Kenyon College - Reveille Yearbook (Gambier, OH)

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William Foster Peirce, c. 1896 The Kenyon College Trustees held a meeting at Co- lumbus March 26. for the purpose of electing a new president for this institution. After a complete survey of the field they unanimously elected Professor Wm. F. Peirce, at present occupying the chair of Philosophy and History . . . Professor Peirce was to arrive at 2:40 the next morning. The whole student body stayed up to greet him. A surrey was provided with a long ro|K attached in front along which 60 to 70 students ar- ranged themselves. When at last the train came in. it was greeted with the prolonged blasts of tin horns and the sharp reports of cannon crackers. Hardly had the astonished Professor stepped from the train when he was hurried into the carriage awaiting him. At that moment a rocket streamed up from the observatory on the tower of Ascension Hall, shooting far over the val- ley, leaving a vanishing arch of fire and bursting high in the air. The procession starter! at a run. the road being illuminated by volleys of Roman candles on all sides. In a remarkably short time the mile of roadway to the College was covered and by the light of a bonfire seventy-two feet in circumference. President Peirce descended u|w n the steps of Old Kenyon . . .” — from the April 1896 Collegian William Foster Peirce, affectionately known to stu- dents as “Fat” because of his slim build, served as President of the College for forty-one years. An avid flier well into his seventies, he died in 1967 at the age of 99. Peirce Hall was begun in 1928 and opened in the fall of 1929. The terrace was located where the present TV 16 lounge is and was moved east when Dempsey Hall was added in 1963. c. 1950

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February 24, 1906 1888 For many years Kenyon shared Gambier with one or more other important educational insti- tutions. From the earliest days a grammar school for boys was associated with Kenyon. In 1834 it moved into a building called Milnor Hall which stood east of where Dorm III is now, about on the site of the house now occu- pied by Vice-President McKean and formerly occupied by Dean Dons Crozier. This school became the Kenyon Military Academy in 1887, shortly after Delano Hall', the right-handed building in the photograph above, was added. In 1889 Milnor Hall burned and was replaced by New Milnor Hall, the left-hand building. The institution came to its end in a fire in February of 1906 which completely destroyed both buildings and killed three cadets. The Harcourt Place Seminary for Girls and Young Ladies opened in 1887 and considerably brightened the Gambier social scene for the next fifty years. Its three buildings stood in what is now the area between Lewis and Nor- ton Halls. The school fell victim to the depres- sion in 1936. c. 1900 15 d c. 1900

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: The presidency of Gordon Keith Chalmers, who succeeded President Peirce in 1937, is remembered as something of an academic golden age. In the truest sense a gentleman and a scholar, his sudden death in May of 1956 was deeply mourned by everyone connected with the College. It was in 1937 that poet John Crowe Hansom, still resident in Gambier, came from Vander- bilt University to accept the position of Carne- gie Professor of Poetry; and largely as a result of his work here the College, and in particular the Department of English, rose to national prominence. Among the graduates of this pe- riod were |x et Hobert Lowell and novelist, short-story writer, and playwright Peter Tay- lor. who has since had several plays performed in the Hill Theater, most recently Three Ghost Plays on commencement weekend of 1972. Hobert Lowell ’40 Gordon Keith Chalmers John Crowe Hansom