Printed in Providence [R.I.] Patriot, 2 Dec. 1820, and elsewhere; undated extract, consisting of penultimate paragraph; at head of text: “interesting sketches. Extract of a letter from a Rhode-Islander, now residing in Virginia, to a gentleman in this town, dated November 14, 1820”; with date of Helme’s visit to Monticello confirmed by SJL entry recording delivery of introductory letters “by mr Helm” at that place on 7 Nov. 1820 (David Howell to TJ, 1 Sept. 1819; James Fenner to TJ, 19 Oct. 1819). In the remainder of the newspaper extract, Helme describes his travels “of about three hundred and twenty miles” that included departing 31 Oct. and staying 1 Nov. in Lynchburg, passing Poplar Forest, and visiting Natural Bridge and its neighboring saltpeter cave; traveling to Charlottesville by way of Lexington, Fairfield, Greenville, Waynesboro, and Rockfish Gap; visiting the University of Virginia, “which is on a very extensive scale” and “consists of four rows of buildings, which, when completed, are designed to be 900 feet in length, or indeed, agreeably to the present plan, they can be elongated at pleasure; there is an interval of ground between each row of about 250 feet in breadth; the buildings, which are six pavilions in each row, connected together by dormitories, are 40 feet deep; the situation is healthy, and commands a fine view of the adjacent country and of Monticello”; and, after leaving Monticello and visiting James Madison at Montpellier, departing 10 Nov. 1820.