Introduction
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<p>University of Virginia Maps and Plats, 1856-1869, n.d., Accession # RG-31/1/2:2.532 No.2, Special Collections, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Va.</p>
<p>Old map of gardens, lots, and proposed Improvements</p>
Introduction
After the completion of the Rotunda Annex, the Board of Visitors sought a professional to order the University grounds and supervise the construction and maintenance of its buildings. In 1858 they hired William Abbott Pratt, an architect who had overseen the painting of the Annex’s “School of Athens,” as the first Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds. Pratt devised a plan that formalized paths, roads, and the professors’ garden plots and called for the removal or relocation of outbuildings. Pratt’s plan is one of the first drawings that maps the lives and work of the enslaved laborers at the University.