Interactive Map of Campus in 1895 · The World of Mrs. Perkins · Exhibitions @ Schaffer Library

Skip to main content

Advanced Search

The World of Mrs. Perkins

Legend:

1. College Grove

The term College Grove formerly referred to several wooded areas on campus, including Jackson's Garden and the area east of where Schaffer Library now stands. A variety of other sites important to campus life in the nineteenth century were also located in the Grove, including the running track and Lover's Lane (the name once given to a tree-lined portion of South Lane).

2. Orchard Hale Residence

From 1895 to 1901, the house at 762 Nott Street was occupied by Mrs. Perkins' daughter Rose, her husband Jack, and their children. It was given to Edward Everett Hale Jr. (Jack) as incentive to come to Union, where he became Professor of Rhetoric and Logic and, later, Professor of English. Mrs. Perkins wrote of the renovations that were promised upon their arrival: "The Palmer house will be put in order for them; the roof raised and a room added, and a chimney put in place, and water put in" (March 26, 1895).

3. Charles B. Pond

During the time of Mrs. Perkins' letters, this house was the residence of Charles B. Pond, Assistant Treasurer and ferocious debt enforcer under Frank Bailey (Union College Class of 1885 and College Treasurer at the time). Referred to by Charles Waldron (Union College Class of 1906) as the "blunt and rigorous instrument" Bailey used to handle the College's financial difficulties, Pond earned a rather unpleasant reputation at the College.

4. College Brook

The College brook flows from about a mile east of the present-day Union campus into the Mohawk River. Much of its visible length in Mrs. Perkins' day is now buried; the section between Terrace Lane and Seward Place, for example, was re-routed into an underground culvert in 1966.

5. Kappa Alpha

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.

6. Jackson's Garden

The garden on the northern side of campus was begun in the 1830s by Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy Isaac Jackson at the encouragement of Eliphalet Nott, who suggested its cultivation as a means of improving Jackson’s health. The placement of a garden in this area had also been suggested by Joseph Jacques Ramée in his original designs for the College.

7. Landreth

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…

8. Benedict

Completed in 1873, this house overlooking Jackson's Garden was built for Samuel Benedict, a law lecturer at the College, and his wife Julia. Designed by William Appleton Potter (Union College Class of 1864), the house was a large and beautiful structure with Victorian and mock Tudor elements, although neither electric lighting nor modern plumbing were ever installed.

9. North Colonnade / Lab

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.

10. Philosophical Hall

Philosophical Hall was constructed on the end of North Colonnade in 1852, in accordance with Joseph Jacques Ramée's plans for the campus. Constituting what is now part of the Arts Building, Philosophical Hall provided space for the departments of Natural Philosophy (Physics and Chemistry). The top floor was occupied by the Physics Department, which included a large lecture-demonstration room, while the first floor contained the Chemistry Department and an analytical chemistry laboratory.

11. Truax

During the period covered by Mrs. Perkins’ letters, the faculty apartment at the north end of North College was occupied by James Truax, then Professor of English Language and Literature. Professor Truax’s professional rivalry with the Perkins’ son-in-law Edward Everett Hale (Jack), Professor of Rhetoric and Logic and later of English, caused considerable tension between their families.

12. North College

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.

13. Wells

From 1866 until 1907 the south faculty apartment of North College was occupied by William Wells, beloved Professor of Modern Languages and Literature, and his family. Mrs. Perkins rather wished that her own daughter’s family could live there, as it was in a more convenient location, but noted that “I should not grudge the old Professor his life, or his house” (November 13, 1900).

14. Running Track

Early outdoor track and field meets were held in the College Grove on the southeastern portion of the campus. In 1893, a 390-yard track with banked curves replaced a shorter track that had been laid out there some seven years earlier. From 1893 to 1905, during the period of Mrs. Perkins’ letters, Union typically participated in two intercollegiate meets per year – usually doing poorly.

15. Washburn Hall

Washburn Hall (or the Powers-Washburn Building) was built in 1883 during the administration of the College’s seventh president, Eliphalet Nott Potter (Union College Class of 1861). Although inspired by Joseph Jacques Ramée’s plans for the campus, its Victorian-style design by William Appleton Potter (Union College Class of 1864) featured red brick and molded ornaments that made it quite distinct from the stuccoed buildings that had been erected previously on the College grounds.

16. Library/Nott

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.

17. Athletic Fields

Most of the College's athletic activities and games during its first century took place on this field. Students started playing baseball and football regularly there in the 1870s. Class games were also held in this open area. Because the Athletic Field was right across from her house, Mrs. Perkins often sent her son the College's athletic news, including scores and her assessment of any new equipment in use on campus, such as bleachers or megaphones, the latter of which she found "mournful and mooing."

18. The Pasture

The Pasture, also called the College Park, was once an attractive territory stretching from the Terrace Wall westward to Park Place in Schenectady (one block west of the current main campus). Sheep, horses and cows belonging to professors and townspeople grazed among its trees, despite the antics of mischievous students who were know to “kidnap” the animals for College pranks. In the late 1890s, President Raymond and the Perkins’ son-in-law, Professor of Rhetoric and Logic Edward Everett Hale, also established a golf course there.

19. Psi Upsilon

The foundation for the Chi Psi Lodge, the campus home of the fifth national fraternity founded at Union College, was laid in 1901. Located between the Alpha Delta Phi and Psi Upsilon houses, the building was formally known as the Philip Spencer Memorial Building in honor of one of its student founders. The Chi Psi fraternity remained in residence in the building for over 100 years.

20. Chi Psi

The foundation for the Chi Psi Lodge, the campus home of the fifth national fraternity founded at Union College, was laid in 1901. Located between the Alpha Delta Phi and Psi Upsilon houses, the building was formally known as the Philip Spencer Memorial Building in honor of one of its student founders. The Chi Psi fraternity remained in residence in the building for over 100 years.

21. Alpha Delta Phi

This building served as the chapter house of the Alpha Delta Phi Society, which was founded at Hamilton and came to Union in 1859. Construction lasted from January of 1895 until Commencement of 1898, although Mrs. Perkins wrote in 1896 that it was almost completed. The house, which cost $19,332 to build, was designed by Albert W. Fuller, the architect of Silliman Hall and later of the General Engineering Building.

22. Ashmore

Constructed in 1896, this was the first building completed on the east side of Library Lane. Although it was built for James Patterson, Professor of Mathematics, he stayed there only one year before leaving the College. In 1898, Professor Sidney Ashmore, Professor of Latin Language and Literature, moved in. The Ashmores were friends of Mrs. Perkins, and their son Sidney played with little Nathan Hale.

23. Sigma Phi

Sigma Phi Place was completed in 1905 and became the longtime home of the Sigma Phi Society, the second national fraternity founded at Union. Because the Society already owned a chapter house off-campus, they were not in a hurry to build another one inside the College gates; however, after a $40,000 bequest in the late nineteenth century, they began planning its construction.

24. Chapel/Geological Hall

Constructed between 1855 and 1856, Geological Hall was designed in keeping with Ramée's general plans for the Union campus and originally contained the College chapel, natural history museum, and library, as well as the College Treasurer's office. Entered from South Lane, the interior was designed by Eliphalet Nott and Jonathan Pearson (College Treasurer and librarian) in consultation with architect William L. Woollett.

25. Hale/Perkins Hall

The Perkins family lived in the faculty apartment of South Colonnade, which had been occupied previously, although briefly, by a number of other professors and administrators including College President Eliphalet Nott. Constructed in 1815, South Colonnade in its early years contained recitation rooms, laboratories, the College chapel, Phi Beta Kappa meeting space, and administrative offices.

26. Stoller

The first occupant of the northern faculty apartment in South College was none other than Eliphalet Nott. After he moved elsewhere on campus, it passed to several professors until coming to James Stoller, Professor of Biology and Geology, in 1893. As Mrs. Perkins’s closest neighbors, the Stollers and their children were a constant, although often unwelcome, presence in her letters.

27. Perkins Garden

Mrs. Perkins lovingly cared for her garden on the south side of the Chapel/Geological Hall from 1866 to 1920, almost the entire time she was at Union. Beginning as a vegetable garden, it was soon taken over by flowers. Although it now takes up just a small section next to Old Chapel, it once stretched further west behind Hale House and often attracted passers-by and campus visitors.

28. South College

South College, like its twin to the north, was one of the first buildings to be erected on the present campus. Opened in 1814 and built in keeping with the plan devised by Eliphalet Nott and Joseph Jacques Ramée, the construction of this particular structure was supervised by Nott himself. Although primarily serving as a student residence, it also once housed recitation rooms, faculty apartments, meeting rooms for fraternities and other student organizations, such as the Philomathean Society, the college chapel, and administrative offices.

29. Gym

After years of complaining about the condition of the College's outdoor gymnastic equipment, Union students finally were able to celebrate the opening of a dedicated campus gymnasium in June of 1874. Eliphalet Nott Potter (Union College Class of 1861 and College President from 1871 to 1884) may have even designed the building himself, while students raised around half of the $6000 needed for its construction.

30. Whitehorne

Because the College’s recitation room for Classics adjoined the faculty apartment at the south end of South College, for many years this residence was awarded to a professor of Classics. Thus, during the time frame of the Perkins letters, the apartment was occupied by Henry Whitehorne, distinguished Professor of Greek Language and Literature, who moved in around 1873 and remained there until his death in 1901.

31. Silliman YMCA

Silliman Hall was built in 1900 to house the College’s YMCA and other student organizations, such as the Philomathean Society and the Adelphic Society. It was a gift from Horace Brinsmade Silliman (Union Class of 1846), who believed that “a pronounced Christian character and life is not alien from hearty good fellowship.” Silliman Hall was the first multi-purpose College building to be constructed on campus since Washburn Hall in 1883, and represented the start of President Raymond’s revitalization of the College.

32. Hoffman Phi Gamma Delta

This house was built in 1872 as a home for the College President at the time, Eliphalet Nott Potter. Its construction, which was funded by Potter's father-in-law Joseph Fuller, was necessitated by the fact that after the death of former President Eliphalet Nott in 1866, his widow Urania continued to occupy the original president's house on campus for most of the time until her own death some two decades later.

33. Raymond Hall

Completed in 1861, this house was built for President Eliphalet Nott and his wife Urania. It was designed by Nott’s grandson, Edward Tuckerman Potter (Union College Class of 1853) according to ideas suggested by Joseph Jacques Ramée’s original plans for the campus. Although Nott himself only spent five years there before he died, his wife continued living in the house until sometime shortly before her own death two decades later.

Public Library

The Schenectady Free Public Library Association purchased this building site from the College, and the facility was constructed between 1901 and 1903 with the support of $15,000 from the General Company and $50,000 from Andrew Carnegie.

< Previous page Next page >