“Just because of luck and geometry of the building, because it was bricked up, it survived the major fire in 1895”, project manager Matt Schiedt says.
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The Board of Visitors agreed, and in 1824, permission was granted stating the “rooms in the Basement story of the Rotunda, shall be, one of them for a Chemical laboratory; and the others for any necessary goal to which they may be adapted”.
Brian Hogg, the university’s senior historic preservation planner, said the discovery marks as the oldest example of early chemical education in the country.
The hearth’s fireboxes were discovered in the 1970s, but the rest of the lab remained hidden until workers began preparing for the latest round of renovations.
UVA stated in a news release that Jefferson planned for the lab to be built on the ground floor of the Rotunda to avoid pumping water to higher-level floors and because it was advantageous for experiments.
There are no plans to renovate or restore the lab because of its significance. As per officials, the hearth could have been designed for John Emmet, who was the school’s first professor of natural history. The heat exchange device was operated simply by turning a knob on the device.
The university authorities revealed that the room was sealed and situated in one of the lower floor walls of the rotunda, but then it was fortified from fire incidents in 1895 after a fire outbreak hit out on the building’s interior. It consists of a brick hearth, a complex ventilation system, and several controls created to manipulate the flow of heat, and is believed to be part of what had been a larger chemistry classroom. “The original arch above the opening will have to be reconstructed, but we hope to present the remainder of the hearth as essentially unrestored, preserving its evidence of use”.
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The hearth will be part of a permanent display once the two years of renovations are completed next spring. The alcove will not be directly accessible, but the chemical hearth will allow everyone to see what the Founding Father had cooked up in the past.
