultured families of gentle descent, the number of subscribers rose to twenty-five. The sum contributed by them was $2,190.00. In Fluvanna, there were fourteen subscribers, -among them General Cocke, -and their offerings amounted to $2,590.00; in Goochland, twenty

subscribers, with a total contribution of $1,185.00; in Louisa, six, with a total of $1,400.00; in Lynchburg, seven, with a total of $1,300.00; in Nelson, eighteen, with a total of $2,952.00; in Orange, two, -one of whom was Madison, -with a total of $1,030.00.

The list of the subscribers is a notable one, not simply from a social point of view, but also for the high public spirit and esteem for learning which their contributions so plainly indicate. In the list for Albemarle, we discover the following respected names: Carr, Divers, Coles, Dawson, Duke, Garrett, Gordon, Garth, Harper, Harris, Kinsolving, Lindsay, Maury, Randolph, Lewis, Leitch, Minor, Monroe, Morris, Nicholas, Patterson, Shackelford, Waddell, Southall, Watson, Shelton, Walker, Winn, Wertenbaker, Wood and Woods; in Stafford county, Brent; in Winchester, Carr, Holmes, Lee, and Tucker; in Buckingham, Eppes; in Cumberland, Bondurant, Deans, Daniel, Harrison, Hughes, Page, Skipwith, Trent, Thornton, Walker, and Woodson; in Fluvanna, Cocke, Scott, Cary, Fuqua and Winn; in Goochland, Carter, Garland, Pickett, Pleasant, Pendleton, Sampson, Randolph, and Watkins; in Loudoun, Mason; in Louisa, Morris, Minor, Trueheart, and Watson; in Lynchburg, Harrison, Pollard, and Yancey; in Nelson, Rives, Galloway, Digges, Garland, Lewis, McClelland and Mosby; and in Orange, Madison.

Many of the local subscribers, with the full concurrence of the Board of Visitors, were anxious to pay the entire amount of their contributions in a form that was suggested by the needs of the College in the course of its building. W. D. Garth, for instance, furnished many feet of dressed plank in return for the release of his pledge; Reuben Maury supplied a large quantity of farm products on the same acceptable condition; so did

Garland Garth; and so did James Dinsmore with his work as contractor.[27] As we shal1 see, a small number of the subscriptions, chiefly because of death, insolvency, or emigration, remained unpaid until as late as 1824, when a collector was appointed at a handsome percentage to obtain by suit or solicitation such as had not as yet been settled. In order to swell the amount that was confidently expected from the subscription list, the Board of Visitors, at the meeting held on May 5, 1817, approved the plan for the lottery which had been drawn up by the trustees of Albemarle Academy; and they instructed the proctor to carry it into execution at once through such agents as he should appoint. The proceeds of the sale of the voluminous tickets were to be deposited in the Bank of Virginia in Richmond. It is to be inferred that the lottery scheme remained in abeyance, for there is no reference to any income acquired by this means. The passage of the bill, in 1818, providing for the establishment of a university, and appropriating an annual fund of fifteen thousand dollars for its support, may have caused the lottery to be put off indefinitely.