Wheaton College - Nike Yearbook (Norton, MA)

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CHAPIN HALL (1900): The first brick building built at Wheaton, this dormitory was named for Samuel Austin Chapin, brother of Mrs. Wheaton, and a trustee from 1889-1890. The interior was rebuilt in 1934 (repiped, re- wired, replastered, repainted, refloored). In 1986 it ceased to be a dormitory, and became offices for the Center for Work and Learning. HEBE (1884): Mrs. Eliza Baylies Wheaton gave the original lead statue fountain of Hebe to the Seminary for its fiftieth anniversary in 1884. The fountain was placed outside Mary Lyon Hall, be- tween the west wing and Old Metcalf. It was moved in the fall of 1932 to a location in Hebe Court (thus the name of the Parlors and the court- yard). It was repeatedly damaged in attempts to steal the statue, and at one time had an electrical alarm installed inside it. The statue was removed in the 1970s, and restored in 1980 by Fritz Cleary, husband of Hope Kielland Cleary WI944, and fa- ther of Catherine Cleary WI982, who made casts of the original, and reconstructed the statue. The current statue is the bronze casting made by Mr. Cleary. KNAPTON HALL SCIENCE HALL (I9Il): Originally de- signed as a Science and assembly hall. Science Hall was constructed on the site of an apple orchard where stu- dents spent Sundays when not allowed to leave campus. The cornerstone-laying ceremony held for Science Hall was apparently the first such ceremony held at Wheaton. The basement held Botany and Biology labs. The first floor served as a chapel until Cole Chapel was built in 1917, when it was divided into recitation rooms, having been de- signed and built with this in view. The second floor held Physics and Chemistry laboratories and a lecture room with a sloping floor. The third floor was used by the Art Department. When smoking was first allowed at Wheaton in 1932, a temporary smoking room was fitted up in the Science Hall, until a smoking room was established in Hebe Parlors. In 1933 part of the basement was converted into a science library. A wing was added in 194] (opened in 1942) to provide more and modern laboratory space. In 1971, Knapton was rebuilt to create a center for the social sciences. Science Hall was renamed Knapton Hall in honor of Dr. Ernest John Knapton, a member of the history department from 1931 to 1969.

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MARY LYON HALL SEMINARY HALL (1849, 1878): Originally called Seminary Hall, the building was renamed in 1910 for Mary Lyon, a pioneer in American education who acted as a consultant to the Wheaton family at the founding of the Seminary and established the curriculum. The original building consist- ed of the current north wing, plus an addi- tional ca. 10 feet at the back. It was enlarged to include a science wing (south wing), gym- nasium and library (west wing), additional classrooms (east wing), grand stairway and cupola in 1878. The ground floor of the west wing was used successively as the gymnasi- um (until 1903, when the new gymnasium building was completed), the physics labora- tory and the biology laboratory (in 1913). The new gymnasium, opened in 1903, included space for music practice rooms, and the space used for that function in Mary Lyon Hall was devoted to a supervised quiet study hall. The Library was removed to the Chapel basement in 1918 19, and the Art Department moved to Mary Lyon Hall in the same year, When the attic of the north wing was opened and finished as a studio. The building was renovated in 1930: the east wing rooms were rearranged, new electric fixtures installed, floors refinished, the entire building re- painted, and 1500 Ibs. of succotint used on the walls. In the upstairs assembly room, the woodwork around the arch and the “fancy plaster ornamentation in the corners” were removed. Mary Lyon Hall was th oroughly renovated and slightly changed in 1982-83. At that time, an elevator, offices and semi- nar rooms were added, the lower stair hall was widened, and several of the rooms were named, including the Woolley Room, through a gift from Mabel Tingley Woolley W1925; the Larcom Room, named in honor of Lucy Larcom and made possible through a gift from her great grand niece Lois Larcom Horn W1I928 and her class; The May Room, named in honor of Elizabeth Stoffregen May, Professor of Econom- ics and Dean of the College from 1949 to 1964 and acting president from 196l to 1962; and the Holman Room, giv- en by Phyllis Holman Larsen Moerman WI933 in honor of her mother Ida Hagar Hosmer Holman WI1907.

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EMERSON DINING HALL (1908): Named for Alfred Emerson, trustee from 1872 to 1893 and treasurer from 1880 to 1891, and his wife, Martha Vose Emerson, princi- pal from 1842 to 1849. The Dimple was graded at this time because plans called for a reflecting pool (the depression was formed when a stable barn was sold and removed in 1905). Appeared in Good Housekeeping Magazine as one of the most beautiful dining halls in the U.S. The open porch from which diners watched plays performed in the Dimple was roofed over and glassed in ca. 1927. New kitchen equipment was installed in the 1930s. Rooms over the dining hall, originally residences for kitchen help, were used as faculty offices for some years before 1971, when they were converted to student residences (faculty offices were created in the renova- tion of Knapton Hall). In 1950, the Faculty Dining Room was added, the kitchen and bakery enlarged, and base- ment rooms finished for food preparation. “Crum’s Closet” is a former coat closet off the Faculty Dining Room made over into a small meeting room, and offi- cially named for Sarah Crum, the Coordinator of Cam- pus Events from 197] to 1987 at her retirement party. In 1984, an electric carillon was added to Emerson, witha gift from Madeleine Clark Wallace WI934. The keyboard is in the faculty lounge, and the speakers are in the cupola. MADELEINE CLARK WALLACE LIBRARY (1923): Wheaton’s library began in a room in Old Metcalf Hall, was moved to the gymnasium building in 1869, and to a specially designed room in Mary Lyon Hall in 1879. The library continued to grow until it occupied Rooms 7, 9, and 10 in Mary Lyon Hall, and it was finally removed to the Chapel basement in 1918-19, where it remained until the current building opened in 1923. The Library was dedicated at Commence- ment in June 1923, but the books could not be moved to their new home until a few days before the open-| ing of college in September 1923 due to the general disruption caused by the installation of a new steam distributing system. In 1933, the science library was moved from the overcrowded library to a large room in the basement of the Science Hall (Knapton). Grow- ing use and storage of periodical literature contrib- uted to the space problem. The Henry Clay Jackson Wing, added in 1941 (formally opened in Jan. 1942), was made possible by a gift from the Paul Wilde Jackson Fund of Boston. It included a Browsing Room, new books area, periodical room and stacks for bound periodicals. The Laila Raabe collection of early American glass was displayed in specially-built exhibit cases in a hallway outside the Browsing Room (transferred to Watson in 1982). In 1961, when the Periodicals Wing was added, floors were placed across the atrium to create more stack space (seating and stack space were doubled). In 1979 80 another addition to the Library restored the atrium and created a sky-lighted Stair Tower and underground stack area to join the Library to the Science Center. An Archives Reading Room was also created. The Library was named for Mrs. Wallace W1934 in 1984, when she made Wheaton College her residuary legatee on the occasion of her 50th reunion (ca. $1.2 million).