Beloit College - Codex Yearbook (Beloit, WI)

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THE IJISTOA' lf OF BEL OIT COLLEGE. 21 Chapin, then only a trustee, read a sketch of the slender history thus far made out, Rev. Stephen Peet gave an account of the still more slender resources. Prof Stowe was to have made an elaborate address, but was prevented by illness, his place was taken by several others, who spoke, with a fire that is still remembered, as to the need of a college and the good that it could do. A lead box, nlled with articles of current interest and sealed, was put in place, and then, upon it, Father Kent, the President of the Board, set the corner-stone. The honest old building stands there yet, somewhat modernized and beautified, but substantially the same, having never yet shown so much as a crack in its walls. May the omen prove abundantly true. The First Teachers and Learners. October 15th of that year, tive young gentlemen , as an old history politely calls them, became the first Freshman class, S. T. Merrill, the principal of the Beloit Seminary, had charge of them through most of that year. They were taught at first in the same old basement, after- ward in the house on Pleasant Street, now owned by Miss King, and nnally, with the boys and girls of the Seminary, in Middle College. The names of four of that first class may be found at the head of the roll of the Alumni, the fifth was Strong lVadsworth: it was counted a sign of the future that Mr. Wadsworth, after taking half of his course at Beloit, was admitted at Yale to the class corresponding to the one that he had left. - April 27, 1848, J. J. Bushnell arrived, descending from Frink and Walker's stage at the door of the Rock River House, and hastening to find Rev. Dexter Clary, the Secretary of the Trustees. joseph Emer- son arrived on the 24th of May. These two young men, college-class- mates and somewhat experienced as college-tutors elsewhere, had been called and were now elected to divide the work of instruction, Mr. Bush- nell taking mathematics and Mr. Emerson the ancient languages. As a matter of fact, they divided the work on another line, Mr. Bushnell taking the business, and Mr. Emerson the teaching. Struggle. Nor was Mr. Bushnell's the less important task. The walls of Middle College had gone up as high as four thousand dollars would pay for and then had stopped, lloorless, rooiiess, windowless, bleak. The subscrip- tion had been reduced, as subscriptions generally are, and things looked dark. It was the low tide that always tends to follow the flood of

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20 C ODE X. Street to the river. Prospect Street stretched across the campus and through to Clary, then Fourth, Street. Chapin, then Second, Street stretched to where Middle College now stands, there crossing Prospect Street, and turning to wind down the ravine and connect with what was then the head of Pleasant Street. All these streets were hardly more than map-names, for people drove almost at will wherever the undergrowth had been broken down. L. G. Fisher, A. L. Field, and james Lusk, having owned the bluff- line for some distance north and south of where the Gymnasium now stands, and having expected to build homes in that choice location, had given up their claims. Horace Hobart had owned the site of the present chapel, Hazen Cheney had owned four lots opposite Prof. Blaisdell's present home. There had been some eight owners in all. All the streets had been vacated, so far as they lay upon the proposed site, all the land had been given or sold to the Trustees to secure the location of the college in Beloit. The principal deed to this land is dated September rzth, 1846, two lots were conveyed November zrst, 1849. The north and south ends of the present campus, and the Keep place, are much later additions, having been bought in large or small pieces from time to timefi There was then no newspaper in the village, nor even a press. The Rock River House, now a combination of tenement, store-house, and shop, was then a pleasant hotel, where the Goodwin House now stands. The present generation of voters were then young men or boys, many of them and of the girls were pupils in the Beloit Seminary, meeting, as we have said, in the basement of the old stone church. Seven thousand dollars had been subscribed for the erection of the promised building, and the foundations had been laid. The day for laying the corner-stone was auspicious in every respect. The whole neighborhood flocked in to see, as afterward it made a practice of doing as long as Commencement was held outdoors. A pro- cession was formecl and marched to the southeast corner of the foundations, where now, on the corner-stone, the date may be read. Two thousand people are said to have been present, indeedg it is a common experience for the friends of the college to hear in distant places the boast: I saw the corner-stone laid. john M. Keep, presided. There was prayer and song. Rev. A. L. th See an article, entitledw 'L How the Campus was Got, in the Ifamrrl 7216151 for November 5th, 1880. Q In this the name Farrar should now be changed to Vale, and Second Street to Chapin Street. 'llie Keep place has since been bought: the date ofthe deed is March 22d, 1883.

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Q2 C ODZLY. enthusiasm with which a great work of devotion is begun. Only the teaching went on. ' The student of our beginnings must read for himself the history of the Hnancial campaign that ensued: Prof. Bushnell wrote it out for the twenty-hfth anniversary 5 it was printed in the quarter-century pamphlet, and it cannot well be abridged. No more help could be got from abroad till Middle College was finished by the people of Beloit. That promise must be redeemed. An active canvas to talk college was begun. The prejudice against an abolition-college began to soften, faith, at that time drooping or almost dead, began to revive. At length it was deemed best to call a public meeting, though few thought that it could succeed. The meeting rose to the best hopes of its promoters, and the needed amount was raised. Says Prof. Bushnell: It has always seemed to me that, if there has ever been a crisis in the history of this College, it was at the time when Beloit raised her second subscription of four thousand dollars, and the success with which that effort was carried through, inspired courage and hope through all the time thereafter. Thus the citizens of Beloit gave at the start a site valued at three thousand dol- lars and twelve thousand dollars in money or labor. From time to time since, they have aided nobly in efforts to erect other buildings or to broaden the work. Middle College was occupied in the autumn of 1848, and for six years was the only college-building, all public exercises, except Commencement, being held in what is now the geological room. Growth. In the fall of 1848, a preparatory school was opened, but in the expectation that high-schools and academies would soon be multiplied and built up throughout the region, it was then little thought that the preparatory school would last till now, be enlarged into an academy, and be to-day the principal feeder of the college-course. Yet, so the people of this region have willed. The time from 1848 to 1850 was the great harvest of funds, most notipeable being the gift, by Mrs. Hale, of land that was sold for thirty- nve thousand dollars. Rev. A. L. Chapin, then the pastor of a Presbyterian church in Mil- waukee, was elected President November zo, 1849, began work February 1, 1850, and was inaugurated in the grove july 24th of that year. He is the one living man who has seen and helped the whole life of the College from its inception on the Chesapeake to the present day.