University of Virginia Library

XIII. The Actual Building

The Board of Visitors of the College, it will be recalled, authorized on May 5 (1817) the erection of the first pavilion, and empowered a special committee, composed of Jefferson and Cocke, to supervise the successive stages of construction. The first step was to lay off the plat of ground selected for the site of the institution. It was not until July 18 that Jefferson staked out his plan. The theodolite was fixed in the ground at the middle point of the northern line of the square, on which now rises the circular walls of the Rotunda. In the beginning, there had to be embraced in the survey an area sufficient to allow twenty dormitories to be attached to each of the pavilions projected for the three lines. The same area was still required when the number of pavilions for the east and west lines, respectively, was increased to five, for, at the same time, the number of dormitories to be attached to each pavilion was reduced to ten. At this period, as we have mentioned, the site was simply an open worn-out field rising high and dry by itself, and without any obstructions in the way of trees or bushes. The lay-off was completed under Jefferson's eye, and certainly partly, if not entirely, with his actual assistance. Ten working men, quite probably hired slaves, were promptly turned in to change the surface, with spade and hoe, to the exact condition required for the foundation of the several buildings. The design of East and West Ranges, as distinguished from East and West Lawn, had not yet been considered; the lay-off in the beginning was confined to the present lawn and the sites of the structures that were to confront it.

It was not until October 6 (1817) that the corner-stone

of the first pavilion, the modern Colonnade Club, was put in place. It is a fact tending to arouse some speculation that the site of this pavilion should have been selected at so obscure a point in the lines forming the three sides of the square. Why was it not chosen nearer the northeast or northwest corner? Why not on the ground now occupied by the Rotunda? According to the original plan, no pavilion was to be erected at a corner, but Latrobe seems to have altered Jefferson's resolution in this detail. The suggestion from Thornton in favor of a very handsome Corinthian pavilion at the centre of the northern line, and from Latrobe of a Rotunda there, may also have decided him at this tune to reserve this spot for a more imposing use in the future.

The morning that was to witness the ceremony of laying the corner-stone was at first fair, but the clouds later on began to gather; -happily, however, only to disperse and leave the weather clear again. The county and superior courts, with their promiscuous attendance of citizens, set upon business or amusement, were in session in Charlottesville; but when informed of the impending event, the judges left the bench, and accompanied by the crowd of hangers-on, repaired to the scene. The doors `of all the stores were locked, private houses shut up, and the entire population of the little town darkened the road to the College. They were animated, some by an interest in learning, some by a spirit of diversion, and some, perhaps, by a desire to gaze at a group of three men composed of two former Presidents of the United States, Jefferson and Madison, and the present incumbent of that office, Monroe. Among the persons who occupied the seats of prominence at the ceremony was David Watson,

a member of the Board of Visitors, who seems, on this. occasion, to have shown his first, and, with one exception, his last interest in Central College.

The corner-stone was laid with the customary state by Lodges 60 and 90. Rev. William King was the chaplain, John M. Perry, the architect, and Alexander Garrett, the worthy grand-master. President Monroe applied the square and plumb, the chaplain asked a blessing on the stone, the crowd huzzaed, and the band played "Hail Columbia." Corn was now scattered, and then Valentine W. Southall delivered the address to the general audience. With the grand-master's address to the Visitors, the ceremony was concluded.

Alexander Garrett, as proctor, had already contracted with John M. Perry for the erection of the first pavilion. It was to be built of brick and was to contain one large room on the lower floor, two on the upper, and offices and a cellar in the basement. All the carpenter's and joiner's work was to be done by Perry; and he was also to supply the lumber as well as the ironmongery. Payment was to be made in three instalments: two hundred dollars to be delivered in cash at once; five hundred so soon as the roof was raised; and the remainder when the house was accepted as satisfactorily finished. This contract is interesting for a reason additional to its being the first: it not only bore the signature of Jefferson, but it was witnessed by William Wertenbaker, then a young man, but afterwards to become one of the most useful and honored officers of the institution through more than half a century.

Jefferson had early taken steps in person to procure bricklayers of the highest expertness. With that purpose in view, he, during his sojourn at Poplar Forest, in Bedford county, in the summer of 1817 visited Lynchburg,

for "they have there," he wrote Latrobe, on July 16, "the new method of moulding the stock-brick in oil, and execute with it the most beautiful brick which I have ever seen."

So dilatory were the workmen in constructing the first pavilion that he grew doubtful as to whether it would be finished before the ensuing January. He rode down to the College on alternate days, although, at this time, in his seventy-fifth year, to quicken the laborers by the stimulus of his presence. "I follow it up," he wrote Cabell on October 24, "from a sense of the impression which will be made on the Legislature by the prospect of its immediate operation. The walls should be done by our next court, but they will not be by a great deal." In the following December, while again stopping at Poplar Forest, he visited Lynchburg a second time to hire bricklayers to construct the two additional pavilions which the Board of Visitors had ordered to ,be erected. At that time, this class of workingmen were asking fifteen dollars a thousand for laying place-brick and thirty for laying oil-stock, there having been recently a sharp advance in prices owing to the increased charge for corn. Jefferson entered into a provisional engagement with Matthew Brown, a local builder, to pay him as much as was obtainable for similar jobs in Lynchburg; but he hoped that, for a contract involving the purchase and use of three hundred thousand to four hundred thousand bricks, a cheaper undertaker might be found in Richmond; and for that reason he urged Cabell, then attending a session of the Senate, to look about for one in that city. "Pray make a business of it," he wrote, "make such a bargain as you can and inform me immediately." Cabell, although assisted by Major Christopher Tompkins, a builder of experience, was unable to conclude a satisfactory arrangement,

and Jefferson, in consequence was constrained to close with Brown.

He preferred to use slate for roofing, and in June, 1818, corresponded with Colonel Bernard Peyton, of Richmond, for the purpose of obtaining a man with sufficient practical information to pass correctly upon the quality of the products of certain quarries in Albemarle county and willing to undertake the contract for covering the pavilions and dormitories, should that quality sustain the requisite test. One Jones, of Wales, who had already done work of this character in Charlottesville, had removed to Richmond, and it was he whom Jefferson was anxious to employ. It was soon shown that the stone in the strata around the College was not suitable for a delicate tool, -it proved both expensive and tedious to chisel it. In July, 1817, Jefferson had been authorized by the Board of Visitors on his own motion to import a stone-cutter from Italy; he had decided to construct the two additional pavilions on a more ornate and ambitious model than the one followed in the first pavilion; and for this reason, he thought that it would be imprudent to depend exclusively on the domestic workingman, and that he ought to go abroad for the most highly trained skill that could be found there. One of the most competent of the domestic builders was James Dinsmore, whom Jefferson had, in 1798, discovered in Philadelphia and brought to Monticello, where he remained as his principal employee in house joinery for ten years. "I have never known," said Jefferson, "a more faithful, sober, discreet, honest, and respectable man." Associated with Dinsmore at Monticello was John Neilson, whom Jefferson had also come to know in Philadelphia, in 1804, and who continued under contract to him during a period of four years. Both of these men were

at one time in the service of Madison at Montpelier; but Neilson was, at the beginning. of the building at Central College, engaged in working for General Cocke; and it was not until the construction of the University itself was fully underway that he took an important part in it, in partnership with Dinsmore.

Jefferson was sanguine that the first pavilion, with its dormitories, would be completed before the end of 1817, but it was not finished by August 4, 1818, although it was, on that date, reported to be "far advanced." A second pavilion, with its dormitories too, was expected, -without good reason, however,-to receive the final stroke of the hammer and trowel by the ensuing January (1818).