Celebrate Poe

Rot, Riot, and Rebellion, Part Two

October 03, 2022 George Bartley Season 2 Episode 133
Celebrate Poe
Rot, Riot, and Rebellion, Part Two
Show Notes Transcript

This episode is the second part of a look at the book “Rot, Riot, and Rebellion” about the initial years of the University of Virginia.  The focus is on (naturally) Edgar Allan Poe’s tumultuous times as one of the youngest students - his brillance in studies, as well as his gambling problems. The episode ends with a look at the death of Thomas Jeffersona and the reaction of the student body at the University.


  • 00:00 Intro
  • 00:59 Entrance of the ghost of Mr. Poe
  • 01:48 Background
  • 05:00 Paying for classes
  • 06:02 Poe’s accomplishments at the University of Virginia
  • 9:25  Forced to turn to gambling
  • 10:40 Violence on campus
  • 15:36 Mr. Jefferson’s illness
  • 22:37 Mr. Jefferson’s death
  • 26:21 Back to violence
  • 27:51 Conclusion
  • 28:31 Future episodes
  • 29:28 Sources
  • 29:43 Outro


  •  What were some of the initial problems of the University?
  • What were Poe’s academic strengths at the University?
  • John Allan gave Poe money to pay for how many professors?
  • What were some of Poe’s academic achievements?
  • Did Poe feel a complete lack of pressure when he was away from John Allan?
  • How many students were on the “Sheriff’s list”?
  • What said that the University “had descended into a state of “insubordination, lawlessness,       and riot.”?
  • Why did some of the students feel that they could resort to violence?




George speaks - plain text
Ghost of Mr. Poe speaks - italics

Welcome to Celebrate Poe.  My name is George Bartley,and this is episode
133 - Rot and Riot - Part Two.  The music for the intro and outro for this podcast is from ‘Come Rest in This Bosom’ - said to be Edgar Allan Poe; favorite song.

Now we ended  the first podcast episode dealing with the book Rot, Riot, and Rebellion with a brief look at the sanitary conditions - or more accurately the UNSANITARY conditions of the University of Virginia during its early days.

00:59 Entrance of the ghost of Mr. Poe

And here comes the ghost of Mr. Poe

GHOST SOUND ENTER

Greetings Mr. Bartley.

Hello Mr. Poe

You know, Mr. Bartley - After the previous episode of the podcast I can better understand you wanting to explore some of the - how should I say it - some of the more negative aspects of the first years to the University of Virginia.  Even a cursory examination gives one a better understanding of the total experience regarding my life at the University.

I am glad you agree with me, Mr. Poe.

01:48 Background

Yes, one must consider the problems of the University - it was not a classical  Utopia - but an educational  facility that was raw and rather unfinished, when I arrived on a cold day in February 1826.  It would be accurate to surmise that I was young, ambitious, and eager to start a new life after my  troubled childhood. As stated earlier in this podcast, my parents, an alcoholic father and what may have been a high-strung young mother, were traveling actors who often left their children with friends. My father drank excessively and eventually abandoned the family. My mother died young of tuberculosis. When I was only two, I was taken in by the Allans, a rather well-to-do Richmond family. John Allan, a merchant, was a somewhat uneducated man who had done rather well for himself financially. He was a social climber who understood that an education was a boost up the economic ladder. Perhaps he saw in me a chance to bring a family member into the ranks of scholarship.

As the podcast has discussed earlier, you came to the University of Virginia already polished by a brief education in England.  How many young Americans can say that they basically studied 5 years abroad?  Perhaps Fulbright scholars today study abroad for several years, but that is on the undergraduate or graduate level.

That  is a most interesting - tho somewhat irrelevant observation - Mr. Bartley.  Now it is true that I had read widely for my age and studied French and Latin.   In Richmond, I studied more Latin, as well as Greek, and used a tutor to prepare for the university. In Charlottesville, I enrolled in the School of Ancient Languages and the School of Modern Languages. While most students enrolled in three schools, John Allan only gave me enough money for two schools.  Perhaps he felt that this was some kind of way of  learning self-reliance but such an attitude is short-sighted at best..  I firmly believe it bordered on cruelty.  In other words, I could only afford to attend two schools.

05:00 Paying for classes

Could you explain a bit more about that system.

Yes, You see, students had to pay fifty dollars to attend the lectures of one professor, sixty dollars for two professors, and seventy-five dollars for three.  John Allan purposefully only gave me enough money for two professors.

However, I was far from a bad student.  I was aware of the fact that I could not depend on the wealth and reputation of my family to succeed - like the majority of my classmates, and applied myself to my studies.  While many of my classmates fought, gambled, and drank, indifferent and inattentive to their course work, I must admit that I excelled.

06:02 Poe’s accomplishments at the University of Virginia


Could you give us some examples of your accomplishments and activities?

Certainly! I joined the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, where I once argued on the topic “Heat and Cold.” I also sketched highly ornate figures in charcoal on the walls of my dorm room.  And often I read some of my stories to considerable acclaim from my classmates.  It is said that some of those same classmates were unsure whether my talents were most acute in drawing pictorial art or in writing literary stories.


Some scientists today belief that says some interesting things about your mind - that you were a right brain, as well as a left brain person.

Be that as it may, I have a story to relate that you may find interesting.  Once, a classmate with whom I had chipped in to buy a copy of Byron’s Poems walked in to find me drawing Byron’s image on his ceiling in crayon. The life-size figure was a replica of the book’s engraved frontispiece of Byron. Perhaps that image of Byron, peering down through the soft candlelight, served as inspiration and and caused me to dream of winning glory as a writer.


Yes, Byron served as an inspiration for many writers.

I also hiked the wooded hills around Charlottesville - an area that may have served as inspiration of A Tale of the Ragged Mountain.

Could you fill us in a bit more about your academic experiences.

Certainly.  In Professor George Blaettermann’s modern languages courses, I could solve difficult translation problems that defeated my peers. Blaettermann took note of  my interest in the subject matter, and occasionally invited me  to his pavilion. Blaettermann later said, Poe often showed up, “especially when we had young ladies visiting us.”  At least one classmate found me to be what he called a loner: “The classmate said that I wore a melancholy face always and even his smile,—for I do not remember ever to have seen him laugh,—seemed to be forced.”


One would think that you would not have felt as pressured when you were away from John Allan.

Ah, I wish that my  college life was a smooth one. I seemed to be locked in a battle of wills with my autocratic foster father. I had no choice but to ask for money - certainly a reasonable request for a man in John Allan’s position - but Allan refused.

I can sympathize with your frustrations.  John Allan certainly HAD the money.

I was surrounded by rich young men, so I was forced to turn to gambling.

9:25  Forced to turn to gambling

Wasn’t gambling a dismissible offense?

Well, yes - but not often enforced.. And I also learned to drink hard.  Later I wrote  “I led a very dissipated life—the college at that period being shamefully dissolute,”. “Took the first honors, however, and came home greatly in debt.” A promissory note signed by that i signed on December 14, 1826, showed that I owed the Dan S. Mosby Company $41.36.

Could you tell us a bit mored about your gambling debt?   

I have no compunction relating the amount of my gambling debt - I believe that the reasons for the debts were beyond my personal control.  It is generally believed that I owed a gambling debt of $2,000  - an amount that would have been considerable for the time.

One might say that you lost in the dorm room - but what was happening outside of note?

10:40 Violence on campus

While I was playing games such as whist and loo, violence involving the students frequently took place.  In May od 1826, I wrote John Allan,
There have been several fights since you were here, One between Turner Dixon and [Robert] Blow from Norfolk excited more interest than any I have seen, for a common fight is so trifling an occurrence that no notice is taken of it—Blow got much the advantage in the scuffle—but Dixon posted him in very indecent terms.”

Could you explain what posted means?

Certainly.  To “post” someone was to accuse an opponent of dishonorable behavior in writing and then to post the note in public. Whatever Dixon wrote in his post outraged Blow’s hometown supporters. “The whole Norfolk party rose in arms,”& nothing was talked of for a week, but Dixon’s charge & Blow’s explanation—every pillar in the University was white with scratched paper.”

I think I understand.

I then went on to describe the escalating fight: “Dixon made a physical attack upon Arthur Smith one of Blow’s Norfolk friends—and a ‘very fine fellow.’ [H]e struck him with a large stone on one side of his head—whereupon Smith drew a pistol (which are all the fashion here and had it not missfired—would have put an end to the controversy.”  That incident chronicled was rather routine. Violence and drunkenness, for many reasons, were endemic.

I am sure you have more examples,

Oh yes. During the year, student Sterling F. Edmunds of Brunswick County, Virginia, whipped student Charles Peyton of Albemarle County, Virginia, with a cowhide. Edmunds had lost $200 playing all fours, a popular card game, in Peyton’s dorm room. Edmunds accused Peyton of cheating. Later hearing that an affronted Peyton planned to cane him, Edmunds struck first with his whip.


Somehow I think you have more examples.

Oh yes. In November, two other Virginia students, Turner Dixon (of Dixon vs. Blow notoriety) and Livingston Lindsay, were expelled for trying to fight a duel, a criminal act and the most odious offense a student could commit in the university’s eyes.  And two drunken students, William Cross of Albemarle County and William Emmet of New York were reprimanded for trying to waylay a professor’s carriage as he returned to his pavilion from church.

Sounds like the violence was becoming out of control - especially for a group of supposed Virginia gentlemen.

You are quite right, Mr. Bartley.The violence became so widespread that a grand jury was convened at the university’s request to end the “disturbances.” I later wrote in a letter to John Allan, “The Grand Jury met and put the students in a terrible fright—so much so that the lectures were unattended—and those whose names were up on the Sheriff’s list—traveled off into the woods & mountains—taking their beds and provisions along with them—there were about 50 on the list—so you may suppose the College was very well thinned.” The student body, in this second year of the university’s existence, numbered 177, and now 50 of them were fugitives from the law. The beleaguered faculty debated “urging the necessity of a competent police for this university.” As William Wertenbaker, the school’s librarian, noted, the university” “had descended into a state of “insubordination, lawlessness, and riot.”

It sounds like things could not have gotten worse.

Ah, but Mr. Bartley - events were to become quite tragic.

How?

15:36 Mr. Jefferson’s illness

You see, in the middle of a year of turmoil and tumult, calamity struck. Jefferson fell gravely ill, just when the university needed his reasoned guidance amid the violence  the most. Mr. Jefferson was eighty-three years old, far beyond the life expectancy of that time, and his six-foot-two-inch frame was now “bent and emaciated.” The university’s professor of medicine, Robley Dunglison, had become Jefferson’s personal physician shortly after arriving the year before, and he had treated the ex-president’s enlarged prostate, which caused Jefferson to urinate frequently. Now, the problem became far more serious:  Mr. Jefferson ate less and suffered from diarrhea. No longer could he ride his favorite horse, Eagle, along the rugged road that led from Monticello to the University of Virginia. On June 24, Jefferson wrote Dunglison a note begging the doctor to come see him. Jefferson, his strength waning, lacked the power to rise from his bed.”
“Jefferson’s mind, even as he lay dying, was consumed by what he felt was the potential failure of his university. For a decade, work on the school had enlivened Mr.. Jefferson; he had obsessed over the minutest details of its construction, even spying on the hundreds of workmen through a telescope placed atop Monticello. Overseer Edmund Bacon recalled the day that Jefferson himself laid out the very foundations of the school:


An Irishman named Dinsmore and I went along with him. As we passed through Charlottesville, 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 some time and then stuck down a peg. He struck 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.

Professor Tucker marveled at Jefferson’s stamina as the buildings rose and the professors and students arrived:

In getting the university into operation, Mr. Jefferson seemed to have regained the activity and assiduity of his youth. Every thing was looked into, every thing was ordered by him. He suggested the remedy for every difficulty and made the selection in every choice of expediency. Two or three times a week he rode down to the establishment to give orders to the proctor, and to watch the progress of the work still unfinished. Nor were his old habits of hospitality forgotten. His invitations to the professors and their families were frequent, and every Sunday some four or five of the
students dined with him.

I understand that you might have been one of those students who dined with Mr. Jefferson, but we don’t have solid historical evidence eitther way.


Be that as it may, student Henry Tutwiler had similar recollections of Jefferson as a hardworking octogenarian:

We use to see him afterwards as he passed our room on the eastern Range in his almost daily visits to the University. He was now in his 80-third year, and this ride of eight or ten miles on horseback over a rough mountain-road shows the deep interest with which he watched over this ‘child of his old age and why he preferred the more endearing title of Father to that of Founder. This is also shown in the frequent intercourse which” “which he kept up with the Faculty and students.

The dying Jefferson now lay on his narrow, canopied bed in the bedroom where he had often sought sanctuary. His bouts of diarrhea had lessened, though he probably suffered from severe dehydration and, according to Dunglison, his “powers were failing.”

“Until the 2nd and 3rd of July he spoke freely of his approaching death; made all his arrangements with his grandson, Mr. Randolph, in regard to his private affairs, and expressed his anxiety for the prosperity of the University,”

Dunglison wrote. Jefferson fell into a stupor on July 2, though he would occasionally regain consciousness. By July 3, his moments awake were few. At seven that evening, Jefferson woke, saw Dunglison, and said: “Ah! Doctor are you still there?” Jefferson’s voice was hoarse and almost inaudible. “Is it the 4th?” Whether or not Jefferson could hear him, Dunglison replied: “It soon will be.”

Jefferson’s grandson-in-law Nicholas Trist sat at Jefferson’s side at eleven that night and again Jefferson asked: “This is the Fourth?” Trist, knowing Jefferson’s desire to die on the Fourth of July—the fiftieth anniversary of the nation’s birth—ignored the question because[…]”“ he couldn’t bear to tell Jefferson that the Fourth was still an hour away.

But Jefferson immediately inquired again, “This is the Fourth?” Trist, torn by his grandfather-in-law’s suffering, nodded.


22:37 Mr. Jefferson’s death

“Ah,” Jefferson sighed, “just as I wished.” Jefferson’s strength carried him to the next day. He died at 12:50 p.m. on July 4, 1826. His university was a mere sixteen months old, still an infant. In nearby Charlottesville, cannons boomed. At the courthouse, the bell tolled to signal “that the spirit of the author of the Declaration of Independence had taken its flight from its tenement of clay.”

And in what can best be best be described as a historical coincidence - or maybe even more - history tells us that Mr. Jefferson and Mr. John Adams both passed away on tha same 4th of July. I know that Mr. Jefferson had directed that his funeral be simple, “without any pomp or ceremony whatever.” So on July 5, a warm, rainy day, his coffin was carried from Monticello down the mountain to the small family cemetery at its base. About forty mourners arrived to see the coffin resting on narrow planks across the open grave. Among the small group were his university professors, wearing crape on their left arms, and a small contingent of students.

Yes, and I was one of those students.

You most certainly WERE one of those students.  And Mr. Andrew K. Smith, a mourner, recalled seeing you, whom he described as “a high minded and honorable young man, though easily persuadednto his wrong.”

In his eulogy, friend and lawyer William Wirt claimed that Jefferson clasped his hands and said as he died: “Nunc dimittis,” or “Now lettest thou thy servant depart,” quoting Luke 2:29 Details of the burial were not made public, but some fifteen hundred people made their way up the mountain to find, to their disappointment, the grave already filled. “Jefferson penned his own epitaph, leaving instructions that his obelisk was to contain “the following inscription and not a word more”:

Here was buried Thomas Jefferson, Author of the Declaration of American Independence, Of the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom and Father of the University of Virginia.

The students at his university mourned him, recalling him as a humble man whose charm and empathy put even the most awkward young student at ease. “I well remember the first time I saw Mr. Jefferson,” a Mr Tutwiler was to later write - “It was in 1825, in the Proctor’s office, wither I had gone with some students on business. A tall, venerable gentleman, in plain but neat attire, entered the room and, bowing to the students, took his seat quietly in one corner. … I was struck by his plain appearance, and simple, unassuming manners.” 


26:21 Back to violence

But despite their admiration of Jefferson and their grief over his death, within several weeks, the students resumed the behavior that would threaten the existence of his university. The drinking and gambling began again, as did a widespread disregard for authority. The students were unconcerned about the consequence of their behavior; many no doubt knew they were destined for privileged futures.

That is a shame.

Yes, for example ”I later learned that student Jerman Baker of Richmond was caught trying to explode a bomb made of a quart bottle full of gunpowder outside a dorm room. A mob of students attacked the house of a Mr. Crawford and ripped the clothes off one of his slave girls. Student George Hoffman of New York explained that students assaulted the girl because they assumed “that she was one of the women who had infected the students with disease.” Crawford agreed to pay the students ten dollars as a “compromise,” an act that suggested she was a prostitute in his employ.


And with those observations, let me take my leave.

GHOST EXIT SOUND

To this day, the students at  the University of Virginia tend to refer to Thomas Jefferson as Mr. Jefferson as a sign of respect. So in conclusion, let me end this episode with a brief quote by Mr. Jefferson.

“The university will be based on the illimitable freedom of the human mind. For here we are not afraid to follow truth wherever it may lead, nor to tolerate error so long as freedom is left free to combat it.”

28:31 Future episodes

Join Celebrate for the rest of October as we take a special look at the history and celebration of Halloween - from ancient celebrations to some current festivities  - Halloween and its origins and development.  The following episode after that will take a look at some of Mr. Poe’s writings that are often viewed as having a connection to Haloween and its symbols.  Edgar Allan is often referred to as the Halloween poet, and I’d like to delve  into some of the complexities of his Halloween poems, as well as a two part look at The Black Cat.  And you can rest assured, that this is Poe’s story The Black Cat like you have never heard it before.

29:28 Sources

Sources include “ROT, RIOT, AND REBELLION: Mr. Jefferson’s Struggle to Save the UniversityThat Changed America by REX BOWMAN and CARLOS SANTOS,” and The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe by Edgar Allan Poe.

29:43 Outro

Thank you for listening to Celebrate Poe - a deep dive into the life, times, and works of America’s Shakespeare - Edgar Allan Poe.

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