The oldest continuously active social fraternity in the country, the Kappa Alpha Society was founded at Union on November 26, 1825. For many decades, the members had meeting rooms in Schenectady, building their first campus house only in 1901. Originally, the house was planned to be near Psi Upsilon, across Library Lane from Mrs. Perkin's Garden, but it was decided that there were already too many houses in that area. Eventually the house was constructed in part of the College Grove along what was then called North or Laboratory Lane.
Mrs. Perkins showed a keen interest in the Kappa Alpha Society and frequently mentioned it in her letters, keeping her son Roger (a member) up to date on what was going on with pledges, current members, and alumni and giving news of events such as dances, teas, and dinners. "Rose chaperoned a dance at the Kaps last night, and had a very nice time. She says the girls were ever so much nicer than the Alpha Delts, and she danced all she wanted to" (February 22, 1903). Mrs. Perkins was particularly interested in the building of the chapter's house and was happy with the decision to build it on the corner along Laboratory Lane because it would give her beloved "Kaps" a lovely view of winter sunsets. As "one of the best looking Kap ladies here," Mrs. Perkins was pressured to attend, but ended up very much enjoying, Kappa Alpha's 75th anniversary celebration, which included a reception, a "very pretty" dance held in the Nott Memorial, and a sermon delivered by one Dr. Darling (November 27, 1900). In addition to encouraging other people to make donations to the society, Mrs. Perkins also gave Kappa Alpha some furniture for their house.
Two academic buildings were later built on either side of the fraternity house. As a celebration of their 100 year anniversary in 1925, the society essentially reconstructed it, keeping much of the interior structure but completely changing the exterior. During the World Wars the house was used as a YMCA center and then as a Navy sick bay. It was razed in 1967 to make room for the Science and Engineering Center.
At the beginning of the period covered by the letters, this building, originally called North Hall, belonged to Professor of Natural Philosophy John Foster. One night in 1896, a devastating fire broke out. Mrs. Perkins saw the house “burning fiercely and all the hydrants covered high with snow, and choked with mud, and being the evening of St Patricks, all the firemen tipsy and some of them shamefully drunk…In less than two hours the house was a heap of stone and brick!” (March 19, 1896). Although the house was indeed gutted, it was rebuilt in 1896-1897 using the surviving external walls. Professor Foster died soon after, and Olin Landreth, Professor of Civil Engineering, moved into the house in 1899.
Professor Landreth and his wife had six children, giving the Perkins’ grandson Maurice Hale some playmates. Mrs. Perkins did not always appreciate Landreth himself, however, scoffing when he gave a lecture on art, “I think I shall give a paper on the Beauties of Mathematics!” (December 5, 1896).
After Professor Landreth left the College in 1919, the house was given to other faculty members and later served as the headquarters of the Air Force ROTC, the Beta Theta Pi chapter house, and a social and office space. It is currently named Fero House after Franklin Fero (Union College Class of 1917), whose bequest funded renovations in 1990.
The building that appeared as a round and windowless “chapel” on the campus plan of Joseph Jacques Ramée was finally constructed, after the design of Edward Tuckerman Potter (Union College Class of 1853), as a sixteen-sided Alumni Hall that ultimately became a memorial to Eliphalet Nott and an iconic Union College landmark. Due to the College’s financial difficulties in the mid-nineteenth century, when the building was constructed, it took over 20 years to complete. Impractical for most uses when it opened in 1877 and very difficult to heat, social events were still sometimes held there. “The idiotic sophomores insisted upon having their soiree in the Middle Building! It is freezing ten inches from the big stov[e],” wrote Mrs. Perkins in 1897.
Student mischief was common in the “Round Building,” which also housed a modest museum for many years. Freshmen and sophomores fought to keep their class flags on top of the dome in November of 1903. Earlier that same year, Mrs. Perkins reported that some freshmen took the plaster casts of classical statues and the marble busts from the museum and put them on the Athletic Field’s baseball diamond, “the Discus thrower appropriately placed on the pitchers place, the Venus with uplifted arms on first base and so on, until for fielders etc. they were reduced to the small busts” (March 16, 1903). Believing that the building would soon crumble if not repaired, Mrs. Perkins was glad to see it turned into the campus library in the early 1900s thanks to a $40,000 gift from Andrew Carnegie, which helped fund the necessary renovations.
The library remained in the building until 1961, after which the building had varied uses, including serving as the College theatre and bookstore. Following extensive renovations and a rededication ceremony in 1995, it now houses a large multi-use hall, art galleries, and student study space.
One of the first buildings to be erected on the present campus in keeping with the plan ultimately devised by Eliphalet Nott and Joseph Jacques Ramée, North College opened its doors in 1814. It provided dormitory space, class and recitation rooms, and faculty apartments. Several fraternities got their start in this building, and the College library and several student literary societies were also once housed there. But the main part of North College was its three separate dormitory sections. Although conditions in these dormitories eventually became deplorable, the College did not renovate them significantly until 1902-1903, when electric lighting, steam heat, and improved bathrooms were installed.
Mrs. Perkins sometimes judged the weather based on her ability to see North College from her windows, writing for example, “The fog is so thick that I cannot see the pasture, and North College is a wraith, and this makes the rooms rather dark” (December 2, 1895). Since her time, North College has been renovated numerous times; it is now the home of two of the College’s Minerva Houses, Messa and Wold.
The North and South Colonnades were built in 1815, following Joseph Jacques Ramée’s plans for the campus. Until the construction of Philosophical and Geological Halls in the 1850s, they contained most of the College’s recitation rooms and laboratories. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, North Colonnade held recitation, drafting, engineering model, instrument, and coal rooms, as well as a kitchen for the south faculty house of North College. At the time Mrs. Perkins was writing her letters, the Civil Engineering department occupied almost the entire first floor, and an electrical engineering laboratory was added shortly thereafter.
North Colonnade also had some unusual uses, sometimes serving as a storehouse for packed-up library and geological collections. In 1882, Professor Maurice Perkins added his own stamp by briefly setting up rooms for sick students on the second floor. For decades, the chapel bell also rang from the roof of this building.
After the period of the Perkins letters, a variety of academic departments occupied the building, which also sometimes included dormitory and student activity rooms. A major renovation project completed in 2007 transformed North Colonnade into the Taylor Music Building.