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Thomas Jefferson, the third president of the United States, was among other things, a man of habit. He awoke each morning at sunrise and immediately washed his feet in very cold water. He thought this ritual would ward off colds and other respiratory infections. Jefferson would then begin recording the temperature and other weather related measurements on small porcelain cards. The cards were held together by a metal clasp, much like a small notebook. When the cards were filled, Jefferson transferred his data into a leather bound volume, wiped the porcelain cards clean, and began filling them up again with new meteorological data.

Another of Jefferson’s routines were his much enjoyed walks. A story recounted to me by a Jefferson descendent illuminates the variety of observations he made during his strolls. While serving as president, Thomas Jefferson was walking and noticed two boys playing in the dirt. On further inspection, he realized they were digging out a groundhog’s hole. Now it must be remembered that in Jefferson’s day the president’s picture was not on television or often in newspapers. Many people didn’t even recognize the president when they saw him. The two boys were no different. When Jefferson asked the boys why they were digging in this mammal’s habitat, they reluctantly replied that they had to catch a groundhog. Thinking this peculiar, Jefferson further probed the boys as to why they had to do such a thing. Perturbed by the man’s questions, the elder boy replied that they had to catch a groundhog because the President of the United States of America was coming to dinner that night. Remembering his scheduled dinner engagement with a constituent and his family, Jefferson was quite disturbed. However, he later remarked that on that night he tasted the best groundhog that he had ever eaten.

After his presidency, Jefferson took a grand challenge upon himself—to found a great public university. And, by 1819 the University of Virginia was born. Describing the establishment, Jefferson said, “This institution of my native state, the hobby of my old age, will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind, to explore and to expose every subject susceptible to its contemplation.”

For his university, Jefferson wanted to do away with the massive central building, which was the common plan in the New World. He wished instead to design a university with a more European approach. He envisioned “an Academical Village”—a campus of many small buildings. The final design of the University of Virginia consisted of: a large central rotunda, a great lawn that was surrounded by 10 pavilions, 10 formal gardens, and 2 ranges, each containing 5 buildings with dormitories and three hotels or dinning halls.

The great rotunda was, and is still, the hub of the University of Virginia campus. Its first floor contained three oval rooms that were used for large lectures. The dome on top of the building served as the University library and meeting hall. The bookcases were built into the edge of the round wall, leaving the center of the dome open for academic gatherings, religious meetings, and social functions.

The rotunda was based on the design of the Pantheon in Rome. Jefferson wanted American born students, who may not have seen Europe, to appreciate the classical architecture of the great continent. The building today is heralded as an impressive architectural gem, but at the time of its construction, many didn’t see it that way. In fact, numerous conservative ministers denounced a building modeled after a pagan temple as sinful and evil. Despite their outcries, the round, domed building and its popularity persisted.

The Rotunda faced the central lawn, which was flanked by ten pavilions. The first floor of each pavilion contained classrooms, and the second floor contained a faculty residence, where a professor and his family lived. Between the pavilions, single rows of student rooms and a colonnade connected the structures. In the back of each pavilion was a unique formal garden, for a total ten gardens in all. The idea of professors and students living side-by-side was a British one. It is a cultural and academic phenomena that had gone on for centuries and can still be found in great universities in the United Kingdom today.

At the outer edge of the gardens, were the ranges, both facing outward, away from the gardens. This is where the majority of the students lived, in small, cramped single rooms. Each range contained five buildings of students rooms. Also contained in each range, within the outer edges and in the center building, was what Jefferson called “hotels.” These hotels (6 in all—3 on each range) were each occupied by an innkeeper, who resided there and cooked meals for young men assigned to his particular hall.

The first students at the University of Virginia were, of course, wealthy white males. These young men brought with them many books and even their own personal servants and attendants. They also bought with them many birds, like roosters, as cock fighting was a major pastime for the students.

Jefferson’s academical village was a realized ambition, based solidly on his ideas of architecture and education. Jefferson wrote a letter to Hugh White in 1810 describing his notion of a University. Remarkably, the University of Virginia follows the principles outlined in the letter perfectly.

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.

Thomas Jefferson’s Academical Village is still standing today in the very center of the modern University of Virginia campus. It is still in use as Jefferson intended. The Rotunda no longer serves as library, but is still the academic, cultural, and social center of the University. Many of the pavilions still serve as classrooms, while others house offices. Some of the student rooms are occupied by students as they have been for centuries.

Much of the academical village has been updated with electricity, but due to respect for the structures’ historical accuracy, many other modern luxuries are still lacking to a great degree. An acquaintance whose son is currently attending the University of Virginia informed me that each year a few students are selected for the honor of living in the academical village. It is an historic, prestigious honor, even in the middle of a cold winter’s night when the student has to climb out of bed, exit their tiny little room, and cross a snowy quadrangle in order to get to a building with a modern bathroom.

Today the Academical Village is open to the public, and guided tours meet daily. I encourage anyone who will be in the Charlottesville area to stop by the University of Virginia for a tour of one of the nation’s most historic academic sites.

Thomas Jefferson died in 1826. He did so many amazing things in his lifetime, that when he wrote his own epitaph, he felt that being the third President of the United States of America was not among his most important accomplishments of his lifetime. Therefore, he did not include it on his marker. If fact Jefferson’s gravestone reads:

“Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of Independence, of the Statute of Virginia for religious freedom, and the Father of the University of Virginia.”