Chapter 1
Genesis of the Academical Village, 1814–1817

His role as an architect was rather that of a gifted amateur.

Jefferson designed each of the professors' pavilions to be a replica, as far as possible, of some noble classic temple.

—Lewis Mumford ⁽¹⁹⁾

Initial Conception

Thomas Jefferson's conception of a university for the state of Virginia evolved over a period of decades. The genesis is found in his bill for the general diffusion of knowledge in 1778, and his mature thinking can be found in the establishment of the University of Virginia in the nineteenth century. Not content to make the Virginia university just "another" school or college, Jefferson conceived the idea of designing and building his school unlike others of his day. The idea is apparent as early as 1805, when he wrote Littleton Waller Tazewell that the "Large houses are always ugly, inconvenient, exposed to the accident of fire, and bad in case of infection. A plain small house for the school & lodging of each professor is best. These connected by covered ways out of which the rooms of the students should open. These may be built only as they shall be wanting. In fact a university should not be a house but a village." ⁽²⁰⁾ Jefferson gave this concept greater expression five years later when writing to Judge Hugh White of Kentucky:

I consider the common plan followed in this country, but not in others, of making one large and expensive building, as unfortunately erroneous. It is infinitely better to erect a small and separate lodge for each separate professorship with only a hall below for his class, and two chambers above for himself; joining these lodges by barracks for a certain portion of the students, opening into a covered way to give a dry communication between all the schools. The whole of these arranged around an open square of grass and trees, would make it, what it should be in fact, an academical village, instead of a large and common den of noise, of filth and of fetid air. It would afford that quiet retirement so friendly to study, and lessen the dangers of fire, infection and tumult. Every professor would be the police officer of the students adjacent to his own lodge, which should include those of his own class of preference, and might be at the head of their table, as I suppose, it can be reconciled with the necessary economy to dine them in smaller and separate parties, rather than in a large and common mess. These separate buildings, too, might be erected successively and occasionally as the number of professorships and students should be increased, or the funds become competent.⁽²¹⁾

An early ground plan for a cluster of structures based on the pattern indicated to White was drawn by Jefferson in the summer of 1814 for the Albemarle Academy, an educational institution which existed on paper only and of which Jefferson was a trustee. The academy's board of trustees received the drawing in August 1814 from a committee previously appointed to "form some idea of the probable cost of improving a site in the vicinity of the town" for erecting the proposed academy near Charlottesville.⁽²²⁾ Jefferson's simple drawing illustrates his concept of a large open square containing a series of individual pavilions connected by student dormitories on three of the square's four sides. Notations on the drawing suggest the buildings would front an open square of 257 yards. Gardens placed at the backs of the buildings brought the square's outside limits to 357 yards. The ground plan is on the verso of Jefferson's early study for a "typical" pavilion, a drawing showing the elevation and floor plans for a two-story pavilion measuring 34 feet wide by 26 feet deep and connected by dormitories of 10 by 14 feet surmounted by a Chinese railing.⁽²³⁾ These drawings, purportedly the earliest of his college- or university-related drawings, may be the plans that Jefferson presented to the Board of Visitors of the Central College for its consideration in May 1817.⁽²⁴⁾

Typical Pavilion

Jefferson's specifications for the "typical pavilion," eventually built as Pavilion VII, exemplifies his propensity for mathematical detail and provides a glimpse into how Jefferson arrived at a cost estimate for constructing the college. Noting that the walls of the pavilion were 116 feet "running measure," Jefferson calculated that the cellar, "2. bricks thick, 10 f. high," required 20 bricks to a square foot, or 22,840 single bricks. The pavilion's upper walls, "23. f. high 1½ brick thick. 18. bricks to a square foot," needed 48,024 bricks. Add to those sums 4,752 bricks for the chimney and 1,134 for the 6 pilasters, and to build the average pavilion would require 81,750 bricks. As for the pavilion's twenty adjacent dormitories, "each Chamber has 36. f. wall, running measure. if 10. f. high & 1 brick thick," 104,920 bricks were called for, counting those necessary for "one half of the chimney (one chimney serving 2. chambers)," and 2 pilasters each. Another 6,508 bricks were needed for the typical pavilion's "necessary Appendix, passage Etc. (61. f. runng measure, 9. f. high. 1. brick thick)"; therefore 192,248 bricks were required to build a pavilion and its 20 adjacent dormitories.

The Philadelphia model of making rough estimates for the costs of brick dwelling houses finished in a plain way, Jefferson observed, set the "Carpenter's work equal to the cost of the brick walls, and the Carpenter's materials and the ironmongery equal also to the cost of the brickwalls but in the present case the carpenter's materials, (timber) will either be given or cost very little, and the ironmongery will be little." At "10. D. the thousand," the brickwork for 81,750 bricks came to $817.50. Carpenter's work cost another $817.50, and carpenter's materials and ironmongery, at half that, came to $408.75. Jefferson's rough estimate, based on this model, for the total cost of a single "typical pavilion" and its "Appendix" was $2,179.70, and the 20 "chambers" or dormitory rooms was $2,623.60, a total of $4,831.45.

The estimate above is made on the supposition that each Professor, with his pupils (suppose 20) shall have a separate Pavilion of 26. by 34. f. outside, & 24. by 32. f. inside measure: in which the ground-floor (of 12. f. pitch clear) is to be the schoolroom, and 2. rooms above (10. 13. f. pitch clear) and a kitchen & cellar below (7. f. pitch clear) for the use of the Professor. on each side of the Pavilion are to be 10. chambers, 10. by 12. f. in the clear & 8. f. pitch clear a fireplace in each, for the students. the whole to communicate by a colonnade of 8. f. width in the clear. the pilasters, of brick to be generally 5½ f. apart from center to center.

The kitchen will be 24. by 14. on the back of the building adjacent to the chimney, with 2 windows looking back. the cellar 24. by 10. also, on the front side, with 2. windows looking into the colonnade. the Pavilions fronting South should have their stair-case on the East; those fronting East or West should have the stairs at the North end of the building, that the windows may open to the plesanter views.

Back-yards, gardens, stables, horselots Etc. to be in the grounds adjacnt to the South, on the whole.⁽²⁵⁾

Jefferson made a number of changes after he began in earnest in 1817 to design the college, such as the reduction in the number of "chambers," or dormitories, between the pavilions, the introduction of the east and west ranges made up of dining hotels and more dormitories, and the incorporation in the design of a principal large building on the square's north end. Jefferson's specifications for the preliminary studies prepared for the Albemarle Academy trustees in 1814 show, however, that the general architectural outline for his academical community was fixed firmly in his mind well before the Virginia General Assembly designated the Central College as one of the schools in its state system in late 1816.

College Bill

On 7 September 1814 Jefferson wrote his now famous letter to Peter Carr, the president of the board of trustees for the Albemarle Academy. The letter opens with a reference to "a plan adapted in the first instance to our slender funds, but susceptible of being enlarged either by their own growth or by accession from other quarters."⁽²⁶⁾ Although the letter is a detailed description of Jefferson's plans for his educational institution, it includes no references to architecture or building, unless the quoted words are interpreted as an allusion to the preliminary plans plan drawn in 1814. At about this time, Jefferson, in the name of the Albemarle Academy trustees, drew up a petition to the General Assembly asking it to designate Albemarle County as the site for a state college. Carr, who was Jefferson's nephew and a "highly agreeable man," died in December 1814,⁽²⁷⁾ however, and the petition and supporting papers disappeared without ever being presented to the lower house of the Virginia General Assembly.⁽²⁸⁾ Contemplating that the successful introduction into the legislature of the petition "would have enabled us to have here immediately the best seminary of the US.," Jefferson turned to state Senator Joseph Carrington Cabell of Warminster in Nelson County for help and sent him the drafts of his 1814 letter to Carr and the bill for establishing a college in the county of Albemarle, drawn up in 1815, and which the General Assembly passed into law on 14 February 1816.⁽²⁹⁾

With the passage of the college bill secured, Jefferson once again began promoting his architectural concept of an educational village. His justification for building a cluster of small buildings became more sophisticated as he pointed to reasons of safety, health, and economy in addition to aesthetic and educational values. "I would strongly recommend," he wrote to Virginia Governor Wilson Cary Nicholas in April 1816,

. . . instead of one immense building, to have a small one for every professorship, arranged at proper distances around a square, to admit extension, connected by a piazza, so that they may go dry from one school to another. This village form is preferable to a single great building for many reasons, particularly on account of fire, health, economy, peace and quiet. Such a plan had been approved in the case of the Albemarle College, which was the subject of the letter above mentioned; and should the idea be approved by the Board, more may be said hereafter on the opportunity these small buildings will afford, of exhibiting models in architecture of the purest forms of antiquity, furnishing to the student examples of the precepts he will be taught in that art.⁽³⁰⁾

Although the passage of the college bill set the whole business of founding a college on a more stable footing and gave Jefferson evident pleasure, it was a whole year after the writing of his letter to Governor Nicholas before the visitors of the college met for the first time, and Jefferson's correspondence for that period is largely silent regarding his plans for the establishment.

The Site is Chosen

In March 1817 Jefferson sent a circular letter to the other visitors of the Central College—James Madison, James Monroe, John Hartwell Cocke, Joseph Carrington Cabell, and David Watson—requesting their "attendance as a visitor of our proposed college on Tuesday the 8th. of April, being the day after our election. you will of course, I am in hopes come here the day or evening before, that we may have some previous consultation on the subject. . . . Colo. Monroe I suppose will not be in the neighborhood."⁽³¹⁾ Madison, detained in Washington until 6 April, could not attend either, and, in fact, only two members joined Jefferson at the April meeting. The law specified for a new date to be set whenever the board failed to make a quorum, so the 5th of May was next chosen.⁽³²⁾ The reason for the sudden interest in holding a meeting, aside from the fact that the law establishing the college mandated at least two meetings a year,⁽³³⁾ was the fact that an attractive tract of land was being offered for sale by John M. Perry, a house carpenter whom Jefferson employed to do rough carpenter work when he was remodelling Monticello after his retirement from the presidency.⁽³⁴⁾ The tract, located about one mile west of the village of Charlottesville, was Jefferson's second choice for a building site but nevertheless well-suited to meet his architectural requirements. The visitors ratified a provisional agreement to purchase the land at the May meeting after "having themselves proceeded to the said grounds, examined them, & considered the terms of the Said provisional purchase." The visitors also voted to erect a pavilion according to the plan previously accepted by the trustees of the Albemarle Academy and ordered the institution's new proctor, Alexander "Sandy" Garrett,

so soon as the funds are at his command to agree with proper workmen for the building of one, of stone or brick below ground, and of brick above, of substantial work, of regular architecture, well executed, and to be completed, if possible, during the ensuing summer and winter; that the lots for the Said pavilions be delineated on the ground of the breadth of [blank] feet with two parallel sides of indefinite length, and that the pavilion first to be erected be placed on one of the lines so delineated, with its floor in such degree of elevation from the ground as may correspond with the regular inclined plain to which it may admit of being reduced hereafter.

And it is further resolved that so far as the funds may admit, the Proctor be requested to proceed to the erection of dormitories for the Students, adjacent to the said pavilion, not exceeding ten on each side, of brick, and of regular architecture according to the same plan proposed.⁽³⁵⁾

Bacon's Reminiscences

Jefferson's one-time overseer Edmund Bacon asserted when interviewed in Kentucky in 1862 that the visitors "advertised for proposals for a site" and that three local men, Nicholas Lewis, John H. Craven, and John M. Perry, offered to sell land to the college (see appendix W). The "Commissioners," according to Bacon, had a meeting at Monticello (apparently the Board of Visitors' meeting of 5 May) and then traveled to each of the sites to judge between them.

After they had made this examination, Mr. Jefferson sent me to each of them, to request them to send by me their price, which was to be sealed up. . . . Lewis and Craven each asked $17 per acre, and Perry $12. That was a mighty big price in those days. I went to Craven and Lewis first. When I went to Perry, he inquired of me if I knew what price the others had asked. I told him I did, but I did not think it would be right for me to tell him. They had both talked the matter over with me, and told me what they were a-going to ask. But I told Perry that if he asked about $10 or $12 per acre, I though he would be mightly apt to succeed. They took Perry's forty acres, at $12 per acre. It was a poor old turned-out field, though it was finely situated. Mr. Jefferson wrote the deed himself, and I carried it to Mr. Perry, and he signed it.⁽³⁶⁾

Bacon's role in negotiating the purchase has not been substantiated although Jefferson wrote that "on examining the sites for our college we found not one comparable to Perry's."⁽³⁷⁾ Jefferson's grandson George Wythe Randolph declared in 1856, however, that his grandfather's favorite choice for a building site was not the one finally settled upon but one on a high ridge to the northeast of Perry's property. Randolph claimed that Alexander Garrett had often repeated that the property's owner, John Kelly, a local man who reputedly hated Jefferson's political principles, stated that he would see Jefferson "at the devil" before he would sell him the land. Jefferson reportedly considered Kelly a fool for his stance but said "that if they could not get the best site, they would have to content themselves with the best site they could get."⁽³⁸⁾

Dinsmore and Neilson

Buoyed by the prospects of at long last purchasing land for the college, Jefferson meanwhile, in mid-April, had contacted two master housejoiners who crafted much of the fine woodwork during the remodelling of Monticello, James Dinsmore and John Neilson, to offer them employment.⁽³⁹⁾ "We are about to establish a College near Charlottesville on the lands formerly Colo. Monroe's, a mile above the town," Jefferson informed Dinsmore. "We do not propose to erect a single grand building, but to form a square of perhaps 200 yards, and to arrange around that pavilions of about 24. by 36. f. one for every professorship & his school. they are to be of various forms, models of chaste architecture, as examples for the school of architecture to be formed on." Although the projected dimensions of the square had been reduced considerably from the size indicated in Jefferson's August 1814 drawing, and he had added the reference to "models of chaste architecture" that he returned to time and again, the plan remained faithful to Jefferson's original intentions not to include a large building, and of spacing pavilions on all but the open sides of the square.

We shall build one [pavilion] only in the latter end of this year, and go on with others year after year, as our funds increase. . . . I suppose the superintendance of the buildings will rest chiefly on myself as most convenient. so far as it does I should wish to commit it to yourself and mr Nelson, and while little is called for this year which might disturb your present engagements, it will open a great field of future employment for you. will you undertake it? if you will, be so good as to let me hear from you as soon as you can, and I would rather wish it to be before the 6th. of May. there is a person here who wishes to offer you two very fine boys, his sons, as apprentices; but on this nothing need be said until you determine to come.⁽⁴⁰⁾

Dinsmore, working in Petersburg with Neilson, wrote a reply to Jefferson nine days later, thanking his former employer for the "Continued attention to my Interests," and accepting Jefferson's proposal "with pleasure . . . as I prefer that Neighbourhood to any I have yet lived in tho in a pecuniary point of view this is the preferable place—we expect to finish our present engagements here in about two months but if it is Necessary I Should have no objection to make a trip up there at any time Called on—it is probable Mr Neilson will also move up the Country when we finish here—"⁽⁴¹⁾

William Thornton Consulted

Following the visitors' actions at its May meeting, Jefferson stepped up his efforts to design the buildings that would comprise his architectural masterpiece. He first wrote to William Thornton, the architect of the Capitol in Washington, to inform him that "we are commencing here the establishment of a college, and instead of building a magnificent house which would exhaust all of our funds, we propose to lay off a square of about 7. or 800. feet on the outside of which we shall arrange separate pavilions, one for each professor and his scholars. each pavilion will have a schoolroom below, and 2 rooms for the Professor above and between pavilion and pavilion a range of dormitories for the boys, one story high, giving to each a room 10. f. wide & 14. f. deep. the pavilions about 36. wide in front and 24. f. in depth." Although the dimensions as described to Thornton differed slightly from his earlier drawings and descriptions, Jefferson described his scheme generally along the same lines as heretofore, but much more elaborately, and asked his friend and former employee to contribute to the design:

the whole of the pavilions and dormitories to be united by a colonnade in front of the height of the lower story of the pavilions, under which they may go dry from school to school. the colonnade will be of square brick pilasters (at first) with a Tuscan entablature. now what we wish is that these pavilions as they will show themselves above the dormitories, should be models of taste & good architecture, & of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the Architectural Lectures. will you set your imagination to work & sketch some designs for us, no matter how loosely with the pen, without the trouble of referring to scale or rule; for we want nothing but the outline of the architecture, as the internal must be arranged according to local convenience. a few sketches, such as need not take you a moment, will greatly oblige us. the visitors of the college are President Monroe, mr Madison, 3 others whom you do not know & myself. we have to struggle against two important wants, money, and men for professors capable of fulfilling our views. they may come in time for all Europe seems to be breaking up. in the mean time help us to provide snug and handsome Lodges for them.⁽⁴²⁾

Eager to please, Thornton responded quickly, expressing his "great pleasure to find Virginia disposed to erect an extensive College which must produce great effects by Example. I was also pleased to see an Acct. of the meeting of such distinguished Characters as the three Presidents of the United States on so praiseworthy an Occasion. How different to the meeting of the three Emperors on the Continent of Europe, after a bloody Battle! In asking my sketches you flatter me highly but I fear all I can do will fall very far short of what you expect." Thornton also enclosed two facade studies that show "an arcade on the bottom story and columns above," drawings which influenced Jefferson's design of Pavilion VII.⁽⁴³⁾ The drawings, coupled with a suggestion in the letter which they were enclosed in to substitute columns for square piers, greatly altered the design of Jefferson's scheme, and Thornton's detailed letter deserves to be quoted at length:

I have drawn only two specimens of the orders. You wish the Halls or Pavilions to contain the different Orders of Architecture, that they might serve hereafter as models.—I admire every thing that would tend to give chaste Ideas of elegance & grandeur. Accustomed to pure Architecture, the mind would relish in time no other, & therefore the more pure the better.—I have drawn a Pavilion for the Centre, with Corinthian Columns, & a Pediment. I would advise only the three orders: for I consider the Composite as only a mixture of the Corinthian & Ionic; & the Tuscan as only a very clumsy Doric.—Your general Arrangement I admire, but would take the liberty of advising that the two buildings next the angles be joined together, & be placed in the angles. [sketch follows]

They would, of course, be in the ancient Ionic, that beautiful and chaste order.—I thought it necessary to draw it, because you have only to connect the sketches already given, into the Ionic, to have the effect.—I would only have one Pediment, and that in the center. If at any time it would be thought necessary to extend these Buildings, they may very easily have additions at each side, without extending the Colonnade, and the Entablature would serve as a back ground or base to the projecting central parts of each.—It is of great importance in Buildings, the extent of which must be foreseen, to provide for such additions as may correspond, & finally tend rather to beautify and perfect, than to disfigure or deform the whole: and this plan of yours I think admirably calculated for almost indefinite extension.—The Entablature of the Doric Pavilion may be enriched and that to the Dormitories may be plain. I have drawn Columns in front of the Dormitories, & also square Pillars, but the Columns are not only handsomer but cheaper, being also more easily built, and less subject to accidental as well as wilful injury.—I have omitted the plinths, as they not only tend to shorten the Columns but increase the expense, interrupt the walk, and add not much to the beauty.—I would make the Dormitories with Shed roofs, that should commence at the top of the parapet. this would carry all the water to the outside, which would take away all appearance of a roof, & thereby add greatly to the beauty of the Buildg. I advise that it be built of Brick in the roughest manner, & plastered over in imitation of freestone. Columns can be made in this way most beautifully, as I have seen them done at Mr. Lewis's, near Mount Vernon, where they have stood above 12 years, & I did not find a single crack or fissure. The Bricks are made expressly for columnar work, and where they were to be plastered, the Brick-work was perfectly saturated with water which prevented the plaster from drying too rapidly.—The mortar was not laid on fresh. It was composed of two thirds sharp well washed fine white sand, & one third well slaked lime. I would mix these with Smith's Forge-water. I would also dissolve some vitrial of Iron in the water for the ashlar Plaister not only to increase the binding quality of the mortar, but also to give a fine yellow colour—which on Experiment you will find beautiful and cheap.—All the plaistering should be tinctured in the same manner for the plain ashlar work, or yellow sand may be used with the lime, or yellow ochre which will give the same appearance; and the Columns and Entablature being white will produce a beautiful and delicate contrast.—I prefer a pale yellow to white for the general ground Colour of a building, as it assimilates beautifully with the Trees, and general Tint of nature; while white looks cold & glaring, and destroys the keeping.—The Caps & Bases of the Columns ought to be of freestone; or they may be of artificial stone. This is to be had very cheap from Coade's Manufactory, in the Borough of London; or they may be made of pipe clay, with a little fine white sand, & a solution of alkaline salt, which will give a neat, but fine [Surface], when well burnt in a Potter's Kiln. I have tried this, & made very good artificial Stone.—By this mode the Caps of the Columns may be made as durable as Stone, and cheaper than wood.—Pateras Modillions &c may be made in the same manner, if thought necessary hereafter, to enrich any particular part.—I admire the general disposition and plan of this Establishment and, to obtain in perfection what is wanted, I would advise that the Site be chosen in the woods, and clear out whatever is not wanted, clumping the most beautiful and thriving of the forest Trees, handsome Groves, and leaving straggling ones occasionally, by wch Nature may be so artfully imitated, as to produce a perfect Picture and above all things let such a place be selected as though it be a high & healthy Table Ground, will afford by a Tube from a higher Source a grand Fountain in the centre of the College Square.—This will be not only highly ornamental, but it will supply Water in case of Fire.—If a rivulet could also be brought near, by digging a Conduit, it might furnish a large basin or Pond, which could be made of any required depth & size. This would do for the Students to swim and dive in, during Summer, and to skait on during Winter. There ought also to be a botanic Garden, as well as a culinary one.—There ought to be extra Grounds for the great Exercises, such as running, riding, Archery, shooting with Pistols, rifles, Cannons, the military Exercises on horseback & foot.—In the Roman Catholic Academy, in George Town, Ga., they have erected a Ball Alley, but I would allow no Child's play. Let all the Exercises be such as would tend to make great and useful men, and the military Exercises, fencing with the broad and small sword, boxing with mufflers, playing the single Stick, jumping, wrestling, throwing the Javelin and whatever tends to render men most athletic, at the same time that it tends to perfect them in what may eventually be of use, ought only to be permitted as sports in their leisure hours. Thus would I make men of active Bodies, as well as of extraordinary Minds.—⁽⁴⁴⁾

Jefferson fortunately saw the propriety of adopting Thornton's suggestion to use columns in front of the dormitories situated on the lawn, though he retained the rectanglier piers for the columns of the east and west ranges, and the change produced a wonderful effect in contrast.

Latrobe is Enlisted

William Thornton was not the only architect offering advice to Jefferson in the early stages of building. On 12 June Jefferson sent a letter to Benjamin Henry Latrobe that was nearly identical to the one he sent to Thornton in May. Latrobe did not reply until late June but when he did it was readily apparent that he had far exceeded Jefferson's request to make a "few sketches such as shall take you not more than a minute apiece, mere impressions of a first trait of imagination."⁽⁴⁵⁾ Latrobe insisted that he had "found so much pleasure in studying the plan of your College, that the drawings have grown into a large bulk that can conveniently be sent by the Mail. . . . I have put the whole upon one very large sheet, which I am very unwilling to double."⁽⁴⁶⁾ Jefferson eagerly awaited Latrobe's designs, and wrote him in the first week of July:

I fear you have given yourself too much trouble about the designs for us. I did not mean to give you this, but since you have been so kind as to take it, it shall turn to good account. . . . I am anxious to receive your draught as soon as possible, because we must immediately lay the 1st stone, as the 1st pavilion must be finished this fall and we have few workmen. . . . I think your drawings had better come in the form of a roll by the mail. Any necessary doubling of the paper may be easily obliterated by the screw press which I possess.⁽⁴⁷⁾

Latrobe suggested one variation from Jefferson's plan that coincided with a change in the design that Jefferson himself had contemplated only since writing Latrobe in June, that of closing off the north end of the square with "some principal building." This alteration in Jefferson's conception of his architectural scheme, and its subsequent change in the appearance of the square, Jefferson later told Latrobe, was necessary because of "the law of the ground."⁽⁴⁸⁾ Instead of building pavilions on the closed side of the square that resembled those of the open east and west sides, Latrobe suggested closing the square's north end with a grand central building, something architecturally magnificent. Jefferson agreed and wasted no time in sensing the beauty of Latrobe's suggestion to construct a spherical building modeled after the "noblest surviving example" of ancient art, the Pantheon in Rome.⁽⁴⁹⁾ Jefferson reduced the diameter of the Roman Pantheon by half, to 77 feet, causing its area to drop to one-quarter and its total volume to one-eighth of the original. Inside it contained a curious design, three oval shaped rooms and an irregular central hall inside a circle with curving staircases leading up to a single large library room covered with a high domed ceiling.⁽⁵⁰⁾ The gently terraced square that resulted from the "law of the ground" has on either side between the pavilions an increasing number of dormitories as one moves south, creating an illusion of perspective as one stands on either end. From the closed north end the pavilions appear to be spaced evenly apart and from the south end looking northward one's attention is forced toward the grand central building. The building proved functional if novel; elegant and spacious, well proportioned, handsome, unique.⁽⁵¹⁾

The Land Deal

While Jefferson was awaiting Latrobe's answer to his letter, Alexander Garrett closed the land deal with John M. Perry. Perry sold the college two tracts of Albemarle County land, for $1,421.25, "the one containing forty three acres & three fourths about a mile above Charlottesville on the public road to Staunton, the other about five eighths of a mile from the former, containing one hundred & fifty three acres, comprehending the top and part of a mountain."⁽⁵²⁾ As part of the land settlement, the college agreed to contract with Perry for one of the pavilions scheduled to be built on his former property, "as Perry persisted positively in refusing a deed but on condition of doing the wooden work of the building now proposed."⁽⁵³⁾ Perry, for his part, promised to do "all the Carpenter's and House joiner's work of the said pavilion as shall be prescribed to him," and agreed to

provide all the meterials of wood and iron mongery which shall be required, that the meterials shall be of sound and durable quality, the Carpenters work shall be done solidly, neatly and well fitted, and the house joinery in the best manner, and strictly according to such forms and orders of Architecture as the said Proctor or his successors shall prescribe; that all the work necessary to be put up or in as the brick layer proceeds, shall allways be ready by the time the brick layer is ready for it, and all the residue to be done by him shall be compleated and put up within five months after the brick layer shall have so far and the walls as that they shall be capable of recieveing it; and the said John M Perry doth further agree and covenant, that if any part of the Carpenters work or house joinery shall not be done in the most perfect good manner or not strictly according to the forms and orders of Architecture which shall be prescribed to him as aforesaid, the said Proctor or his successors shall have a right to have the same altered or taken down and rebuilt according to the forms prescribed, by any person he shall employ at the expence of the said John, and the parties to these presents further agree, that if any part of the work shall be objected to as insufficient or incomformable to what is herein before stipulated that its sufficiency or non conformity shall be finally decided on by three competent persons one chosen by each party and the two persons chosen are hereby empower'd to choose a third equally competent And the said John doth further agree that if the work shall not be done at the respective times stipulated that the said Proctor or his successors shall be free to have it done by such person as he shall employ at the expence of the said John and be entitled to damages for all wrongful delay to be paid by the said John—

Proctor Alexander Garret, on behalf of the Central College, agreed

that for all meterials furnished by the said John the reasonable price they shall have cost him, or which they shall be worth if furnished by himself, shall be paid him, and for all Carpenter's work or house-joinery done, he shall be paid the prices which were paid by James Madison late President of the United States to James Dinsmore for similar work done at Montplier, which payments shall be made to him as follows towit Five hundred dollars in hand, five hundred dollars more when the roof shall be raised, and the balance when it shall be compleated, In Witness whereof the parties hereto subscribe their names the day & year first within written.⁽⁵⁴⁾

Although Jefferson was satisfied that "on examining the sites for our college we found not one comparable to Perry's,"⁽⁵⁵⁾ the difficulty with the carpenter "retarded the progress of the Proctor in executeing the plans and designs of the Visitors."⁽⁵⁶⁾ Perry's insistence upon doing the the wood work of the proposed pavilion meant that James Dinsmore could not be awarded the first contract as Jefferson had wished, and when Jefferson informed his former housejoiner of this, he noted that "as this leaves us perfectly free as to all the other buildings we concluded with him [Perry]." Jefferson also told Dinsmore that he planned to meet Irishman Hugh Chisholm in Lynchburg "a few days hence to engage a bricklayer, master of the business there."⁽⁵⁷⁾ By the middle of July in a small brick kiln near a large spring on the west side of the square (or lawn as it came to be known) bricks were being made for the new pavilion.⁽⁵⁸⁾

Squares Laid Off

On 18 July 1817 work began on the site itself. Jefferson fortunately had conceived of the idea of building a central building on the closed end of the square just in time to incorporate it in his working plans. According to his specifications book, "Operations at & for the College," Jefferson in laying out the site divided it into a dozen smaller and thus easier to manage rectangles of 100 by 127½ feet. "The place at which the theodolite was fixed being the center of the Northern square, and the point destined for some principal building in the level of the square . . . each square is to be level within itself, with a pavilion at each end."⁽⁵⁹⁾ Jefferson himself, though past his 74th birthday, surveyed the area and laid off the squares with the aid of two servants. He triumphantly wrote to fellow Visitor John Hartwell Cocke the following day that "our squares are laid off, the brick yard begun, and the levelling will be begun in the course of the week."⁽⁶⁰⁾

Correspondence with Latrobe

A few days afterwards, Latrobe sent Jefferson a sketch of a cubical "center building" taken from Giacomo Leoni's drawing of Palladio's Villa Rotonda. In the sketch, Latrobe set two pavilions on either side of the Rotunda, including one in each corner of the square's northern end.

Center building which ought to exhibit in Mass & details as perfect a specimen of good Architectural taste as can be devised. I should propose below, a couple or 4 rooms for Janitors or Tutors, above, a room, [drawing follows] for Chemical or other lectures, above a circular lecture room under the dome; The pavilions to be, as proposed, habitations of Professors and lecture rooms. But, if Professors are married, will they not require more than 2 rooms each, and a kitchen. I have exhibited such an arrangement. . . . The above is the arrangement, I believe, sketched in your first letter, and might be executed on ground, falling each way East and West from the Center, and descending as much as may be N & South, because the E & West sides of the Quadrangle might be detached from the upper range.⁽⁶¹⁾

Although Jefferson could adopt the idea of a central building into the plan for his academical village, the other elements of Latrobe's design could not be incorporated because of the size and unevenness of the ground that the college had acquired, and Jefferson accordingly wrote to Latrobe on 3 August to correct misunderstandings that had arisen concerning the scheme and to inform him of the topography of the ground.⁽⁶²⁾ Upon receiving Jefferson's letter, Latrobe immediately suspended his drawing, which contained a plan, replied Latrobe, "of the principal building (as I then supposed it) and seven or eight Elevations of pavilions, with a general elevation of the long ranges of Pavilions and portico. In this state I will send it to you."⁽⁶³⁾

Writing from Poplar Forest, his country villa near Lynchburg in Bedford County,⁽⁶⁴⁾ Jefferson responded by noting the confusion produced by their letters crossing one another in the mail and directing Latrobe to send the drawings to Monticello, not to Lynchburg:

the elevations of pavilions will be most acceptable. I inclose you a very ragged sketch of the one now in hand. I am well aware of all the importance of aspect, and have always laid it down as rule that in drawing the plan of a house it's aspect is first to be known, that you may decide whether to give it most front or flank, and also on which side to throw passages & staircases, in order to have the South, whether front or flank unembarrassed for windows. the range of our ground was a law of nature to which we were bound to conform. it is S. 20 W. we therefore make our pavilions one room only in front, and 1. or 2. in flank as the family of the professor may require. in his apartments, or the best of them, his windows will open to the South. the lecturing room below has the same advantage, by substituting an open passage adjacent instead of a dormitory. the dormitories admit of no relief but Venetian blinds to their window & door, and to the last the shade of the covered way. this will be the less felt too, as the pupils will be in the schoolrooms most of the day.⁽⁶⁵⁾

During the exchange of letters with Latrobe, Jefferson had attended the third meeting of the Board of Visitors of the Central College, held at the home of James Madison in Orange County on Monday, 28 July. The members agreed to the previously proposed plan to erect the first pavilion and requested Alexander Garrett to resign the office of proctor so that Nelson Barksdale of Albemarle County could be appointed in his stead.⁽⁶⁶⁾ The visitors also agreed "that it be expedient to import a Stone Cutter from Italy and that Mr Jefferson be authorised and requested to take the requisite measures to effect that object."⁽⁶⁷⁾ Meanwhile, unknown to the visitors, Benjamin Latrobe had located a well-qualified stonecutter, one Johnson, who could depart for Charlottesville at a few days notice. But by the time Jefferson received Latrobe's letter informing him about Johnson the Board of Visitors had already moved to import stonecutters from Italy.⁽⁶⁸⁾

Propaganda Campaign

In late August, while still at Poplar Forest, Jefferson began a propaganda campaign to garner favorable publicity for the nascent college. He sent Thomas Ritchie a "letter" written for publication in the Richmond Enquirer. ("I read but a single newspaper, Ritchie's Enquirer, the best that is published or ever has been published in America," Jefferson later said).⁽⁶⁹⁾ The author (Jefferson), purporting to have recently passed through Charlottesville on his way to the Warm Springs, comments on the "healthiness of the country, it's fertility, it's central position with respect to the population of the state, and other advantages." The board of visitors, the fictitious traveler writes, appointed by the "ex offico Patron of the institution," the governor of the commonwealth, "have had two or three meetings, have purchased a site a mile above the town of Charlottesville, high, healthy, & with good water, have agreed on the outlines of their plan as a College of general science, & are now proceeding on it's execution." The supposedly unknown tourist, obviously impressed with the college, described the proposed buildings:

. . . the intention of the Visitors is, not to erect a single and expensive building, which would at once exhaust their funds; but to make it rather an Academical village. a small box, or Pavilion, is to be erected for each school and it's professor separately, with chambers, or dormitories for the students, all united by a covered colonnade, and arranged on each side of a lawn of 200. feet wide. besides the security which this arrangement gives against fire and infection, it has the great convenience of admitting building after building to be erected successively as their funds come in, and as their professorships are subdivided. one of these pavilions is now in progress, and will be ready, by the 1st. of April next . . . a small mountain adjacent is included in their purchase, & contemplated as a site for an astronomical observatory, and a very remarkable one it will certainly be the whole purchase is of 200. a[cre]s. which, besides the Observatory and building grounds, will afford a garden for the school of botany, & an experimental farm for that of Agriculture. should I on my return learn any thing further, and interesting, I will communicate it to you.⁽⁷⁰⁾

Brickmaking

While still at Poplar Forest, Jefferson received two letters from Hugh Chisholm, the bricklayer working at the college, which have not been found, apparently indicating the progress of the brickmaking and offering Jefferson a partnership in the brick manufactory. "Am glad to learn that the bricks are in such forwardness," Jefferson replied to Chisholm on the last day of August. "I wish you would by every week's mail drop a line stating what the progress then is. I am anxious to know that the cellars are dug and their walls commenced laying. but be careful to inform me in time and exactly by what day you will have got the walls up to the surface of the earth; because there mr [David] Knight must begin, and by that day I will make it a point to be in Albemarle, and have him there." Declining Chisholm's offer of a business relationship, Jefferson gave his opinion of the quality of building in his native Albemarle County.

I take no interest in the partnership I suggested to you other than as I suppose it would be agreeable. however, in acting for myself I might indulge partialities, I have no right to do so in a public concern. to have the work done in the best manner, is the first object, and the second to have it done at a fair price for both parties. I have offers from some of the best workmen in Lynchburg. the finest plaisterer I have ever seen in this state is anxious to undertake with us. I consider it as the interest of the College the town and neighborhood to introduce a reform of the barbarous workmanship hitherto practised there, and to raise us to a level with the rest of the country. on a trip to the Natural bridge, I found such brickwork and stone-work as cannot be seen in Albemarle. I hope we shall take a higher stand, and do justice to the high advantages that particular portion of our state possesses.⁽⁷¹⁾

Freemasons Relay Request

Also on the last day of August 1817, Jefferson replied to another request he received while at Poplar Forest, communicated to him by his granddaughter, Ellen Wayles Randolph, from the masonic societies of Charlottesville. A representative of the freemasons, probably the college's treasurer, Alexander Garrett, had relayed a request to Jefferson's daughter and son-in-law, Martha Jefferson and Thomas Mann Randolph, Jr., to be allowed to lay the first brick of the Central College. Jefferson answered that "I do not know that I have authority to say either yea or nay to this proposition; but as far as I may be authorised, I consent to it freely. The inhabitants of Charlottesville deserve too well of that institution to meet with any difficulty in that request, and I see no possible objection on the part of the other visitors which exposes me to risk in consenting it."⁽⁷²⁾ Thus the Widow's Son Masonic Lodge No. 60 and Charlottesville Lodge No. 90. conducted the cornerstone laying ceremony for the first pavilion, the present-day Colonnade Club, on 6 October 1817.⁽⁷³⁾

Cornerstone Ceremonies

The laying of the cornerstone took place amidst a flurry of preparation that culminated with the walls of the building rising to the "surface of the ground" by Sunday 5 October, the day before the periodical meeting of the visitors as well as that of the county and district courts and the scheduled date for the ceremonial laying of the pavilion's cornerstone.⁽⁷⁴⁾

Jefferson's overseer Edmund Bacon described the scenes of those early days in an interview with Reverand Hamilton W. Pierson some thirty-five years later. After personally recruiting "ten able-bodied hands to commence the work," Bacon said that he accompanied Jefferson and James Dinsmore from Monticello to the site of the Central College to begin laying the foundation of Pavilion VII. "As we passed through Charlottesville," Bacon recalled, "I went to old Davy Isaacs' store and got a ball of twine, and Dinsmore found some shingles and made some pegs, and we all went on to the old field together. Mr. Jefferson looked over the ground for some time and then struck down a peg. He stuck the very first peg in that building, and then directed me where to carry the line, and I stuck the second. He carried one end of the line, and I the other, in laying off the foundation of the University. He had a little rule in his pocket that he always carried with him, and with this he measured off the ground and laid off the entire foundation, and then set the men at work. I have that rule now." Bacon's assertion that Jefferson laid off the foundation with (in Pierson's words) a "small twelve-inch rule, so made as to be but three inches long when folded up" is absurd. Bacon claimed to have recovered the rule from the Rivianna River during low water some time after it fell out of Jefferson's pocket while the two men were "crawling through some bushes and vines" along the bank of the canal.⁽⁷⁵⁾

"After the foundation was nearly completed," Bacon continued, "they had a great time laying the cornerstone. The old field was covered with carriages and people. There was an immense crowd there. Mr. Monroe laid the cornerstone. He was President at that time. He held the instruments and pronounced it square. He only made a few remarks, and Chapman Johnson and several others made speeches. Mr. Jefferson—poor old man!—I can see his white head just as he stood there and looked on."⁽⁷⁶⁾ Jefferson, only briefly mentioning the ceremony in passing in his correspondence, was more concerned in fact with guaranteeing the quick arrival of Lynchburg bricklayer David Knight so that he could commence laying the brick walls of the pavilion while the Virginia weather was still relatively hospitable.⁽⁷⁷⁾

Masonic Ritual

The cornerstone ceremonies, attended by one sitting American president and two former ones, in addition to a host of other dignitaries, would have been an unusual sight anywhere in the country, but it must have seemed even more so on a former farm a mile from the tiny village of Charlottesville. Alexander Garrett's detailed plans for the ceremonies indicates that the freemasons planned to meet on the college grounds "in a room up stairs of the Stone house precisely at 10 Oclock" to form the ceremonial procession.⁽⁷⁸⁾ The parade marshal then called the brethren out two by two, in the following order: tylers (with swords drawn), apprentices, fellows, masters, past masters, stewards, deacons, secretaries, treasurers, wardens, visiting masters, substitutes, and the grand master and chaplain. Following the members, three by three, were the Board of Visitors of the Central College, and the bearers of corn, wine, and oil, themselves followed by the orator and his aid. Bringing up the rear before the musical band joined the procession in single file was the principal architect, John M. Perry, and following the band was another tyler leading a paired string of judges, attorneys, and visiting gentlemen. The grand master opened the ceremony with a brief greeting to the assembly: "Gent. Visitors of the Central College. You have been pleased to grant to the masonic order here present, the high & important previlage of laying the corner stone of this building. Will you if you please further indulge us with your aid & participation on this interesting occasion."

Preceding the laying of the stone the grand master offered an opening prayer in behalf of the Central College:

May allmighty God, without invocation to whom, no work of importance should be begun, bless this undertaking and enable us to carry it on with success—protect this College, the object of which institution, is to instill into the minds of Youth principles of sound knowledge. To inspire them with the love of religion & virtue, and prepare them for filling the various situations in society with credit to themselves and benefit to their country.

Following the prayer came the actual laying of the stone in its bed by the substitute and principal architect, who then presented the "implements used by our ancient fraternity"—the square, the plumb, and the level—to the grand master, who in turn presented the tools to the members of the Board of Visitors, with the command to "each of you apply this square to this stone & assertain its fitness." When the visitors had finished, the grand master himself applied the three implements to the stone "in like manner," after which the substitute presented the grand master with a mallet, who struck the stone 3 times, saying, "I pronounce this stone well formed & trusty." Immediately upon saying this, the ban struck up "Hail Columbia" for 5 minutes. When the music stopped, the corn, the wine, and the oil were scattered over the throne and the grand master offered another prayer:

May the all bounteous Authour of nature bless the Inhabitants of Virginia and particularly the Guardians of this our infant institution with all the necessaries, conveniencies and comforts of life: increase their love of knowledge and liberty; Give them energy to prosecute their present undertakeing to the credit of themselves, the advancement of our youth and the security of our liberties, Assist in the erection and completion of this building. Protect the workmen against every accident, and long preserve this structure from decay, and give to us all in needed supply, the corn of nourishment the wine of refreshment, and the oil of joy Amen.

The grand master then asked the chaplain for instruction for the occasion from the "1st. & greatest light of masonry," which was given in the form of an Old Testament prophecy:

Thus saith the Lord God, behold I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone a sure foundation,—Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet; for behold the Stone which I have laid before Joshua, upon one stone shall be seven eyes: behold I will engrave the engraveing thereof saith the Lord of Host; bless Ye the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord lift up you hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord; the Lord that made heaven & earth bless the out of Zion.

The chaplain then offered another prayer before the grand master thanked the visitors of the Central College, "The masonic societies haveing exercised your kind previlage granted them by laying (with your aid) the corner stone of this structure, beg leave to offer you their best wishes for its prosperity." The band struck up "Yankee Doodle" for a few minutes before the orator, "an eminance," was introduced, who gave an oration relevant to the occasion. To close the ceremony, the band played "Jeffersons march" while the procession reformed, and "Madisons march" as the group paraded back to the stone house to close the lodge. Following the ceremony the freemasons held a dinner for the board of visitors and other "invited Gentlemen." Thus the auspicious official ceremonial beginning of the Central College.

On the day following the cornerstone ceremony, a Tuesday, the full Board of Visitors of the Central College met for its fall meeting, during which it expressed an official opinion that the ground for the proposed buildings "should be previously reduced to a plane or to teraces as it shall be found to admit with due regard to expense, that the Pavilions be correct in their Architecture and execution, and that when the family of a Professor requires it, 2 additional rooms shall be added for their accommodation." This opinion resulted in a resolution authorizing the proctor "to hire Laborers for Leveling the grounds and performing necessary services for the works or other purposes."⁽⁷⁹⁾

Latrobe's Drawings Received

Jefferson renewed his correspondence with Benjamin H. Latrobe on 12 October after receiving Latrobe's letter respecting his "port folio for the drawing I had made," written on the same day the cornerstone ceremony was held at the Central College. Latrobe, who had not forwarded the coveted architectural drawings to Monticello until now, returned home to Washington after being away from the city for some time to discover, to his horror, that "the whole mass of papers in the same place, almost destroyed by the effects of the dreadful storm of the [blank] Augt. which had driven the soot from the Chimney with Water, against that part of my Office, without my discovering it. I was therefore under the necessity of washing out, the dirt as well as I could,—altho it still bears marks of the accident,—and redrawing every thing but the outline."⁽⁸⁰⁾ Besides the time needed to repair the damaged documents, the pressure of business and the "most dreadful misfortune" of losing his eldest son to the yellow fever in New Orleans prevented Latrobe from sending the drawings to Jefferson before.⁽⁸¹⁾ Jefferson was ecstatic at finally receiving "the beautiful set of drawings" from Latrobe.

we are under great obligations to you for them, and having decided to build two more pavilions the ensuing season, we shall certainly select their fronts from these. they will be Ionic and Corinthian. the Doric now erecting would resemble one of your's but that the lower order is of arches, & the upper only of columns, instead of the column being of the height of both stories. some of your fronts would require too great a width for us: because the aspects of our fronts being East & West we are obliged to give the largest dimension to our flanks which look North & South for reasons formerly explained between us.⁽⁸²⁾

Bill for System of Public Education

The next couple weeks proved to be very busy for Jefferson. Besides being reappointed to the Central College Board of Visitors by Governor Wilson Cary Nicholas,⁽⁸³⁾ Jefferson drafted his Bill for Establishing a System of Public Education and sent it to Joseph Carrington Cabell to push forward in the Virginia General Assembly. The bill is a comprehensive plan for state education that called for the establishment of "schools at which the children of all the citizens of this Commonwealth may recieve a primary grade of education at the common expense," the establishment of "Colleges whereat the youth of the Commonwealth may within convenient distances from their homes recieve a higher grade of education," and the establishment "in a central and healthy part of the state an University wherein all the branches of useful science may be taught."⁽⁸⁴⁾ The bill was written, "however slow & painful the operation of working is become from a stiffening wrist, and however deadly my aversion to the writing table," and upon its completion Jefferson instructed Cabell to "take it and make of it what you can, if worth any thing. . . . I meddle no more with it. there is a time to retire from labor, & that time is come with me. it is a duty as well as the strongest of my desires to relinquish to younger hands the government of our bark and resign myself, as I do willingly to their care." More concerned about the progress of the work at hand, Jefferson went on to complain that

our Central college gives me more employment than I am equal to. the dilatoriness of the workmen gives me constant trouble. it has already brought into doubt the completion this year of the building begun, which obliges me to be with them every other day. I follow it up from a sense of the impression which will be made on the legislature by the prospect of it's immediate operation. the walls should be done by our next court, but they will not by a great deal.⁽⁸⁵⁾

Philadelphia Price Book and Workmen's Wages

One of the issues employing Jefferson's energies about this time was how to determine the method of payment to the contractors. Jefferson decided to standardize prices along the lines printed in Mathew Carey's 1812 Philadelphia Price Book. The problem lay in the fact that neither Jefferson nor anyone he knew could lay their hands on a copy of the book, and to complicate matters, a spurious edition was rumored to be floating about. On the first of November Jefferson fired off two letters in search of the book, one to Latrobe and the other to Thomas Carstairs, a "practical contractor" who worked with Jefferson, William Thornton, Stephen Hallet, and James Hoban on the Capitol building in Washington in the 1790s.⁽⁸⁶⁾ The letter to Carstairs, renewing an acquaintance "after a separation of near 20. years," must have surprised the contractor, but Jefferson did not hesitate to ask Carstairs the favor of finding, in addition to a copy of the book, "whatever percent" on the prices that is "habitually now allowed there as the advance of prices since the date of that book." Latrobe experienced trouble in locating the Philadelphia Price Book, promising to send instead the "Pittsburg pricebook, compiled from that of Philadelphia," but Carstairs in January 1818 finally sent Jefferson a copy of the book, provided by Carey himself.⁽⁸⁷⁾ As for the prices, Carstairs informed Jefferson, "I find the only material difference is the new book allows about twenty per cent on floors & ten per cent on common stairs more than the book I have sent you, our present working prices and for some years past, is from ten to twenty per cent discount from the book prices or what is generaly termd the old price[.] The expence of a measurer from Philad. would not cost much, if you should want one, three per cent is a regular charge and pays there own expenses—I daresay would be agreed to."⁽⁸⁸⁾ Jefferson's decision to base the workmen's wages on the 1812 Philadelphia Price Book came back to haunt the University of Virginia later when it became involved in a prolonged lawsuit with the principal contractor of Pavilion I, James Oldham, who earlier had built the interior doors for Monticello (see appendix J).⁽⁸⁹⁾

In addition to not having the Philadelphia Price Book, Jefferson told James Madison two weeks later that "we are sadly at a loss for a Palladio. I had three different editions, but they are at Washington, and nobody in this part of the country has one unless you have. if you have you will greatly aid us by letting us have the use of it for a year to come." Moreover, Jefferson complained to his old friend, "we fail in finishing our 1st. pavilion this season by the sloth and discord of our workmen, who have given me much trouble. they have finished the 1st. story and covered it against the winter. I set out to Bedford tomorrow, on a short visit, and at Lynchbg shall engage undertakers for the whole of next summer's brickwork."⁽⁹⁰⁾ Madison dutifully sent by stage the college his copy of Palladio's Four Books of Architecture.⁽⁹¹⁾

Brickworkers Sought

With winter nearing, the building at the college slowed, but there was a need to line up workers for the following year. Irishman Joseph Antrim, who later plastered the dining room at Jefferson's octagonal country home Poplar Forest and who may have worked at Monticello, offered a proposal in December "to Plaister the Central College," which was accepted. "Mode of Measurement that of Richmond: which is all the openings to be measured, Except the price of the Materials which will be deducted," Antrim suggested, "Or if you Chuse Philad. Mode, the Mode of this place [Lynchburg] is to Make no deductions for Opening & Nether for work Nor for Materials."⁽⁹²⁾ Antrim eventually executed the interior plaster work at the Rotunda and all the pavilions, hotels, and dormitories, and stuccoed the brick columns at the pavilions.⁽⁹³⁾ Awarding a contract for making the 300,000 to 400,000 bricks thought necessary for the ensuing year was a more serious consideration. Jefferson's trip to Lynchburg in search of bricklayers brought him to Matthew Brown, an area contractor well qualified and capable of making the required number of bricks. Jefferson and Brown made a provisional verbal agreement based partly on Brown's 10 December proposal "For making & Laying Common Brick finding all the Materials &C, 15$ pr. thousand all hard, oil Brick 30$ Rubed & guaged work 10/6 pr. foot Superficial measure  Cornice & parepet walls 25 Cts pr. foot Runing measure Extra[.] the time mention In which half of the work to be Done is too Short but the whole may be Completed In good time In full or say by 1st. November 1818—which is safe for Brick work on account of Frost."⁽⁹⁴⁾ This agreement was reached only after Jefferson failed to engage other Lynchburg bricklayers, and it was not to the entire satisfaction of either Jefferson or Brown.

Brown's dissatisfaction with the provisional brickmaking contract grew out of Jefferson's insistence that the current Lynchburg prices for brickwork govern the prices of the agreement. "I have two objection to a Referance to the Lynchburg prices for Brickwork," Brown complained to Jefferson on 20 December, "1st as I have Some Influance as to the price & wishh to avoid Suspician[.] 2ndly. Dislike the mode of doing business on that account I Submit to It with Reluctance but am Satisfied the prices Should be no higher than those of Lynchburg." Additionally, Jefferson wanted David Knight to be hired to lay the brick facades of the buildings. Knight had proven his ability to do superior work during the fall when working on Pavilion VII. "I would not be bound that Knight Shoud Do the front work," Brown countered, "but would Say that the Franklin Hotell shoud be the model Should your Brothern Concur with you In giving me the Job you'l be So good as to give me the Earliest possible Information."⁽⁹⁵⁾ The four story Federal-style Franklin Hotel on the west corner of Main and Eleventh streets in the Chestnut Grove area of Lynchburg, built by Jefferson's Lynchburg friend Samuel Jordan Harrison, had just opened on the 1st of November. Brown supplied the brick for the 68 by 50 feet slate-roofed structure, at the time as "refined as anything yet seen in the Piedmont," and Jefferson is said to have chosen its wines.⁽⁹⁶⁾

The verbal agreement between Brown and Jefferson was to stand only long enough for Jefferson to consult with the other visitors, and Jefferson lost no time in writing to Senator Joseph Carrington Cabell to request him to advertise for brickworkers of the "1st. degree of skill" in the Richmond area. "At what prices do they do the very best work?" Jefferson wondered.

will a responsible one engage to finish the half our work by midsummer, the other half by the 1st. of October? our walls are generally 1½ brick thick. the whole to be grouted; not a single sammel brick, and but 2. bats to be used for every 9. whole bricks. the front wall to be oil-stock brick, the other outer walls sand-stock mortar lime pure sand without any mixture of mould. the work to be done as well as the very best in Richmond or Lynchburg. if you can make a provisional bargain with an undertaker to be depended on, taking only time, for the approbation of the visitors, this will give us choice between Brown & him. but this must be immediate as I must answer Brown shortly. pray make a business of it, turn out immediately, make such a bargain if you can and inform me immediately that I may fix the one or the other as shall be best. . . . P.S. sand is 2. miles off and lime 9. or 10. miles. it's price at the quarry 1/.⁽⁹⁷⁾

Cabell was unable to find workmen willing to travel from Richmond to Charlottesville, but Jefferson did not yet know this when he reported to James Madison on 30 December that "I have not yet been able to engage our brickwork. the workmen of Lynchburg asked me 15. D. a thousand, which I refused. I wrote to mr Cabell to see what engagements could be obtained in Richmond. that & Lynchburg are our only resources, and I very much fear we shall have to give 13. if not 14. D. it is this advance of price which has raised my estimate of the pavilions & Dormitories to 7,000. D."⁽⁹⁸⁾ Sometime during the month Jefferson drew up an advertisement for workmen, which he wanted published in the central Virginia newspapers:

The Subscriber is authorised by the Visitors of the Central College near Charlottesville to contract for the making & laying there about 400,000. bricks, the Undertaker finding every thing, & the work to be equal to the best brickwork in Lynchburg; one half to be done by the 1st. of July, & the whole by the 1st. of October. the lime quarries are about 10. miles & sand about 2. miles distant from the place. payments will be accomodated to the Undertaker. written proposals to be lodged in the Post office at Lynchbg, or sent to the subscriber at Poplar Forest at any time before the 13th. inst."⁽⁹⁹⁾

Concluding an agreement with the bricklayers for the upcoming year dominated Jefferson's concerns for the college as 1817 drew to an end, and after the new year, when writing to ask his colleagues on the Board of Visitors to consider for approval the draft of his report to the new governor, James Patton Preston,⁽¹⁰⁰⁾ he informed them of his efforts to procure bricklayers for the Central College and of his "provisional bargain with one of the best of them, to give what shall be given in Lynchbg the ensuing season."⁽¹⁰¹⁾ Cabell wrote back to Jefferson on 5 January concerning his quest for workmen in Richmond, enclosing a letter sent to him from Christopher Tompkins, the contractor for the governor's mansion, on the previous day, "from which you will perceive that the rates here are very exorbitant, and that you cannot do better than to close with Brown. There are some 6 or 8 skilful workmen in Richmond; most of them have families; and all of them prefer working in town: each of them contracts for one million or one million & a half of bricks every year, and has more work offered than he can well attend to." Tompkins did manage to find one bricklayer for Cabell, a "workman who is willing to come up and make bricks at $2 pr. m being found every thing, is named Night, and is the brother of Night who worked on the College walls in November. He is said to be a better workman. I regret that I am unable to send you a more agreeable answer."⁽¹⁰²⁾

Upon receiving Cabell's answer regarding Richmond brickmakers, Jefferson wrote Matthew Brown in the middle of January to seal the bricklaying contract in accordance with the terms of Brown's letter of 20 December, impressing on him the importance of his finishing one-half the work by the beginning of July, and reiterating Jefferson's own desire that David Knight would be engaged for the front-work.⁽¹⁰³⁾ When Brown contracted for the brickwork at Pavilion III and sixteen dormitories on the west lawn the irritating matter of contracting for bricklaying was taken care of for the present and there was nothing left for anyone to do for the buildings of the Central College but sit back and wait out the rest of the Virginia winter.⁽¹⁰⁴⁾