Tag: Thomas Jefferson

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History

Thomas Jefferson’s Passion for Music Began a Civic Tradition Still Celebrated Today

Concert poster for The United States Marine Band at the White House, 1928. Library of Congress. (Public Domain)

On March 4, 1801, the 32-member U.S. Marine Band gathered at the Capitol in Washington, D.C., for Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration. Consisting of drummers and fifers, the fledgling organization had been established only three years prior in 1798 to serve as entertainment for governmental functions.

President John Adams was the first to invite the band to the White House a couple of months before Jefferson’s inauguration. It made its debut on January 1, 1801, at the unfinished Executive Mansion, hosted by Adams. The federal government’s move from Philadelphia to Washington, D.C., was so fresh that the finishing touches were still being completed at the President’s House, what was then called the Executive Mansion. The name “White House” was coined in 1811, three years before its reconstruction after the British burned the former building down.

While President Adams was in office during the U.S. Marine Band’s inception, its biggest cheerleader would come later when Jefferson stepped in as Commander in Chief.

Jefferson’s Favorite Passion

A window silhouette of U.S. President Thomas Jefferson playing the violin for his family in 1805. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

Jefferson remains one of America’s most successful and historic diplomats. While he had an undying love for his country, he stated that music was the “favorite passion of my soul” in a letter to the Italian economist and natural historian Giovanni Fabbroni.

Jefferson was an accomplished violinist and dedicated much of his childhood to the study of music. In his 20s, his courtship with his future wife Martha Wayles Skelton was spent bonding over music. According to historians at Monticello (Jefferson’s private residence), their shared love of music translated to their affections vividly. The two could often be seen playing music together. As they sang to each other, Martha played her harpsichord and Thomas played his violin. They continued to foster their shared love of music throughout their marriage, which helped keep it strong—even through Jefferson’s most trying times.

Jefferson’s musical tastes were broad. Mozart and Haydn were considered to be two of his favorite composers. But he also had a penchant for Scotch songs, which focused on life spent in the rural expanses of Scotland with an old-time tune style. He also learned as many Italian works as he could.

‘Godfather’ of the Marine Band

Uniforms for the President’s Own U.S. Marine Band from “U.S. Marine Corps Uniforms 1983,” by Donna J. Neary. (Public Domain)

His love of music influenced the cultural landscape of early 1800s America. Italy and France were considered to be places of musical renaissance, and he wanted to create that type of musical flourishing in the United States. He vowed to bring a renewed sense of life to Washington, D.C., through the expansion of music’s role—particularly the role of classical music and traditional works—for the district’s official events.

Months after the Marine Band’s first performance for President Jefferson at his inauguration, he invited the group to perform at the White House’s first official Independence Day celebration. Set up in a room near the party’s festivities in early July, the band played a variety of classical music and entertaining pieces. The party’s attendance soon grew to 100, and the attendees danced and marveled at the band’s prowess. One guest, Samuel Harrison Smith, later wrote to his sister saying the music the band played would have inspired her “patriotic heart” with “delight.”

The United States Marine Band soon became a regular at Jefferson’s events. He was so attached to the group of talented young musicians that he nicknamed them “The President’s Own,” after a tradition in England that often ascribed artists working in an official capacity to be nicknamed the King or Queen’s “Own.” The sign of respect was returned when Jefferson was later nicknamed the “godfather” of the United States Marine Band due to his eager support of the unique military endeavor.

A Fighting Spirit

President Lincoln was especially fond of the Marine Band performances in the White House and weekly concerts on the grounds. An illustrated plate of the U.S. Marine Band playing on July 4 in the 1861 Harpers Weekly. Internet Archive. (Public Domain)

Since its performance at President Jefferson’s inauguration, the U.S. Marine Band went on to perform at every president’s inaugural ceremony, marking one of America’s longest-standing civic traditions.

“The President’s Own” began with 32 drummers and fifers. But with Jefferson’s support, the band grew along with its role as official entertainer of the White House. Today, the band boasts over 160 members. And it performs for around 700 events annually.

With one of the most scrupulous audition processes and a legacy built around the “fighting spirit” of the earliest Marine Band members, the premier group is made up of the nation’s most talented and respected musicians. The long-standing organization’s dedication lies in upholding the country’s founding ideals and principles through the performance of traditional works. The United States Marine Band remains the oldest professional music organization in America.

John Williams conducting “The President’s Own” U.S. Marine Band for its 225th anniversary concert at The Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts on July 16, 2023. (U.S. Marine Band)

From March Issue, Volume IV

Categories
Features Founding Fathers History

Dining with Thomas Jefferson: Travel Back in Time for a Lively Evening of Wisdom and Whimsy

(Galina Sorokina for American Essence)

In 1962, our young, charismatic president John F. Kennedy was entertaining the year’s Nobel Prize winners at the White House. He said of the group, “I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.” It is a great statement, to be sure.

Feasts of Wisdom

The journals of Margaret Bayard Smith tell us some interesting details about her visits to the “President’s House,” where she and her husband actually dined with Thomas Jefferson, our country’s third president. Margaret Smith came to Washington as a young bride in 1800. Her husband was a newspaperman and a strong supporter of Jefferson’s bid for the presidency. The Smiths and Jefferson frequently entertained each other. Unfortunately, Jefferson’s wife, Martha, had died years earlier in 1782.

The President’s House, far from being the stately edifice we know today, was a work in progress. Jefferson’s personal quarters were furnished as befit a man of his many interests. Smith writes; “The apartment in which he took most interest was his cabinet; this he had arranged according to his own taste and convenience. It was a spacious room. In the centre was a long table, with drawers on each side, in which were deposited not only articles appropriate to the place, but a set of carpenter’s tools in one and small garden implements in another from the use of which he derived much amusement. Around the walls were maps, globes, charts, books, etc.” This collection is reminiscent of Jefferson’s personal effects at Monticello. He placed such importance on reading that he would often greet his guests while putting down a book, both at the President’s House and back home in Monticello.

Jefferson had no long, rectangular tables where guests would sit in long rows, awkwardly conversing with those assigned within earshot. Instead, Jefferson introduced a round table and limited the number of guests to around 14. He preferred to be addressed as “Mr. Jefferson,” not “Mr. President.” The man truly enjoyed lively discussion, and this arrangement assured that no one was left out of it.

Far from reveling in his own words, Jefferson surrounded himself with a rich feast of wisdom, made all the more enjoyable by the implementation of intimacy and courtesy. His guests tended to be interesting people such as Alexander von Humbolt, the great Prussian naturalist and baron. Jefferson loved to mix such intellectuals with the important people of government whom he might have felt compelled to entertain. Smith certainly gives the impression that these were rich events to be savored rather than social obligations to be endured. She notes:

“Guests were generally selected in reference to their tastes, habits and suitability in all respects, which attention had a wonderful effect in making his parties more agreeable, than dinner parties usually are; this limited number prevented the company’s forming little knots and carrying on in undertones separate conversations, a custom so common and almost unavoidable in a large party. At Mr. Jefferson’s table the conversation was general; every guest was entertained and interested in whatever topic was discussed.”

Smith describes the fare as a mixture of “republican simplicity … united to Epicurean delicacy.” His guests loved it. Southern staples such as black-eyed peas and turnip greens shared the stage with delicacies prepared by Honoré Julien, the president’s French chef. We know that Jefferson loved and served fine wine, as well as macaroni and cheese created from his own recipe.

Lively Affairs

Jefferson was a man who never stopped learning, and these dinners were certainly an extension of that fact. His favorite parties were those limited to four. To keep the conversation flowing, Mr. Jefferson brought his inventiveness to the room’s design: He installed dumbwaiters and placed revolving shelves in the walls so that the distraction of serving dishes and clearing the table, typically accompanied by servants and the opening and closing of doors, was minimized.

That’s not to say there were no distractions, however. There was Jefferson’s pet bird, which “would alight on his table and regale him with its sweetest notes, or perch on his shoulder and take its food from his lips. … How he loved this bird!”

After dinner, guests might stretch their legs with a visit to the house gardens. Since Congress refused to appropriate money for improving the grounds, Jefferson did so at his own expense. It, too, was a work in progress. Jefferson, who planted European grapes at Monticello, did not do so at the President’s House. He chose instead to display flora and fauna native to America. For several months, guests could see two live grizzly bear cubs that Captain Zebulon Pike had acquired during his expedition along the Arkansas River.

Egalitarian dining, surrounded by the wonders that Jefferson collected, inevitably led to a convivial discussion. Here, ideas that shaped the course of a young nation would find lively expression.

From January Issue, Volume 3

Categories
History

Not Just Paul Revere: The Unknown Story of the Night Rider in Virginia Who Warned the British Were Coming

“View of the West Front of Monticello and Garden” by Jane Braddick, 1825. (Public domain)

It was the spring of 1781, and war had come to Virginia.

Many Virginians were fighting elsewhere with George Washington’s forces, weakening the ability of the state to resist British advances. King George’s troops, some of them commanded by defector Benedict Arnold, had earlier that winter conducted raids and fought skirmishes with Americans along the James River. In May, these soldiers hooked up with the forces of Lord Cornwallis, who had marched his men up from North Carolina. In less than six months, this army would surrender to the Americans and French at Yorktown, but for now, they faced only light resistance and moved handily throughout the eastern part of Virginia.

Driven that winter out of the state’s new capital, Richmond, the Virginia legislature had opted in the spring to meet in Charlottesville, believing themselves secure from the British in that western hamlet. Among these lawmakers were Gov. Thomas Jefferson, now in the last days of his term of office, as well as famous patriots like Patrick Henry and signers of the Declaration of Independence Richard Henry Lee and William Harrison. Among their number was also Daniel Boone of Kentucky, then considered a part of Virginia.

When Lord Cornwallis learned that the legislature had gathered in Charlottesville, he dispatched Lt. Col. Banastre Tarleton and 200 mounted troopers to ride west and capture these lawmakers. Though despised by colonial patriots for his harsh treatment of militia and civilians in the Carolinas—he was nicknamed “Bloody Ban”—Tarleton was a fine horseman and an aggressive commander. He pushed his men toward Charlottesville, riding much of the time at night to conceal their objective. On June 3, he paused for a few hours at the Louisa County Courthouse to give his men and horses a well-earned rest before advancing into Charlottesville the following day.

And it was on this night that one American would upend this British raid.

“Thomas Jefferson” by Mather Brown, 1786. National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C. (Public domain)

Virginia’s Paul Revere

Born in 1754 to John and Mourning Harris Jouett, Jack Jouett had grown up in Charlottesville, where his father operated the Swan Tavern. On this evening of June 3, he was almost 40 miles away in Louisa County at the Cuckoo Tavern, so named because of the clock in that establishment. Jouett had seen the arrival of the British dragoons, overheard talk in the tavern of their plans to proceed to Charlottesville, and decided on his own initiative to race through the hills to that town and alert the threatened legislators.

Mounted on his bay mare Sally, Jouett set out through the dark countryside. Fearing British troops, he took the back roads and trails with which he was well familiar. Just around dawn, his fast-paced horse brought him to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson’s estate. There, he roused the household and explained the dire situation to Jefferson, who, as legend has it, offered Jouett a glass of Madeira to help revive the weary rider before he set out for nearby Charlottesville.

In Charlottesville, Jouett spread the word, which included a visit to his father’s popular tavern. The legislators agreed to move south to Staunton, about 40 miles away. Though Daniel Boone and several other members of this body were captured by the British, most of the representatives packed in haste, fled the town, and escaped safely to Staunton.

A Near-Run Disaster

Jefferson himself came close to being taken prisoner as well.

Aided by his body servant, Jefferson slowly packed up important papers and personal items, reluctant to leave the home he’d designed and built for fear the British would burn it. Only when a neighbor who was an officer in the Virginia militia, Christopher Hudson, found him still on the premises and urged him to flee did Jefferson mount his horse, Caractacus, and ride into the forest. Like Tarleton, he was an excellent horseman, knew the terrain, and was confident of his ability to escape Tarleton’s raiders.

The British arrived at Monticello within minutes of his departure, with Jefferson still close enough to hear them and to observe through his telescope. He rode away, but his fears regarding the destruction of his home proved unjustified. Perhaps the British remembered the story of Jefferson’s kind treatment of several captured officers earlier in the war. The troops did threaten to shoot a slave, Martin Hemmings, unless he informed them of his master’s whereabouts, at which point the servant demonstrated his loyalty to Jefferson by replying, “Fire away, then.” Hemmings was left unharmed, and after a thorough search of the house and grounds, the British headed to Charlottesville.

Lt. Col. Tarleton was determined to capture colonial lawmakers. “Portrait of Sir Banastre Tarleton” by Joshua Reynolds, 1782. National Gallery, London. (Public domain)

As for Jack Jouett, he moved to Kentucky the year after his ride, where he married Sallie Robards, became a father to 12 children, established himself as a successful farmer, and served in the Kentucky legislature. He was a stout advocate for statehood and was undoubtedly pleased when in 1792 Kentucky became the second state to join the newly formed United States of America.

Though honors for his heroism on that night-long ride were belated, Jouett eventually received official recognition from the Virginia government for his exploit and was awarded a brace of fine pistols and a sword for his service.

The Power of One

Jack Jouett isn’t as famous as Paul Revere, in large part because of Longfellow’s poem “Paul Revere’s Ride” with its well-known opening lines “Listen, my children, and you shall hear / Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere.” Yet Jouett’s bravery and boldness that June night and the following day may have helped save the American Revolution. At the time, the Americans had no sure hope of victory—far from it—and the capture of patriots like Jefferson and Richard Henry Lee might have brought disastrous consequences. At the least, such a triumph would have severely damaged American morale.

Jouett also deserves our esteem for demonstrating a particularly American trait: individual initiative. Unlike Paul Revere, who worked with a committee of others discerning and attempting to thwart British intentions, Jouett acted alone and spontaneously. No one commanded him to deliver his warning; he asked no one for advice as to what he should do. At great risk to himself, he saddled up that bay mare and set out on his self-imposed mission.

To put aside our fears, doubts, and self-interests in the pursuit of liberty and a righteous cause: That is Jack Jouett’s greatest lesson for us all.

This article was originally published in American Essence magazine. 

Categories
Food Recipes

The ‘Poison Apple’

(Goffkein.pro/Shutterstock)

Men used to eat tomatoes in public to demonstrate their courage and might, and the ladies would faint upon witnessing such shocking scenes.

Scenes like these don’t originate from a Hollywood comedy—they actually happened in the United States back in the 18th century.

Today, tomatoes are widely known as an anti-aging superfood. They contain potassium and Vitamin C and are high in lycopene, which some studies show can reduce the risk of cancer and heart disease.

What many do not know is that once upon a time, tomatoes were grown in gardens as ornamental plants. They were fearfully nicknamed “poison apples” and were considered poisonous in North America for nearly 200 years.

If we tomato lovers could thank someone for dispelling the misconception, it would be one of our Founding Fathers, Thomas Jefferson. He was not only a politician; he was also known as a horticulturist, paleontologist, and foodie. When he served as the minister to France (1785–1789), he accumulated an enormous collection of European recipes and brought them back to America. Apparently, his taste in food has greatly influenced American food culture.

We don’t know for sure whether Jefferson brought the tomato seeds back home from Europe, but there is a record of him planting tomatoes in his backyard. Legend has it that Jefferson ate a tomato in front of his houseguests and, afterward, served delicious tomato dishes to them. There is no doubt that if the internet had existed back in the 18th century, “are tomatoes really edible?” and “did Thomas Jefferson die after eating a tomato?” would have been among the top searches.

In 1820, a man named Robert Johnson staged a “tomato trial” on the steps of a New Jersey courthouse. He ate a full basket of tomatoes—and he did not die.

In time, tomatoes became a popular fruit to consume. First Lady Jackie Kennedy had a favorite tomato soup recipe, which her staff compiled and distributed to anyone who wrote to the White House asking for her favorite recipes. Try your hand at this simple yet refreshing version of tomato soup.

Mrs. John F. Kennedy’s Iced Tomato Soup

Serves: 6

Ingredients

  • 6 large, ripe tomatoes, coarsely chopped
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • ¼ cup water
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • A dash of pepper
  • 2 tablespoons tomato paste
  • 2 tablespoons flour
  • 2 cubes chicken bouillon, dissolved in 2 cups boiling water
  • 1 cup heavy cream

Directions

  1. Combine tomatoes, onion, water, salt, and pepper in a saucepan.
  2. Cook over moderate heat for 5 minutes.
  3. Combine tomato paste with flour and add to tomatoes with chicken bouillon.
  4. Simmer gently for 3 minutes.
  5. Pass the mixture through a fine sieve.
  6. Chill several hours.
  7. Before serving, add cream.
  8. Season with salt to taste if necessary. Garnish each serving with a thin tomato slice if desired.

Recipe from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Categories
The Great Outdoors

Natural Bridge State Park in Virginia

(Jean S. for Virginia State Parks)

One of Virginia’s most amazing architectural treasures wasn’t formed by the hand of man at all, and it’s listed in the National Register of Historic Places. Thomas Jefferson once owned it. George Washington is said to have surveyed its location as a young lad of 17—though he was fully commissioned as a surveyor with a certification from the College of William & Mary. The future president, according to local lore, even carved his initials in the stone of it, though that story is simply not provable. Frederic Church made a painting of it as well.

Virginia’s Natural Bridge has stood, amazing those who have beheld it, since long before European settlers ever came to the Great Valley of Virginia. Spanning the limestone gorge of Cedar Creek in Rockbridge County, Virginia, the 215-foot-tall Natural Bridge today carries a U.S. highway, Route 11, across the chasm. It’s perhaps the only formation of its type to be listed as a highway bridge by the Virginia Department of Transportation.

Formed by the elements, Natural Bridge is all that remains of the roof of an ancient cavern, the bulk of which collapsed into Cedar Creek long ago. The first European to write about the bridge was John Peter Salling, who in 1742 was among five Virginia explorers departing from the region on a journey to the Mississippi River. Thomas Jefferson purchased the 157-acre tract of land that contains the bridge in 1774. The surveyor of record is James Tremble, though Washington may have worked for him. Interestingly enough, Tremble’s survey makes no mention of the Natural Bridge.

“Natural Bridge” by Flavius Fisher, part of the Lora Robins Collection of Virginia. (Public Domain)

Jefferson himself spares no words in his “Notes on the State of Virginia” (1787) description:

The Natural Bridge, the most sublime of nature’s works, though not comprehended under the present head, must not be pretermitted. It is on the ascent of a hill, which seems to have been cloven through its length by some great convulsion. The fissure, just at the bridge, is by some admeasurements, 270 feet deep, by others only 205. It is about 45 feet wide at the bottom, and 90 feet at the top; this of course determines the length of the bridge, and its height from the water, its breadth in the middle is about 60 feet, but more at the ends, and the thickness of the mass at the summit of the arch, about 40 feet. A part of this thickness is constituted by a coat of earth, which gives growth to many large trees. The residue, with the hill on both sides, is one solid rock of lime-stone. The arch approaches the semi-elliptical form; but the larger axis of the ellipses, which would be the cord of the arch, is many times longer than the transverse. Though the sides of this bridge are provided in some parts with a parapet of fixed rocks, yet few men have resolution to walk to them, and look over into the abyss. You involuntarily fall on your hands and feet, creep to the parapet, and peep over it.

Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Va., with his wife Pam. He teaches studio art, with a good deal of art history thrown in, to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Coop. Kirchman is an avid hiker and loves exploring the hidden wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Categories
Arts & Letters

American Classicism and the ‘Gentleman Architect’ Thomas Jefferson

The Virginia State Capitol rendered in an 1830 watercolor by William Goodacre. (Public Domain)

In 1784 Thomas Jefferson found himself in France as our first ambassador. While he was there he fell in love. Arrested by its striking classical beauty, the patriot became smitten with a small Roman temple in Nîmes known as the Maison Carrée (square house). Describing it as “the most perfect model existing of what might be called cubic architecture,” Jefferson sketched a design for the Capitol of Virginia, to be built in Richmond. “Very simple, noble beyond expression,” he continued in praise of the original, as he and French architect Charles-Louis Clérisseau collaborated on their new design. Completed in 1788, it was, according to architectural historian George Heard Hamilton, “the first building to be so called in modern times, and the first since antiquity specifically intended for republican legislative functions … the State Capitol in Richmond, Virginia.”

The Maison Carrée in Nîmes, France, became Thomas Jefferson’s inspiration for the Virginia Capitol in Richmond. (Krzysztof Golick, cc license)

But Jefferson had not actually visited the temple in Nîmes when he designed Virginia’s Capitol—he had only seen it in a lithograph. Two years after he drew the plans, he visited Nîmes and found himself “gazing whole hours at the Maison quarée, like a lover at his mistress,” he wrote at the time. It is a fitting beginning for America’s love affair with classical architecture. Jefferson is known primarily as a founding father and statesman, but in his day, men of letters were often schooled in the principles of building design. As a prominent landowner, he would have directed the construction of his house and farm buildings, while as a civic leader, he would have done so for important public buildings as well. The Virginia State Capitol’s story really began in 1785, when the Commonwealth of Virginia’s Director of Public Buildings sent a letter to Paris, asking Jefferson for an edifice design. It was to be built on Shockoe Hill, overlooking the falls of the James River, in Richmond. Jefferson considered the site to be a perfect location for a “temple to Liberty or Justice,” and studied a number of Greek and Roman temples as potential models.

The 18th-century excavation of Pompeii had led to the publishing of some wonderfully illustrated books that became widely available in print for just such a time as his. The rich engravings of “L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures” (“Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams”), by Bernard de Montfaucon, and Andrea Palladio’s “I quattro libri dell’architettura” (“The Four Books of Architecture”) would inspire America’s first classicists. When Jefferson designed the Virginia Capitol building in collaboration with Clérisseau, he based his design on just such an engraving. The bibliophile Jefferson found in France a wealth of material to inspire him, but how could he adequately convey his designs to builders an ocean away?

The builders in Virginia were skilled in working with native materials such as clay-fired brick and carved wood, often working with minimal plans as they replicated the Georgian architecture brought from England. Virginia’s Capitol would require much more guidance. Architectural model-making was already a high art in France, so Jefferson commissioned Jean-Pierre Fouquet, a master modeler, to construct a 1-60 (where 1 inch equals 5 feet) detailed model in plaster of Paris. Fouquet didn’t work cheaply, so Jefferson apparently ordered only the front and sides, leaving the back to be added later. He was compelled to explain that it was “absolutely necessary for the guide of workmen not very expert in their art.”

The Virginia Capital as it appears today—a “temple to Liberty or Justice.” (Public Domain)

Fouquet had an impressive résumé. Jefferson wrote of him: “an artist who had been employed by the … ambassador of France to Constantinople, in making models of the most celebrated remains of ancient architecture in that country.” Indeed, his work would inform the high design of L’École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts). It also informed the work of Virginia’s most celebrated architectural amateur. Fouquet’s model for the Virginia Capitol was quite detailed, right down to the positioning of tie rods. It was shipped to Virginia as a guide for the artisans—a proportional representation of Maison Carrée to be sure. But today it shows one major change that Jefferson made: the fluted Corinthian columns of the original have been replaced with simpler Ionic columns. Perhaps this was a kindness to the artisans who had to build it. Perhaps it was a matter of taste. At some point in the 1870s, Jefferson sketched a design concept for a future Virginia Capitol that featured the Ionic order.

Jefferson himself would not return to Virginia from France until 1789, meaning his most prominent civic design was built entirely without his direct supervision. The builders, possibly led by Samuel Dobie, eliminated the front stairs, opting instead for a couple of smaller side entrances. This was done to provide better lighting for the basement offices. The result was a grand portico awkwardly perched on a raised foundation. Jefferson’s interior design was radically changed as well. A gallery was constructed in the meeting space, supported by brackets. There would be no columns—Jefferson had wanted columns. This design change would prove disastrous when it collapsed in 1870, injuring 251 people and killing 62.

Initially, the Virginia Capitol and Jefferson’s other works were not painted white. Tan- and sand-colored paint added contrast between pilasters and panels, mimicking the colors found in antiquity. Stucco and white paint were added around the turn of the century. In 1904, classical architect John Kevan Peebles designed two wings to house the assembly chambers, attached by hyphens to each side of the original building. The front stairs envisioned by Jefferson were added as well. Peebles would later distinguish himself by designing pavilions for the 1907 Jamestown Tercentennial Exhibition, Virginia’s first world’s fair. One thing that has remained constant in the Virginia Capitol building is the display of the 1788 life sculpture of George Washington, by Jean-Antoine Houdon, which has remained in the central rotunda since its arrival in 1796.

If 19th-century engravings are any indication, the building seems to have indeed become symbolic of Jefferson’s civic ideals. It rises above the bustle of the city like the Parthenon above Athens in a number of artistic representations. Jefferson would continue to influence American civic architecture. Both his Monticello estate and his subsequent design for the University of Virginia’s Academical Village are directly inspired by Andrea Palladio’s illustrations of Roman villas. The Pantheon inspired his central building at the University. As these classical forms took shape in brick and wood, Jefferson became a hands-on manager. He would make numerous changes to Monticello, tearing down and rebuilding whole portions of it. He personally designed three Virginia county courthouses, as well as a number of private homes. His enduring work has inspired legions of Virginia builders since.

Bob Kirchman is an architectural illustrator who lives in Augusta County, Virginia, with his wife Pam. He teaches studio art (with a good deal of art history thrown in) to students in the Augusta Christian Educators Homeschool Coop. Kirchman is an avid hiker and loves exploring the hidden wonders of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Categories
Arts & Letters

An ‘Academical Village’ as a Model for a New Republic

"A Map of the State of Virginia," 1827, by Herman Böÿe, engraved by Benjamin Tanner, features this illustration of the University of Virginia's Academical Village, as seen in 1826. (Herman Böÿe’s 1859 Map of Virginia. Library of Congress)

If you had traveled with the Marquis de Lafayette to the Piedmont region of Virginia in 1824, you would have been amazed to come upon a beautifully proportioned village being built in the finest tradition of Renaissance planning. Ten pavilions connected by colonnades extending from a great building resembling the Roman Pantheon rose impressively above the rolling fields of Albemarle County. Lafayette had come as the guest of Thomas Jefferson to the University of Virginia’s nascent Academical Village, Jefferson’s last major architectural project. Lafayette and Jefferson dined together with James Madison and almost 400 dignitaries on the top floor of the still-unfinished Rotunda (the recreated Pantheon) and savored the view of the surrounding countryside.

R.D. Ward wrote of the occasion: “The meats were excellent, and each eye around us beamed contentment. It was contentment arising from the performance of the most sacred, the most grateful duty. It was the offering of liberty to him who had gratuitously aided to achieve it. In the language of Mr. Madison, it was ‘Liberty, where virtue was the guest, and gratitude the feast.’”

Andrea Palladio inspired the ‘Academical Village,’ a Renaissance village in frontier America. (Bob Kirchman)

The university that Jefferson so proudly presented to his compatriot in the cause of liberty was a project that the third president had long cherished in his heart. The seeds were first planted when Jefferson himself was a student at the College of William & Mary, located in Williamsburg, the capital of Colonial Virginia. Jefferson began acquiring what would become his extensive collection of books—and the first library of the University of Virginia. He purchased a treatise on classical architecture, in a shop close to the college, and so began his study of the art of building. He would eventually acquire “A Book of Architecture” and “The Rules for Drawing the Several Parts of Architecture,” by James Gibbs; “Parallèle de l’architecture antique avec la moderne” (“A parallel of the ancient architecture with the modern”), by Roland Fréart de Chambray and Charles Errard; as well as “The Four Books of Architecture,” by Andrea Palladio. He was certainly also acquainted with Bernard de Montfaucon’s “L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures” (“Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams”), which features a detailed illustration of the Roman Pantheon. These were the guiding texts for America’s most prolific amateur architect as he set to work designing an institution of higher learning.

The Pantheon was the model for Thomas Jefferson’s Rotunda. Bernard de Montfaucon’s “L’antiquité expliquée et représentée en figures” (“Antiquity Explained and Represented in Diagrams”) provides a detailed drawing. (L’Antiquité expliquée et représentée by Bernard de Montfaucon, public domain)
The Rotunda is actually smaller than the Roman Pantheon. (Bob Kirchman)

When young Jefferson attended William & Mary, it was essentially housed in one large building, the Wren Building, which still dominates one end of Duke of Gloucester Street today. Jefferson had proposed an addition to the College of William & Mary in the late 1700s, along with a few proposals for reform of that institution—they weren’t well-received by the administration, leading Jefferson to pursue his vision in Charlottesville, Virginia, as his career drew to a close. The villa designs of Palladio, the great Renaissance architect, had inspired Jefferson’s own home, Monticello, and furthermore, on a plot of land visible from the “Little Mountain,” would also inspire a new kind of college campus—a fitting “academical village” for a new republic. Renaissance architecture had sought to open up the congestion of medieval towns with plazas and squares, and Leonardo da Vinci had even conceptualized a redesign of Milan along those lines in the wake of deadly bubonic plague outbreaks that ravaged the city in 1484 and 1485.

But it was a French hospital that likely gave Jefferson his most powerful inspiration. The Hôtel-Dieu had a unique problem that Jefferson became aware of when he was in Paris. This hospital in the heart of the city had been the center of France’s health care system since the Middle Ages. It was housed in a single building that was overcrowded and conducive to the spread of disease. Louis XVI had been concerned by reports of its mortality rate. In 1787, plans for four separate hospitals that could replace Hôtel-Dieu were drafted by Jean-Baptiste Le Roy with assistance from scientists Pierre Samuel du Pont de Nemours and the Marquis de Condorcet, both of whom were friends of Jefferson. Le Roy’s plans called for a series of pavilions connected by colonnades, with a Palladian site plan for each campus. Though they were never actually built, these campus designs might have inspired Jefferson to write in support of the hospital model for Virginia’s new university: “An academic village instead of a large and common den of noise, filth, and fetid air. It would afford the quiet retirement so friendly to study and lessen the dangers of fire, infection, and tumult. This village form is preferable to a single great building for many reasons, particularly on account of fire, health, economy, peace, and quiet.”

Pavilion VII, view at the colonnade. (Bob Kirchman)

By 1817, Jefferson had laid out his campus in an open “U” similar to Le Roy’s designs, collaborating with Dr. William Thornton and Benjamin Henry Latrobe. The Rotunda would command one end of his lawn, flanked by 10 pavilions connected by two colonnades. The other end would open to the rolling hills of Albemarle County. He said of it: “Now what we wish is that these pavilions they will shew themselves above the dormitories, be models of taste and good architecture, & of a variety of appearance, no two alike, so as to serve as specimens for the architectural lectures.” Indeed, each featured a distinctive employment of one of the classical orders in columns and entablature. The lower level of each pavilion would house classrooms, and the upper story would be an apartment for a professor. “Each unit, identified with one of the 10 ‘sciences useful in our time’ was to be inhabited by a professor who taught that subject.” Students were to be housed in rooms that opened into the colonnade. An outer series of buildings known as the Range provided additional housing and kitchens.

A view down the colonnade connecting the pavilions. (Bob Kirchman)

The University of Virginia was still being constructed when Lafayette visited in 1824. Classes began the next year, with five professors (all recruited from Europe) and a few dozen students. The faculty eventually expanded with the hiring of American teachers. As the student population grew, the need for more space prompted the building of a four-story annex to the Rotunda in 1851. This huge addition created precisely the kind of structure Jefferson had sought to avoid, but he had passed in 1826 and was no longer there to guide improvements. In 1895, the Rotunda Annex burned to the ground. In an attempt to save the original Rotunda, the portico connecting it to the burning annex was dynamited. The fire was still able to leap to the Rotunda and it was gutted. Though students and faculty rushed in to salvage books and artworks, much of Jefferson’s library was lost. Today the Rotunda stands after many restorations, still very much a “temple of knowledge and enlightenment.”

The curved brick walls of the Rotunda. (Bob Kirchman)