Enclosure: Thomas Jefferson’s Drawing and Specifications for a Jail, [before 4 July 1823], enclosure no.1 to Thomas Jefferson to Joseph C. Cabell, 4 July 1823
Enclosure
Drawing and Specifications for a Jail
[before 4 July 1823]

The necessary in each room should be a box with a hole in the top, and covered more over by a tight lid.1 behind it in the external wall should be an arch high & wide enough to draw out the ordure occasionally, which arch should be secured2 by a grated iron door. lime should almost daily be thrown into the feces to neutralise them.3
a solitary cell is proposed to put ill behaved prisoners into occasionally, as a punishment.
The best way of securing the floors of the Criminal apartments is with blocks of rough4 stone 2. or 3. feet long, set up an end, in as even,5 close & solid order as possible, the interstices then filled with grout and gravel, and the top made smooth with mortar & gravel for the floor, and, for further security as well as cleanliness lay the floor6 over with sheet iron, it’s edges lapped on one another and well7 riveted together.
A covering of tin costs 10.D. a square and will last for centuries. the cover of this building would be of 25. squares if of pediment pitch, to wit 10.f
suppose the foundation of the walls 3 f. the walls 9 f high.
let the outer walls be, | their foundation 3½ bricks thick |
their upper walls8 3 br. thick |
the partition walls | their foundation 2½ bricks thick |
their upper walls 2 br. thick |
the | outer walls | 180 f. running measure |
inner do | 154 f. |
they will take 137,844 bricks.
the floors of the 4. criminal rooms at 2 f depth take 45. perch stone
and 584. sq. f. of sheet iron | @ 18.D. pr sq. the iron. | 105. | D. | |
puttg on | @ 4.D | 23. | 369 | |
128. | 36 | |||
6. stoves open @ 15.D. |
MS (MHi); in TJ’s hand, with drawing on recto and specifications on verso.
1. TJ here canceled “opposite.”
2. Word interlined in place of “closed.”
3. Reworked from “thrown in at the box hole within to neutralize the feces.”
4. Word interlined.
5. Word interlined.
6. Reworked from “or for further security the floor may be laid.”
7. Preceding five words interlined in place of “and.”
8. TJ here canceled “9 f pitch.”
9. Line interlined, as well as rule and total below.
Index Entries
- architecture; and TJ’s plans for county jails search
- building materials; bricks search
- building materials; iron search
- building materials; mortar search
- building materials; stone search
- building materials; tin search
- Cumberland County, Va.; jail search
- drawings; by TJ search
- household articles; stoves search
- iron; sheet search
- iron; used for jails search
- jails and prisons; in Cumberland Co. search
- jails and prisons; in Nelson Co. search
- jails and prisons; TJ’s plan for search
- Jefferson, Thomas; Writings; Drawing and Specifications for a Jail search
- lime (mineral); for privies search
- Nelson County, Va.; jail search
- privies; at Nelson Co. jail search
- stoves; in jails search
- tin; roofs search
- Virginia; jails in search