The main portion of the present court house was built by order of court,
1803. A committee of three produced the plan. (Mr. Jefferson was not one
of these, but is said to have approved the design.) We do not know the
style of the original portico; the present entrance and T-front are
post-Civil War. The grounds held the usual whipping post, stocks, and
pillory, and as late as 1857 the whipping post was restored.
The court house long served as the town’s public building, and the
denominations used it in rotation. Writing about this in 1822, Mr.
Jefferson says:
“In our Richmond there is much fanaticism, but chiefly among the
women. In our village of Charlottesville there is a good degree of
religion, with but a small spice of fanaticism. We have four sects,
but without either a church or a meeting house. The court house is the
common temple, one Sunday in the month to each. Here Episcopal and
Presbyterian, Methodist and Baptist, meet together, join in hymning
their maker, listen with attention to each others’ preachers, and all
mix in society in perfect harmony.”
Mr. Jefferson was a frequent worshipper, riding down from Monticello and
bringing a light cane which opened into a seat—his own invention. It was
not unusual to see on this green a president and two ex-presidents in
friendly talk with neighbors. Mr. Madison, who lived some twenty-odd
miles off in Orange County, was a close friend of the Albemarle two:
they were called “the great trio,” as in close harmony they governed the
United States for some twenty-four years. Mr. Madison was a member of
the University Board, and, oddly enough, president of the Albemarle
Agriculture Society.
An interesting old document, originally deposited in the court house was
the will of Thaddeus Kosciusko, the gallant Pole who came to America to
fight in the Revolution. He left it with Mr. Jefferson, and appointed
him executor. When Jefferson heard of his death in 1817 he had the will
recorded in the office of the Albemarle Circuit Court, where it remained
on file until May, 1857. It was then transmitted to the Secretary of the
Commonwealth, to be deposited in the State Library.
Mr. Jefferson’s own will, executed here, contained many interesting and
touching features. Although overwhelmed with debts, he freed five of his
servants. This portion reads as follows: