HOTELKEEPERS OF THE ACADEMICAL VILLAGE

[Julia Munro. Last updated: 02/06/18]

Student John Thompson Brown's (P36641) room at the Massie's (P45901) boarding house (Hotel A), 1880

The tables below list the assigned hotelkeepers of the University of Virginia, from the earliest managers of the first constructed hotels (A-D); through to those managing all six hotels (A^[1], B^[2], C^[3], D^[4], E^[5], and F^[6]) in the Civil War era. Also listed[7] are individuals who had off-precincts or "out-boarding houses" (PL8557), whether official or unofficial university residences, near or within town, and other known locations such as Monroe Hill (PL8505), Carr Hill (PL8512), and so on. For information on the stores, taverns, and places of significance beyond the precincts, please see Early Store Owners.

Although some hotelkeepers are listed prior to 1826, the Board of Visitors Minutes from December 5, 1826 confirm Warner W. Minor, "Edwin Conway, J. B. Richeson, and George W. Spotswood, as suitable persons to keep hotels of the University." From 1826 through to the 1870s, one can trace the sometimes-convoluted history of the hotel managers, with Keepers (and often their families and attendant slaves): moving from one hotel to another or to "the city" (Charlottesville) to keep their own "out boarding" houses; staying for various lengths of time at a hotel (from one year to twenty-one years); or being replaced by their wives (such as Mrs. Gray, Mrs. Conway, Mrs. Minor, and so on) - and this does not even account for the intermarrying between Hotelkeeper families, Professors, and even students, nor the growing number of lodging available as the university itself grew (such as University properties on Monroe Hill, city properties, etc.) 

Convoluted as it may be, the timeline of hotelkeepers is significant for the very reason of it being so entangled: to know who was the hotelkeeper at a particular point of time is to also know a host of other relevant information, such as the number of slaves within that household, student occupants, adjacent Faculty households, and the many interactions and conflicts that occured. A "spatial" understanding of who was housed where and when, in short, allows present-day audiences to better understand the many University records that revolve so much around the pivotal information of place and the regulation of bodies within the Academical Village. Student infractions, for instance, known for being particularly frequent in the often-literally rebellious early years, often record the attempts to control the Student Body via the regulation of its bodies: punishments were decreed for students being without the university limits (including being seen in taverns or a "house outside precinct" known for its girls of "bad character") and for unruly gatherings within the precincts (dancing, eating, gambling, dueling, or worse, revolting against the university).

To best know the earliest history of Jefferson's University, then, is to know the significance of the places wherein the lived actions occured; the significance of which cannot be underestimated in the uncovering of the history of the enslaved who, so often without the individual markers of a static name, birthdate, and family, can be known by place: a "female slave" of Professor Patterson, the servants of Professor Bonnycastle's "cellar rooms," or "a boy and a woman" occupying the "cellar of Pavilion VI."

Notes Regarding Tables: The tables below provide the key, or unique identifier, for each person and hotel; use the key to search for references to that person/place in the primary records of the JUEL database (click on the keys below, or go directly to the Search page).

"?" indicates missing information or that a person or date range has to be verified. Some table Information was derived from the University of Virginia Office of the Architect Hotel F Historic Structure Report. 

Above: Map of the Academical Village 

[1] HOTEL A PL8432

[3] HOTEL C PL8434 

[4] HOTEL D PL8435