Chapter 7
The Building Campaign of 1822

Every man's work, whether it be literature or music or pictures or architecture or anything else, is always a portrait of himself, and the more he tries to conceal himself the more clearly will his character appear in spite of him.

—Samuel Butler
The Way of All Flesh

Building Stops

The visitors' decision to continue delaying the start of the library coupled with the end of the building season all but extinguished construction at the site for the foreseeable future.⁽⁵¹⁵⁾ Jefferson realized toward the end of January 1822 that the university's undertakers might flee the site for new horizons if the remainder of the $60,000 loan was not dispersed soon by the Literary Fund.⁽⁵¹⁶⁾ (In fact brickworker Dabney Cosby of Staunton did just that, returning to the Shenandoah Valley to work.)⁽⁵¹⁷⁾ It was not till the last day of the month of January that Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., sent him word that the board of directors of the Literary Fund finally had met and approved the additional sum.⁽⁵¹⁸⁾ Jefferson's instruction to the proctor upon executing the bond was to "authorise any draught within that amount that the bursar chuses: and my opinion would be to draw for and pay every settled debt we owe in the world at once. our affairs would then stand on simpler ground." Unable to travel to the university with visiting artist William John Coffee because of the "weather & roads," Jefferson also hinted that some of the new funds could be applied to making "cornices in all the rooms of the Western hotels. if Architraves & frizes would cost more than plaister, these may be omitted." Coffee, he added, could "do the ornaments of the frizes in some of the best rooms."⁽⁵¹⁹⁾

Success and Failure

The almost complete cessation of building through the winter and the ensuing spring, punctured only by a few deliveries (mostly small) of plank and a half dozen wagon trips from the out-of-town merchants,⁽⁵²⁰⁾ did not affect the efforts of Senator Cabell and his friends in the General Assembly to set the university's precarious financial situation on a sound basis. During the first week of February both branches of the Virginia legislature overwhelmingly passed another loan bill authorizing the university to borrow another $60,000 with the understanding and expectation that an application would be made at the next legislative session for a "remission of the loans, or rather for an assumption of the debts of the University by the state."⁽⁵²¹⁾ Emboldened by that victory, Cabell (suffering again from one of his periodic bouts of illness) brought forward another bill which would grant the university a suspension of the payment of interest on its debts for five years.⁽⁵²²⁾ An amendment in the House of Delegates to restrict the Board of Visitors from "erecting the Centre Building" failed in late February, killing the whole resolution (and foreshadowing what would happen to a more ambitious plan exactly one year later). The bill's failure caused the politically asture Cabell to observe that "Every day convinces me more & more, that the buildings ought to be finished, and that the opposition is general, & not to the Rotunda, or any other particular part."⁽⁵²³⁾

The neglect by the Virginia legislature to appropriate money to complete the university's buildings drew a bitter response from Jefferson, which he confided to his old friend Thomas Cooper. He informed Cooper that even though all the buildings for accommodation would be "ready for habitation" by the ensuing summer, the building for the "Library, exhibition rooms Etc." still awaited funds for it's erection. Moreover, he continued,

the moment therefore of going into operation is as uncertain now as it ever was; we are sinking in science to the level of our Indian neighbors. in the mean time a lamp of light is kindling in the North which will draw our empire to it; for power attends knolege as the shadow does it's substance, and the ignorant will for ever be hewers of wood and drawers of water to the wise. ignorance is indeed a downy pillow of repose, and we seem disposed to slumber on it, until roused up by the whip of the driver. there is some flaw, not yet detected in our principle of representation which fails to bring forth the wisdom of our country into it's councils. it is impossible to foresee to what this will lead; but certainly to a state of degradation, which I thank heaven I am not to live to witness.⁽⁵²⁴⁾

There was little to be done for now, however, although in mid-March William J. Coffee did agree with the proctor to furnish the composition ornaments for the entablatures of the drawing rooms of all the pavilions and the lead ornaments for the fronts of the porticos of Pavilions I and II.⁽⁵²⁵⁾ When the Board of Visitors' spring meeting came around at the end of March 1822 only three members showed (Jefferson, Cabell, and Cocke), and Jefferson candidly admitted to James Madison that his and the other visitors' absence "was not material as there was not a single thing requisite to act on. we have to finish the 4. rows and appendages this summer which will be done and then to rest on our oars." Furthermore, said Jefferson, the university had become embroiled now in the question of the removal of the seat of the state government. "Staunton & Richmond are both friendly to us as an University," he judged, "but the latter fears that our Rotunda will induce the legislature to quit them, & Staunton fears it will stop them here." That in part explained fellow visitor Chapman Johnson's reluctance to build the library; in fact in the late session of the General Assembly Johnson himself brought forward "an express Proviso that no money should be applied to that building." Another of the "zealous friends to the University, in a Philijyric against the Rotunda declared he would never vote another Dollar to the University but on condition that it should not be applied to that building." Nevertheless, Jefferson suggested they stay their course with diligence. "our opinion, and a very sound one has been from the beginning never to open the institution until the buildings shall be compleat . . . our course is a plain one, to pursue what is best, and the public will come right and approve us in the end." And, he concluded, "the establishment is now at that stage at which it will force itself on. we must manage our dissenting brother softly; he is of too much weight to be given up."⁽⁵²⁶⁾

Privies

In this way matters stood uninterrupted until the summer except for some small work on the "two public Privies" destined to be used by the students which the proctor initially wanted to place in a "valley to the east of the Eastern Street, some distance to the south of the Hotels the other in a valley to the west of the Western Street a little to the North of the Hotels." Jefferson already had approved of the locations for the privies but Brockenbrough now thought that the latter one was "thrown too much in view of the public road." That objection "might be prevented in time by planting trees &c," however. Even though he intended to delay the privies' brickwork until Cocke's planned visit to the site in June, Brockenbrough wanted to contract with Lyman Peck and Malcom F. Crawford for the interior partitions, to be constructed of wooden "Plank & about 6 or 7 feet high with a small door to each apartment." As for a number of "small scale" privies planned to be located in the gardens, the proctor did not think it "worthwhile" to begin them in the present year because he considered it "highly probable" that when the pavilions became inhabited it would be necessary to make "other little conveniencies, and which may perhaps enable us to put those little articles in a more private situation."⁽⁵²⁷⁾ (Peter Maverick's 1822 engraving of the ground plan of the university shows privies on the serpentine brick walls that formed the northern and southern boundaries of each of the gardens lying between the lawn and the ranges, a total of twenty).⁽⁵²⁸⁾

Incidentals

Other incidentals began to occupy the time of the workmen remaining at the university site. Before leaving for a three-week visit to Poplar Forest on 13 May,⁽⁵²⁹⁾ Jefferson calculated the number of bricks needed for the shafts of 6 Doric columns (5,000) and a cistern (4,000) and "wrote to J. Perry to provide them." (William B. Phillips' two laborers, Jerry and Isaac, laid 3,025 bricks for the cistern on 30 and 31 August.)⁽⁵³⁰⁾ William J. Coffee, back in New York City making ornaments for the hotels' drawing rooms and the fronts of Pavilions I and II, realized in late June that he had "taken this Work Much too Low I now think by $200 for have been obliged to model Every distinct ornament for the Purpose the Last of thease models I have now in hand I then have to repeat Each of them for the Quantity . . . must Leave my under Value to your Judgment and the Honor of the Proctor."⁽⁵³¹⁾ The contract for laying the stone foundations for the "serpentine garden walls and an Area wall around one of the Hotels" was given to James Campbell in early July, who worked for "55 cents per perch which is 24½ cubic feet." (The proctor also found Campbell a "laborer to attend to take mortar &c" and placed the stone conveniently to the work.)⁽⁵³²⁾ Surviving records for the remainder of 1822 shed little light on any construction work that took place at the university for the rest of the year other than laying some flooring in Pavilions IV and V and "Hotel BB west," the "Making & puting up" of "Tin Gutters & [drain]pipes" at Pavilions VII and X, some miscellaneous terrace work, and painting.⁽⁵³³⁾

Progress Report

At its fall meeting in early October 1822 the Board of Visitors approved a progress report of the construction taking place at the university for enclosure in its annual statement to the president and board of directors of the Literary Fund. The work had been performed, the report reminded the directors, in compliance with the plan submitted to the General Assembly by the Rockfish Gap Commission in 1818, and all the proposed buildings, "except one," have been completed, it further asserted,

that is to say, ten distinct houses or Pavilions containing each a lecturing room, with generally four other apartments for the accommodation of a Professor and his family, and with a garden and the requisite family offices; Six Hotels for dieting the Students, with a single room in each for a Refectory, and two rooms a garden and offices for the tenant; and an hundred and nine dormitories, sufficient each for the accommodation of two Students, arranged in four distinct rows between the Pavilions and hotels, and united with them by covered ways, which buildings are all in readiness for occupation except there is still some plaistering to be done, now on hand, which will be finished early in the present season, the garden grounds and Garden walls to be completed, and some Columns awaiting there Capitels not yet received from Italy. . . . The remaining building necessary to complete the whole establishment . . . to contain rooms for religious worship, for public examinations, for a library, and for other associated purposes, is not yet begun for the want of funds. It was estimated heretofore by the Proctor, according to the prices which the other buildings have actually cost, at the sum of 46,847 Dollars. The Visitors, from the begining, have considered it as indispensable to complete all the buildings before opening the institution . . . that it is better to postpone, for a while the commencement of the institution, and then to open it in full and complete System, than to begin prematurely in an unfinished state, and go on perhaps forever, on the contracted Scale of local accademies, utterly inadequate to the great purposes which the Report of 1818. and the Legislature have hitherto had in contemplation.⁽⁵³⁴⁾

Although the above account accurately delineated the university's progress in the construction of its buildings when it was written, the visitors had ample reason to distrust the estimate of the cost of the Rotunda by the time the report was transmitted to the Literary Fund two days before Christmas.⁽⁵³⁵⁾ The board at its October meeting resolved to instruct the proctor to "enter into conferences with such skillful and responsible undertakers as he would approve" for the purpose of procuring "declarations of the smallest sums for which they will undertake the different portions of the work" of the Rotunda. The responses that Brockenbrough received from the workmen were not very satisfactory to him or to the committee of superintendence, and on the same day that Jefferson sent the visitors' annual report to Literary Fund President Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., Senator Cabell wrote to Jefferson from Richmond to inform him that university contractor James Dinsmore had written to William Fitzhugh Gordon, the Albemarle County representative in the House of Delegates, "stating that the undertakers had ascertained that they could not afford to build the Library for less than $70,000. At my instance, Mr. Gordon threw the letter in the fire. My object was to prevent it from being made an improper use of, in the event of its being seen by our enemies." Cabell also had spoken confidentially about the matter to "one or two friends" in the General Assembly who agreed with him that if the cost of the Rotunda should rise above $50,000, "& more especially if it should reach $70,000," that it "would probably blow up all our plans. Perhaps a conditional contract for $60,000, might not do harm, as it would bar the door to all doubt about the price of the House. But if $70,000, should be asked for, I fear we shall be totally overthrown."⁽⁵³⁶⁾ In the long run the cost of building the Rotunda exceeded Jefferson's optimistic estimate and the middle figure came closest to the actual expenditures; the latter figure proved to be less inflated than the board must have wished.

Maria Cosway

During the remainder of the year Jefferson and others wrote a series of descriptions of the present state of the university and its buildings. On 19 October Jefferson told William Short that "our University still wants the key-stone of it's arch the Rotunda; but even in it's present state it is worth a visit, as a specimen of classical architecture which would be remarked in Europe."⁽⁵³⁷⁾ (He also informed Short of the General Assembly's belligerent refusal to fund the building of the library.) A few days later Jefferson wrote to his old "dear friend" whom he met in 1786 during his stay in Paris, Maria Cosway, now widowed and retired from her great house on Stratford Place in London to her convent in Lodi, Italy.⁽⁵³⁸⁾ Jefferson approved of his old intimate's decision to change her place of abode from "the eternal clouds and rains of England, to the genial sun & bright skies of Lodi," and noted the irony of their mutual pursuits in old age.

The sympathies of our earlier days harmonise, it seems in age also. you retire to your College of Lodi, and nourish the natural benevolence of your excellent heart by communicating your own virtues to the young of your sex who may hereafter load with blessings the memory of her to whom they will owe so much. I am laying the foundation of an University in my native state, which I hope will repay the liberalities of it's legislature by improving the virtue and science of their country, already blest with a soil and climate emulating those of your favorite Lodi. I have been myself the Architect of the plan of it's buildings, and of it's system of instruction. four years have been employed in the former, and I assure you it would be thought a handsome & Classical thing in Italy. I have preferred the plan of an Academical village rather than that of a single, massive structure. the diversified forms which this admitted in the different Pavilions, and varieties of the finest samples of architecture, has made of it a model of beauty original and unique. it is within view too of Monticello, So it's most splendid object, and a constant gratification to my sight. we have still one building to erect, which will be on the principle of your Pantheon a Rotunda like that, but of half it's diameter and height only. I wish indeed you could recall some of your by-past years, and seal it with your approbation.⁽⁵³⁹⁾

Although she outlived Jefferson by nearly 12 years, Cosway preferred the confines of her own community for the rest of her life and thus never visited Jefferson's university (see appendix I).

Jefferson wrote to Albert Gallatin in Paris on 29 October with a request for him to judge whether his letter to Cosway could be conveyed "more safely thro' the public mail, or by any of the diplomatic couriers, liable to the curiosity & carelessness of public offices." He also informed Gallatin of the status of the university, writing that "Our University of Virginia my present hobby, has been at a stand for a twelve month past, for want of funds. our last legislature refused every thing. the late elections give better hopes of the next. the institution is so far advanced that it will force itself through. so little is now wanting that the first liberal legislature will give it it's last lift. the buildings are in a style of purely classical architecture, and, altho' not yet finished, are become an object of visit to all strangers."⁽⁵⁴⁰⁾ Jefferson wrote similarly to Henry A. S. Dearborne on the last day of October, saying that "Our Virginia University is now my sole occupation. it is within sight of Monticello, and the buildings nearly finished; and we shall endeavor, by the best Professors either side of the Atlantic can furnish to make it worthy of the public notice."⁽⁵⁴¹⁾

Opening Postponed

Representative William Cabell Rives, formerly of Nelson County and now of Albemarle County, wrote to Jefferson on 19 December to voice his support for postponing the institution's opening until the library was constructed and to update the rector on the university's standing in the House of Delegates. "I enter myself entirely into your views," wrote Rives, ". . . & have endeavoured to impress on all of my acquaintances here the exceeding impolicy of putting an institution, from which so much has been expected at home & abroad, into operation, in a half-formed & unfinished state. . . . If the objections which are now felt to the additional building should not yield to the influence of more liberal sentiments, we may find ourselves under the necessity of temporising a little, in order to acquire, at once, the means of erecting it."⁽⁵⁴²⁾

The "means" had grown another $10,000 by now, as Jefferson told Robert Walsh, Jr., two days later. "Our univty. in which I know you are so good as to take an interest, is under check at present. all the buildings for the accomdn of the Professors & students are compleat. one only for a Library & other general purposes remains to be erected. it is expected to cost about 60. M D. which sum our last legislature refused us. we have better hopes of the undstdg & liberality of that now sitting. the buildings are in a classical and chaste style of architecture, and the system altho' novel will when compleated I think meet approbn."⁽⁵⁴³⁾ Also before Christmas, Jefferson told his son-in-law that the initial $46,847 estimate to build the library "did not include two considerable appendages necessary to connect it with the other buildings. An estimate including these, now recently made by the principal undertakers and executors of the other buildings raises its amount to about one third more. . . . Some finishings of small amount, to the garden walls and pavements also are still wanting." The collection of the arrearages of private subscriptions to the Central College would help alleviate the deficit somewhat, Jefferson was quick to add.⁽⁵⁴⁴⁾

After Christmas Jefferson informed Senator Cabell that at the present time securing money to build the library was more desirable than having the debts of the university forgiven.

of all things the most important is the completion of the buildings. the remission of the debt will come of itself. it is already remitted in the mind of every man, even of the enemies of the institution. and there is nothing pressing very immediately for it's expression. the great object of our aim from the beginning has been to make this establishment the most eminent in the United States, in order to draw to it the youth of every state, but especially of the South and West. we have proposed therefore to call to it characters of the first order of science from Europe as well as our own country; and, not only by their salaries, and the comforts of their situation, but by the distinguished scale of it's structure and preparation, and the promise of future eminence which these would hold up, to induce them to commit their reputations to it's future fortunes. had we built a barn for a College, and log-huts for accomodations, should we ever have had the assurance to propose to an European Professor of that character to come to it? why give up this important idea, when so near it's accomplishment that a single lift more effects it? it is not a half-project which is to fill up the enticement of character from abroad. to stop where we are is to abandon our high hopes, and become suitors to Yale and Harvard for their secondary characters, to become our first. have we been laboring then merely to get up another Hampden Sidney, or Lexington? yet to this it sinks if we abandon foreign aid. the Report of Rockfish gap, sanctioned by the legislature, authorised us to aim at much higher things; and the abandonment of the enterprise where we are would be a relinquishment of the great idea of the legislature of 1818, and shrinking it into a country academy. the opening of the institution in a half-state of readiness would be the most fatal step which could be adopted. it would be an impatience defeating it's own object, by putting on a subordinate character in the outset, which never would be shaken off, instead of opening largely and in full system. taking our stand on commanding ground at once, will beckon every thing to it, and a reputation once established will maintain itself for ages. to secure this a single sum of 50. or 60. M Dollars is wanting. if we cannot get it now, we will at another or another trial. courage and patience is the watchword. delay is an evil which will pass; despair loses all. let us never give back. the thing will carry itself, and with firmness and perseverance we shall place our country on it's high station, and we shall recieve for it the blessings of posterity. I think your idea of a loan and placing it on the sinking fund an excellent one.⁽⁵⁴⁵⁾

Before he read the above letter, however, Cabell wrote Jefferson a letter indicating that he already had arrived at the same conclusion after conferring with the university's most ardent supporters in the General Assembly. "The almost unanimous opinion of us all," he wrote, "is, that we should ask for another loan to finish the buildings, and to leave the debt untouched for the present. We propose to move for one object at a time, in order not to unite the enemies of both measures against one bill. Should we succeed in getting the loan, we may afterwards try to get rid of the debt. . . . I am now in more dread of Mr. Johnson's coming to town & advocating the doctrine of curtailing the buildings, than I am of any other danger. But as the popular prejudice on that subject has abated, I hope he would go with us."⁽⁵⁴⁶⁾ After the first of the year Chapman Johnson in fact did vote with the university faction in the senate to authorize the university to borrow more money.

By the end of 1822 the focus of building at the Academical Village had shifted completely away from finishing the four rows of buildings on the lawn and ranges to financing and constructing the grand central building that would seal off the north end of the square. The progress of the work since the laying of the cornerstone of the first pavilion five years before in October 1817 was a remarkable achievement considering the myriad obstacles faced by the Board of Visitors and the workmen; its semi-completion was anticlimactic considering the length of time it took to wind up the trivial matters, and since attention now was directed to the library yet to be begun. Even without the Rotunda the scenes at the university grounds were enough to fill Philip St. George Cocke with awe. Writing from Thornton Rodgers' grammar school in Albemarle County to inform his father of his recent visit to the site and to Charlottesville, he said, "I have not recieved a letter from you since I wrote to you abot a faughtnight ago. I have been to Charlottsvile[.] I went there last monday, with Mr Rodgers and I went to see the universaty also, It is the greates building that I ever saw. Charlottsvill two is very mutch improved since I was there with you about two years ago."⁽⁵⁴⁷⁾