Chapter 9
The Building Campaign of 1824

We came at length to an elevated table-land of wonderful fertility and beauty, affording a panoramic prospect very little less in extent than that of Aetna, and in Ellison's opinion as well as my own, surpassing the far-famed view from that mountain in all the true elements of the picturesque.

—Edgar Allan Poe
"The Domain of Arnheim"

Report to the Literary Fund

The 1823 report to the Literary Fund approved by the Board of Visitors stated that the final "finishings" for the buildings of accommodation had been completed in the year since its last report, making the "whole of these buildings now in perfect readiness for putting the institution into opperation." More importantly, perhaps, the visitors could also report that the "larger building, for a Library and other purposes was commenced and has been carried on with activity, insomuch that its Walls are now ready to receive there roof; but that being of hemispherical form, & pressing outwardly in every direction, it has been thought not advisable to place it on the walls, in there present green State; but rather to give them time to settle and dry until the ensuing season . . . whether the interior work of the building will be finished within the ensuing year is doubtful."⁽⁶⁰¹⁾ A year-end calculation by old sachem estimated that $17,642.13 had been spent building the hull of the Rotunda, not counting an additional $3,671.11½ in unpaid debts.⁽⁶⁰²⁾ With another winter in sight and the brickwork still green, however, little else could be expected to be accomplished in building the Rotunda before the spring of 1824.⁽⁶⁰³⁾ The proctor, in fact, wanted to cut back on the 15-member slave labor force hired by the university because it had already made 8 to 900,000 bricks for the building in addition to performing other rough labor.⁽⁶⁰⁴⁾ (Brockenbrough previously had estimated that 1 molder with the help of 2 men and 2 boys could make 60,000 bricks per month, and hence the 15 hands could make 180,000 per month.)⁽⁶⁰⁵⁾ Jefferson thought that the "great deal of work to be done yet on the grounds" would require just as many hands for the next as the current year, however, and the force remained the same size.⁽⁶⁰⁶⁾

Actually, the claim by the visitors in the report to the Literary Fund that the buildings of accommodation were finished was overstated somewhat. As the site geared up for the spring resumption of construction work, the proctor indicated that gutters and drainpipes as well as "some little painting" and "some paving & stone walls to back yards" still remained to be completed. Work on the smokehouses planned for each of the pavilions and hotels, as well as the Venetian shutters for all the buildings and the "wire lattice work" for the cellar windows, had not started yet. The benches and desks for the lecture rooms also had to be made, and Brockenbrough estimated the cost for work remaining to be done on the buildings, not counting the Venetian blinds and lattice work, to be at least $3,000.⁽⁶⁰⁷⁾ In the spring of 1824, wagons from Augusta County began to find their way across the Blue Ridge Mountains, bringing loads of lime for the brickmakers, and boats and wagons containing nails, screws, glass, lead, sandpaper, rope, copper, tin, and iron traveled westward from Richmond so that the contractors could complete the unfinished work on the four rows of buildings and their dependencies as well as continue their work on the Rotunda.⁽⁶⁰⁸⁾

Rotunda Gallery

In late March Brockenbrough informed Jefferson that Dinsmore & Neilson, without consulting himself or even bothering with a contract for the job, had purchased scantling and framed the "upper gallery floor" of the library and were set to raise it the next day. Before the work proceeded any further the proctor wanted Jefferson to consider some alterations of the interior design of the Rotunda that had struck his mind on "seeing the hight of the gallery" and which he thought would be an improvement.

The Circumference of the Library room is about 229 feet the hight of the wall to the spring of the arch about 18 ft which gives us more than 4,000 superficial feet (including the openings) for book cases without going to the upper Gallery which comes immediately under the roof for another set of cases—and in which case you would conceal a part of the cieling very much to the injury of the looks of the room particularly if the cieling should be enritched with sunken pannel work &c—In the place of the two Galleries I should prefer one on Columns about ten feet high the entablature to be above the floor in that case your lower cases would be about ten feet high which could be easily come at the upper cases about seven feet—the Columns will be smaller and consequently less expencive & one entire Gallery will be saved there by—if the weather should be fit they (D & N) will be raising the floor tomorrow, if you wish time to consider on it, you can direct that part of the business to be delayed awhile."⁽⁶⁰⁹⁾

Jefferson "maturely" considered the change before rejecting it a day later as offering "no advantage" over the original plan. Besides the 4,000 square feet area intended for "presses below the entablature of the columns," Jefferson explained to the proctor, "we can have another tier of presses above the entablature, of one half more of the space. again instead of the noble perystyle of the original bearing a proper proportion to the height of vault above, it proposes a diminutive one of 10. f. height with a vault of 40. f. above. the original peristyle by it's height & projection from the wall has the advantage of hiding a portion of the vault of which too much would otherwise be seen. the panneled plaistering makes no difficultie because it will be divided by cross styles into compartments, and thus adapted to the view." "Messrs. Nelson & Dinsmore," Jefferson added, "should be warned that if they do any thing more than what was proposed to be first done, there will be no funds to pay for it."⁽⁶¹⁰⁾

Gymnasium

One alteration, or evolution, of the original design did take place, however, apparently back in the second half of 1823 when Jefferson experienced his severe illness. As Martha Jefferson Randolph described it to her daughter Virginia's husband Nicholas P. W. Trist in an early April letter, the plan for the Rotunda now included a "Gymnasium under cover, under which the young men may exercise in bad weather protected equally from the sun & the rain and the manual exercise will be a regular branch of their education. this last improvement, the Gymnasium, occurred to my Father during a fever that confined him upon the sopha. he immediately sent for Mr Brockenbrough and gave him every direction onto the plan when he was actually so weak that he could not sit up to draw it him self. if you recollect the place you may remember that the North end of the lawn is closed by a large rotunda with 2 wide terrace, extending on each side to the ranges of buildings, the Pavillions & dormitories. under these terrace, arched on both sides and containing a space of 80 feet in length & 30 wide is the gymnasium." Housejoiner and architect John Neilson actually drew the north elevation for the structure, which was incorporated in the construction during the spring.⁽⁶¹¹⁾

A Quorum Meets

When the 1824 spring meeting of the Board of Visitors began on Monday 5 April there was nothing for the quorum of Jefferson, Madison, Cocke, and Johnson to act upon in regard to the buildings so the board proceeded to take "such preparatory measures" as could be taken in regard to bringing the university into "opperation with as little delay as practicable," by discussing the "accounts and estimates now rendered by the Bursar and the Proctor," and by appointing Virginia attorney Francis Walker Gilmer agent for a mission to procure professors from Europe.⁽⁶¹²⁾ Those accounts might have included Brockenbrough's estimate of the cost of the Rotunda derived from the contracts already entered into towards its completion. Those figures included $10,761.72 for brickwork materials and labor, $10,165 for the Carrara marble bases and capitals and their transportation from Leghorn to America, $1,455 for stone window and door sills, back steps, and terraces, $6,165 for "Materials principally Lumber & iron," $2,000 for "Tin & Copper for the roof of Dome & Portico," and $500 for "Glass & Glazing including the sky light." The total came to $31,046.72, and Brockenbrough estimated that another $10,000 could cover the "Nails, hard ware, painting & Workmans bills."⁽⁶¹³⁾ Considering the cost incurred so far in erecting the hull of the Rotunda and the proctor's vague projections for additional costs, it is hard to conceive that anyone on the board still believed that the interior of the building could be finished without exceeding Jefferson's original 1822 estimate for the building of less than $50,000. If any of the visitors complained it failed to get lodged into the record, however. On 6 April the board was prevented from regathering by a "constant and heavy rain" but on the 7th the visitors, now joined by Cabell, reconvened to discuss the curricula for the various schools and the purchasing of "Such Books and Apparatus as may be deemed most useful for the commencement of the Several Schools in the University."⁽⁶¹⁴⁾

The board planned to open the university to students on 1 February 1825, "taking the intermediate time to procure professors" from Europe, Jefferson informed Nicholas P. W. Trist shortly after the visitors' meeting, and to put the Rotunda, "the only unfinished building," into a state for use. (Jefferson also told Trist that "Charlottesville is building fast.")⁽⁶¹⁵⁾ This long-awaited decision was made possible by another long-anticipated piece of good luck that finally had fallen the university's way during the preceding winter. Senator Cabell reluctantly turned over his guardianship of the university's political affairs in the General Assembly to General Breckinridge in late November, expecting to remain away from Richmond until near the end of the legislative session,⁽⁶¹⁶⁾ but unexpectedly (and fortunately) he was able to return "hastily over stormy rivers, and frozen roads, to re-join the band of steadfast patriots engaged in the holy cause of the University" at his old apartment in Richmond's Eagle Hotel less than two weeks later. When he took his seat in the Virginia senate on 3 December Cabell was made aware immediately that Governor James Pleasants, Jr., "a man of great prudence and discretion," was promoting the claims of the university in the legislature in "his happiest manner," and that the popular sentiment was "decidedly" in favor of removing the university's entire debt.⁽⁶¹⁷⁾ Cabell worked tirelessly during the session to get bills passed in the General Assembly remitting the $180,000 debts incurred in the construction of the buildings of the university and granting a gift of $50,000 for the purchase of books and other "apparatus." By late January 1824 he had been confined to his room for two weeks, and his bed for a week, by an "excruciating rheumatic affection of my head, contracted by sleeping near a damp wall."⁽⁶¹⁸⁾ The first victory came through before the month ended, however, when the senate unanimously passed a bill sent up by the House of Delegates for the remission of the university's debts,⁽⁶¹⁹⁾ and the bonus came on the last day of the legislative session in March.⁽⁶²⁰⁾ In fact, Cabell's absence from the Board of Visitors' meeting until the third day was because of his attendance in Washington to lobby President Monroe and the "general government" of the United States to settle the interest on the debt it had previously discharged to the state of Virginia for the latter's "liberal spirit towards the government of the Union" during the War of 1812, and from which the money to pay for the remission of the university's debts must come.⁽⁶²¹⁾

Covering the Rotunda

If the weather permitted the members of the Board of Visitors to inspect the Rotunda at their April meeting they probably were quite astonished to see that Dinsmore & Neilson had framed the building's upper gallery floor and was preparing to raise its roof so early in the season.⁽⁶²²⁾ Brockenbrough had written to D. W. & C. Warwick on 19 March trying to find out how cheaply the firm could provide copper or zinc plate for covering the dome and portico but before he could receive a reply he presented the board with the heretofore mentioned estimate of $2,000.⁽⁶²³⁾ The proctor also solicited his brother Dr. John Brockenbrough, Jr., to make inquiries about the price of the metals and to recruit someone in Richmond to lay the sheeting. John Brockenbrough induced Warwick to sell copper to the university for 26 cents per pound instead of the going rate of 35 cents, "provided the quantity be considerable," and arranged for Frenchman Anthony Bargamin, who asked 10 cents the pound to put it on, to travel to the site to negotiate a contract with the proctor. "You cannot have a better covering than he will make you in this way," Brockenbrough told his brother. And instead of gutters, he added, "it will be better, I think, to extend the copper over the parapet walls. Zinc might be somewhat cheaper, provided it could be procured sufficiently thin, but we Know nothing of it's durability."⁽⁶²⁴⁾

Bargamin, who with his brother George was prominent in the capitol's business life, had covered the dome of Richmond's city hall.⁽⁶²⁵⁾ He "does not converse very intelligibly in english," the proctor informed Jefferson when writing to notify him of Bargamin's impending arrival by stage at Charlottesville, "if convenient I Should be glad if you will come up on Thursday morning to see him on the subject. the job requires a man well skilled in the working of metal."⁽⁶²⁶⁾ Jefferson, it turned out, was once again too ill to travel to the university. He replied to Brockenbrough that "My last ride to the University and return without getting off of my horse, with the heat of the day so overcome me with fatigue that I could scarcely reach home, and still leaves me so sore and languid that I have not been on my horse since, nor shall I be able yet for some days. if therefore any consultation is necessary with me I must ask the favor of yourself and mr Berjamin to take a ride here at your convenience."⁽⁶²⁷⁾ The Frenchman briefly visited the site a couple of weeks before the actual construction began on the vault's large wooden ribbed frame, the plan of which was taken, as Monticello's dome had been, from Philibert Delorme's Nouvelles Inventions pour bien bastir et a petits Fraiz (1576). "I once owned the book," Jefferson recalled in the third week of May when writing to General Joseph G. Swift to borrow a copy of the volume, "and understood the principles of his invention, but my recollection is not particular enough in every thing, our workmen are strangers to it, and I fear we may go wrong. if we could be accommodated with this single volume it would be of singular service to us."⁽⁶²⁸⁾ Over the next few weeks, while the carpenters set up the wooden frame, the tin plate and copper sheathing necessary to cover the arch began to come to Bargamin's hand at Richmond from New York City, and then was forwarded on to the university.⁽⁶²⁹⁾ Bargamin tried to leave the Virginia capitol in mid-June but was delayed, so on 21 June he sent a workman to the university to "proceed to the preparative Untile my Arival."⁽⁶³⁰⁾ Bargamin reached the site before the beginning of July, however, and no doubt the changes in the Rotunda's appearance that had taken place by capping the structure during the six-weeks interval greatly stirred his excitement for the task that lay before him, for by the end of the summer he had completely finished covering the dome. The roof proved "perfectly tight" when tested by the September rains but began leaking after workmen perforated the tin with screws when fastening the supports to the steps that were raised around the dome's base.⁽⁶³¹⁾

Brickwork at the Rotunda

Meanwhile, other building projects besides roof construction were carried into effect at the Rotunda. In early May Brockenbrough informed Jefferson that the "Portico of the Rotunda & Platform of the back Steps" would take at least 1,350 square feet of marble flagging, 1,150 for the portico, 160 for the platform, and 40 for breakage,⁽⁶³²⁾ and Jefferson placed an order for 1,400 marble squares two weeks later from Thomas Appleton in Leghorn. Jefferson informed Appleton that he was anxious to receive the marble bases and capitals that he had ordered the previous fall so that the workmen could "get up our columns this season . . . that the columns may have time to settle before their Capitels are put on them."⁽⁶³³⁾ Brockenbrough then sought from Dinsmore & Neilson an estimate of the amount of lead needed for (in Dinsmore's words) the "leaves of the Modellions &c 300 ft superficial @ 5 lbs to the foot," which the proctor then ordered, along with two casks of nails and two coils of rope, from Brockenbrough & Harvie in Richmond.⁽⁶³⁴⁾ In May the proctor also tried to arrange the brickmaking for the upcoming two building seasons. He requested John Hartwell Cocke to lend his slave brickmaker, Charles, to the university for three months in order to make 2 or 300,000 bricks for the "next year [1825] if they should be wanting for any buildings about the University."⁽⁶³⁵⁾ A few days later, however, Cocke sent the proctor word that "my engagements with Charles will not admit of my sparing him this Season."⁽⁶³⁶⁾ Brockenbrough then contracted with John M. Perry to make about 300,000 "hard well shaped bricks such a portion of which shall be Column bricks as many as may be required for the Rotunda shaped agreeable to a mould to be furnished and such a portion of paving bricks as may be wanting for the Rotunda & Gymnasia, and which shall be smoth well shaped bricks." Perry also agreed to "take the wood purchased of Jesse Lewis & what ever other wood the proctor may have on hand for the burning of Bricks at One Dollar per cord on the ground where cut or two Dollars delivered at the kiln near the University; the said Perry is to pay at the rate of [blank] cents per thousand for the clay that was dug by the labourers of the University." Brockenbrough, acting for the University, promised to pay Perry $4.50 per thousand bricks and to let Perry have "the use of the yard, shelters, clamps &c attached to the Brick yard for the making of the Said bricks but no other bricks are to be made or carried from said yard or grounds for any other purposed. the Said Shelters, yards, clamps &c to be returned in good order."⁽⁶³⁷⁾

Attic Cisterns

The bricklayers' work on the Rotunda progressed so rapidly during the spring of 1824 that by early June the proctor could inform Jefferson that the firm of Thorn & Chamberlain was about to begin laying the bricks of the building's "attic." Brockenbrough suggested that reservoirs "nearly the depth of the Attic and as large in diameter as the space will admit of" be placed in the two north corners of the attic so that in case of fire water could be thrown by "pipes or hose" to any part of the building beneath the dome. Water for those reservoirs could be collected at a reservoir on the university-owned mountain where Jefferson hoped to build an observatory and piped from there to the Rotunda and other principle buildings. The mountain reservoir, Brockenbrough contemplated, should be built of brick or rock and plastered with Roman cement, in size about 16 feet in diameter and perhaps the same depth, and situated about 50 or 60 feet above the level of the ground at the buildings so that the weight of the water could "propell itself with as much power as an engine would supply it." The proctor, well aware that all buildings of his era were particularly vulnerable to fire, asserted that a gravity-fed water supply system was both cheaper and more efficient than buying a fire engine.⁽⁶³⁸⁾ The system he proposed to replace "the present defective arrangement for the supply of that article [water]" to the university offered other benefits as well: the university's existing cisterns could be filled occasionally from the pipes and water might be taken from some stop cocks for "culinary purposes."

The proctor's suggestion to build reservoirs in the attic of the Rotunda was not adopted but Brockenbrough rightly judged that the mountain to the west could help to solve the problem of the university's inadequate water supply. Previous efforts to provide water had been confined to the local area of the university and seemed meager in comparison to the more ambitious plan which Brockenbrough now proposed. "at present besides the two cisterns we have one pump in operation, two wells walled up ready for pump, one other well not entirely finished on west street, I propose puting another between Pavilions 4 & 6—to the south we have a fine Spring about two hundred yards from the buildings." Before going to any "great expence" in pursuing his scheme, however, Brockenbrough recommended that the university should purchase "the right of using the water from the Mountain of Capt [John] Perry or a Slipe of land including the spring the latter would be preferable as thereby we should connect the two tracts of Land and give us a road to the Mountain." The proctor concluded by giving Jefferson his opinion that the university should execute his plan before the coming winter, as the "ensurance on the buildings would amount to a much greater sum and one or the other would be prudent."⁽⁶³⁹⁾ Jefferson agreed that consolidating the university's two separate tracts of land by gaining the 132-acre interjacent tract with the "very bold spring" would be in the university's long-term interest but withheld pressing Perry about the matter lest the carpenter ask an unreasonable price. Perry felt obliged to sell the land in the spring of 1825 and the university purchased it for $50 an acre.⁽⁶⁴⁰⁾

Piper Tract

During the summer and fall of 1824 Perry also was involved in the university's negotiation and purchase (for about $450) of a four-acre tract of land lying immediately to the north of the Rotunda on the Three Notch'd Road. The tiny tract was clipped off a larger tract owned by Daniel A. Piper, who had installed the gutters and drain pipes at Pavilions I, IV, VI, VII, and repaired the pipes at Pavilion III, and his wife Mary A. Frances, who had sold an adjacent tract to the university the preceding April.⁽⁶⁴¹⁾ The Three Notch'd Road, which ran from Charlottesville to Rockfish Gap and which served as the outer boundary for the April purchase, passed by the university in a more or less northwest to southeast direction. The new agreement with the Pipers permitted Jefferson to re-establish the bed of the public road along the new outlying boundary line, causing it to pass parallel to the northern side of the university (see appendix G).⁽⁶⁴²⁾

The Proctor is Busy

While the executive committee contemplated land deals and waterworks and the contractors vaulted the main building and made bricks for columns, the proctor supervised the final thrusts (as lay within his power) aimed at bringing to completion the initial phases of construction at the university. In mid-July 1824 stonemason John Gorman began laying the foundation stones for the "back steps" (and their retaining walls) on the north front of the Rotunda after Brockenbrough's laborers excavated and otherwise prepared the earth on that steep slope. Brockenbrough sent Jefferson alternate plans for either concealing the "ruff work" on the sides of the steps or "facing and coping" them with stone but the plans apparently have not survived.⁽⁶⁴³⁾ Before the summer was over James and Samuel Campbell, stonemasons employed by Gorman at the university, finished the stonework on the "walls" of the eastern range hotels.⁽⁶⁴⁴⁾ Little stonework was left at the university after the completion of those jobs except setting the marble bases and capitals when they arrived from Italy in 1825 and 1826.

In early August Brockenbrough ordered sash pulleys and keys for iron rim locks from Robert Johnston & Son in Richmond.⁽⁶⁴⁵⁾ The firm could not locate the keys but Peter Johnston found the pulleys when visiting New York on business in September, and wagoner Thomas Draffin delivered them (127 pounds in a barrel) to the university on 10 November.⁽⁶⁴⁶⁾ Also in August, Brockenbrough sent word to Andrew Smith, the Boston Glass Manufactory's agent in Richmond, that the university was prepared to purchase a large quantity of its best Boston crown glass for the window lights of the Rotunda.⁽⁶⁴⁷⁾ Wagoner Jacob Mohler delivered the first shipment to the university in early December, along with six kegs of paint and "one half barrel whiting weighing 975 lbs. total."⁽⁶⁴⁸⁾ The amount of glass shipped to the university for the Rotunda eventually exceeded 1,000 sheets (packed in more than 40 cases), and it was late fall 1825 before the New England firm placed its final shipment on board a vessel to embark for the southward.⁽⁶⁴⁹⁾

With the end of the 1824 building season rapidly approaching, and the construction work advancing steadily, the proctor busied himself with preparations for the Board of Visitors' 1824 fall meeting. A statement of the university's finances that he made for the visitors on the eve of their meeting shows that Brockenbrough contemplated the execution of a handful of minor tasks while the work on the Rotunda was proceeding. He wanted to finish painting Pavilion X and the hotels on the western range and estimated the cost of that work at $300. The small "Slipe of Land opposite the Rotunda" that the university was negotiating for with Daniel and Mary Piper could be enclosed with a brick wall, he thought, for about $450. He considered $300 sufficient "to set up 8 lecture rooms with benches desk &c," and he calculated that $250 could take care of the "Stone walls on east Street & other jobs fixing pumps &c."⁽⁶⁵⁰⁾ Brockenbrough also prepared a balance sheet of the university's expenditures to show the visitors what the cost of building the university had mounted to so far. The grand total of $305,664.83 can be broken down generally as follows: $109,637.33 for pavilions, $77,430.56 for dormitories, $32,006.85 for hotels, $25,224.90 for the Rotunda—altogether $244,299.64—plus $61,365.19 for an assortment of other expenses, including real estate ($8,991.55), salaries for the proctor, bursar, clerks, and professors ($3,497.23), labor ($2,936.63), privies ($2,818.63), water works ($1,180.49), and smokehouses ($499.05).⁽⁶⁵¹⁾

Visitors Draft Regulations

The Board of Visitors' meeting on 4 October was attended by six of its seven members—Jefferson, Madison, Cabell, Cocke, Breckenridge, and Loyal—Johnson excusing himself on the grounds that he was "quite unable to make the ride" on such an "inconvenient journey."⁽⁶⁵²⁾ The board's first order of business that Monday was to ratify the university's agreements to purchase from the Pipers the two small tracts of land to the Rotunda's north.⁽⁶⁵³⁾ After passing other resolutions relative to the institution's finances, the visitors set to work formulating the "regulations necessary to constituting governing and conducting the institution," a process the board began at its previous spring meeting. The regulations drafted by the board included decrees for managing the usage of the finished buildings at the university. "The room provided for a School room in every Pavilion shall be used for the School of its occupant professor," the board resolved, "and shall be furnished by the University with necessary benches & tables." And furthermore:

The upper Circular room of the Rotunda shall be reserved for a Library. One of its larger eliptical rooms on its middle floor shall be used for annual examinations, for lectures to such Schools as are too numerous for their ordinary schoolrooms, and for religious worship under the regulations allowed to be prescribed by law. the other rooms on the same floor may be used by schools of instruction in drawing, music, or any other of the innocent and ornamental accomplishments of life, but under such instructors as shall be approved and licenced by the Faculty.

The rooms in the basement story of the Rotunda shall be, one for a Chemical Laboratory: and the others for any necessary purpose to which they may be adapted.

The two open apartments adjacent to the same story of the Rotunda, shall be appropriated to the Gymnastic exercise and games of the Students, among which shall be reckoned military exercises. . . .

Work shops shall be provided, whenever convenient, at the expense of the University wherein the students, who chuse, may exercise themselves in the use of tools, and such mechanical practices as it is convenient and useful for every person to understand, and occasionally to practice. These shops may be let rent free to such skillful and orderly mechanics as shall be approved by the Faculty, on the condition that they will permit the use of there tools, instruments, and implements within the shop, to such students as shall desire and use the permission discreetly, and under a liability for any injury they may do them.⁽⁶⁵⁴⁾

Even the last of these regulations carries Jefferson's strong imprint. Isaac Jefferson, a Monticello slave who traveled to Philadelphia with his master in 1790 when Jefferson became George Washington's secretary of state, said of Jefferson: "My Old Master was neat a hand as ever you see to make keys and locks and small chains, iron and brass. He kept all kind of blacksmith and carpenter tools in a great case with shelves to it in his library, an upstairs room."⁽⁶⁵⁵⁾ Isaac's observation concerning Jefferson's tools is confirmed in part by James Dinsmore's "Memdm of Carpenters tools belonging to Mr. Jefferson" that the housejoiner made when leaving Jefferson's employment at Monticello in 1809 (see appendix C).⁽⁶⁵⁶⁾

Lafayette Entertained

The board's work required the visitors to reconvene for another session on the following day. After resolving to authorize the proctor to lease the hotels after mid-November, the board began drafting its annual report to the Literary Fund.⁽⁶⁵⁷⁾ The report, which mostly centered around finances, curricula, and professors, stated that in the course of the present season the Rotunda "has received its roof, and will be put into a condition for preservation and use, altho its interior cannot be compleated."⁽⁶⁵⁸⁾ The incomplete state of the Rotunda's interior did not prohibit Jefferson and other area residents from planning to entertain the Marquis de Lafayette at a public dinner later that month, however,⁽⁶⁵⁹⁾ and Jefferson later claimed that upon reflection the building, "in the unfinished state in which it then was, was as open and uninclosed, and as insusceptible of injury, as the field in which it stood."⁽⁶⁶⁰⁾ One visitor to the university at this time, however, nineteen-year-old Henry Marshall, who was walking from Philadelphia to his home in South Carolina and who later served in the first Confederate Congress, apparently thought otherwise. Marshall was so taken with what he saw that he described the Rotunda as "decidedly the most elegantly proportioned building I ever saw. It is the only public building I have seen in this country that is high enough. the professors houses are elegant specimens of architecture. On the whole I think they are the most tastiful & elegant buildings in the U.S. I had no idea of their extend & splendor."⁽⁶⁶¹⁾

Construction at the university clearly was nearing completion even as workers continued painting and installing window panes throughout the month of November.⁽⁶⁶²⁾ True, on the first day of winter the "whole scaffolding" surrounding the Rotunda still could be seen left standing by the workmen as they awaited William J. Coffee's shipment of small frieze ornaments.⁽⁶⁶³⁾ (Coffee shipped the ornaments to the university in late December.)⁽⁶⁶⁴⁾ The agreeably mild fall weather allowed workers "to accomplish the repairs and improvements on, and about the Buildings; such as plastering leveling the yards and Gardens conducting or draining of the water &c; which labour cannot be done so well after winter."⁽⁶⁶⁵⁾ Chiles Brand's labor account with the university shows that during December 1824 he earned $4.50 for "White washing 9 rooms at night @ 50¢" in addition to the $21.25 he was paid for 17 days of labor work that month.⁽⁶⁶⁶⁾ Wagoner William Crenshaw in mid-January 1825 delivered to the university 19 boxes of window glass costing $338.56 for the Rotunda that was sent from the Boston Glass Manufactory's new Richmond agent, Thomas May.⁽⁶⁶⁷⁾ The winter set in, however, before A. Zigler "the pump man" could finish installing the water pipes, delaying the completion of his work until the following March.⁽⁶⁶⁸⁾