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Notes toward a Catalog of the Buildings and Landscapes of Dartmouth College
Hanover, New Hampshire, U.S.A.
A
A LOT after 1961
The parking lot east of campus connects to East Wheelock Street by a short drive branching off north of Smith Street between house numbers 47 and 49. The parking lot is hidden behind trees and houses in a hollow.
AGRICULTURAL COLLEGE BARNS* by 188X (by 1944)
Three large barns stood behind the lot where the Kappa Kappa Gamma House stands today, labelled "Farm Barns" on Sanborn maps of 1894-1904. The Experimental Farm of the New Hampshire College of Argiculture and the Mechanic Arts (in Hanover 1868-1892 before moving to Durham to become U.N.H.) used the barns, some of which predated the founding of the College. The College bought the farm in 1892 and demolished them between 1927 and 1944.
ALLEN HALL* c.1872 (1919) (ISOLATION HOSPITAL) (PEST HOUSE [II]) (INFIRMARY [I])
The N.H.C.A.M.A. built the small frame building west and slightly south of Hallgarten near the Heating Plant. By 1870 Ezekiel Dimond saw that the N.H.C. needed an experimental machine shop, as well as a science museum (Hall, 1941, 22). When the legislature funded this second building in 1871-2, Culver Hall, the N.H.C. declined Dartmouth's offer of some too-distant site for the building and instead bought the Allen lot east of today's Hopkins Center. The school laid out Crosby Street on the lot's east edge (Hall, 1941, 31). Allen also rose on the lot and was apparently designed to serve the mechanical arts, the need for which Dimond had noted, but no equipment materialized and the building was converted to a dormitory (Hall, 1941, 33). The building appeared as 6 East Wheelock Street on contemporary maps.
When the N.H.C. decided to move to Durham, the legislature passed a bill on 10 April 1891 that allowed Dartmouth to buy the buildings, including Allen (Hall, 1941, 95). The Trustees bought Conant Hall, Allen, the workshop and adjoining land for $10,000 (Hall, 1941, 97). By 1905 the biulding appeared on maps as "Isolation Hospital, Formerly Allen Hall;" students with contagious diseases lived there and were cared for by a live-in medical student (From Dartmouth 1967, 28). Dr. Kingsford, who long ran the Isolation Hospital, a.k.a. the Pest House, said "Dick's House was the best thing that ever happened to Dartmouth College." He required students to write in the humorous Pest House Log before they left, and many wrote poetry and made drawings to pass the time. Rivalries developed between the floors where patients with different diseases were segregated. The infirmary function moved to Hallgarten when the Pest House was torn down for the construction of Topliff in 1919 according to one source (Pollard 1948). The building still appears as "Allen (dormitory)" on a 1928 map.
ALLEN STREET 1835 (ALLEN LANE)
Allen Lane, running west from Main Street as the first intersection below Wheelock Street, began as an1835 access way for a livery stable owned by Ira B. Allen. In 1869 the stable was enlarged and made to face north rather than east to Main Street, and the road was opened all the way to School Street; the lane became known as a street in 1877 when the Town extended it as far as Maple Street at the time the new school built. Owners of houses along Prospect Street named it that rather than Allen, though it continues the street to the west (Morrison, 56).
ALPHA CHI ALPHA HOUSE 1896 (ALPHA CHI RHO HOUSE [II])
Fred P. Emery had his house built at 13 Webster Avenue when the College first opened the street to the west from North Main Street (J.K. Lord 1928, 68). The barn that today stands behind and connected to the houes appears on Sanborn maps by 1905. Emery owned the house at least through 1928; Mrs. F.P. Emery owned it in 1931; and it was still in private hand in 1950. Alpha Chi Rho Fraternity, first founded in 1919 but not revived until 1956 (R.N. Hill, 234) occupied the house some time between 1956 and 1961 after moving from their first location on the site of today's White Church. The organization became the local Alpha Chi Alpha Fraternity in 1963 (Baird's) and the College currently owns the building.
ALPHA DELTA PHI HOUSE* (I) 1872 (192X)
The fraternity built the two story brick house in imitation of the Kappa Kappa Kappa Hall (J.K. Lord 1913, 387). This building, however, included dormitory accommodations, making it the College's first fraternity house and for a long time the only one. The building cost $4,000 (Richardson 1932, 561). The Tau Delta Theta society had become a chapter of the Alpha Delta Phi in March of 1846 and had occupied space on the third floor of Dartmouth Hall until it completed this building (Aegis 1893, 59). With a depth of four windows and a width of three, the house had a gently pitched roof peaked in the center and a south-facing entrance, unlike the current Alpha Delta House, which replaced it in the early 1920s. The site on which the house stood once held the tannery of Rufus Graves, class of 1791, beginning around 1792 (J.K. Lord 1928, 25).
ALPHA DELTA HOUSE 192X (ALPHA DELTA PHI HOUSE [II])
The Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity built the house at 9 East Wheelock Street in the early 1920s to replace their older house on the same site. Unlike its predecessor, this house has its front entrance to the west. The fraternity became a local organization called Alpha Delta in 1969 (Baird's).
ALPHA KAPPA KAPPA HOUSE (II) by 1889
The private residence on the hill west of campus at 18 West Wheelock Street appears on maps by 1889 and housed Alpha Kappa Kappa (medical) by 1931. The fraternity had moved from the Guyer Block and would later move to 15 East Wheelock Street, taking over the Alpha Tau Omega House.
ALPHA SIGMA PHI HOUSE 1874 (1936) (DELTA TAU DELTA HOUSE)
In 1874 Jackson Gould built the house at 36 North Main Street (Barrett, 91). The two-story building with a porch on the east and south sides and a steeply-pitched central gable stood on the northwest corner of North Main and Choate Road, next door to today's Pike House. By 1905 R.J. Avery occupied the house while S.H. Batchelder owned it; the house was numbered 32 in 1905, 38 in 1922 and 36 in 1931. The house was "occupied for some years by the Delta Tau Delta Fraternity" (J.K. Lord 1928, 50) after that group moved from the Furber House and before it moved to 10 Webster in 1925, eventually to become Bones Gate. The Sigma Alpha Fraternity occupied the house by 1928; the Alpha Sigma Phi Fraternity was founded in 1928 (Richardson, 796) and the building appeared under the name of the organization on a 1931 map. A fire thought to have begun in a fuse box burned the house on the morning of 19 February, 1936 (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine 28, no. 6 [March 1936], 17). The group occupied the old Dragon tomb and folded in 1936 (Baird's). Later the Asian Studies Center house occupied the site.
ALPHA THETA HOUSE 1940-41 (THETA CHI HOUSE [II])
The 1921 Theta Chi Fraternity built the house to replace its older wooden residence after that building's furnace leaked and killed nine fraternity members in 1934. Sanborn maps fail to indicate the change. The organization went local as Alpha Theta in 1952 (R.N. Hill, 234), later becoming a co-educational organization.
ALUMNI GYMNASIUM 1909-1910 (GYM [II])
Large gymnasium designed by Charles Rich and Fredrick Mathesius, attached to Spaulding Pool and Davis Varsity House. The cornerstone was laid by President Nichols during his inauguration and contains a circular appealing to alumni for contributions, a file of the "New Gymnasium News," copies of the Dartmouth, the Dartmouth Magazine, the Jack o' Lantern and the Aegis, an address of Dr. Bartlett, a retrospect of Dr. Bowler, a program of exercises, a program of the inaugural ceremonies and a copy of a History of Dartmouth Athletics (Hopkins, 1909). The building cost $190,000 (Quint, 208) and the shower room (a memorial to Stanley Hill '18) cost $5000 (Richardson 1932, 773). A famously springy board track of White Pine designed by Thayer Professor Harold Lockwood around the inside of the gym was opened in 1932 and used by Glenn Cunningham to break the
American mile record in 1938 (The Dartmouth (February 1932, March 1938)), and the track lasted until 1947 (R.N. Hill,
285). The gym was used as barracks in W.W.I and an armory and lounge in W.W.II (Ryan 1944, 4), it was remodeled with a new basketball court and the Karl B. Michael Pool seating 1500 and 2100 in 1962-3 (R.N. Hill, 278), also in 1972 when the two-story women's locker room added to southeast corner (From Dartmouth 1972, 2). Other remodelings occurred in 1974, 1980, and 1989 (Facilities). The windows along the main rooms were bricked over after 1961. Dolphin benches in upper halls outside the offices came from Spaulding Pool.
ALUMNI OVAL* 1893 (ATHLETIC FIELD [II]) (GRANDSTAND)
The College's first purpose-built athletic field, it had an oval track, a fence and grandstand and stood where the current Memorial Field stands. Previously College athletic contests and meets with other schools had been held on the Green. The field occupied land that had originally been a hemlock swamp (Richardson 1932, 102) and later became the 30-acre farm that the Agricultural School used for its Experimental Farm beginning in 1869 (Richardson 1932, 540). A committee of alumni bought the field for the College when the state school left in 1892, with various alumni donating to carry out improvements (Emerson 1900). In 1905 the College built its first hockey rink on the track and the first intercollegiate hockey game at Dartmouth took place there the next year (Richardson 1928, 730). The grandstand burned in 1910, and the Memorial Field stands occupy its site.
AMARNA HOUSE 192X (CO-OP HOUSE)
Amarna, the College's second Undergraduate Society, has occupied the College-owned house at 23 East Wheelock Street since not long after its founding in 1993. The house has a capacity of eleven (with four second-floor bedrooms rotating as singles or double) (ORL); previous occupants include the Co-Op House (by 1984-5), then the Robert H. Smith alcohol rehabilitation program. The house was built as a residence between 1922 and 1928, at which time R.J. Raymond owned it. C.F. Raymond is listed as the owner in 1931.
ANDRES HALL 1985-1987
Herbert S. Newman Associates designed the dormitory, one building of the three-building New Dorms [East Wheelock Cluster] after the example of the Houses at Harvard and the Residential Colleges at Yale (Pearson). "Post-modern" in style, the building mirrors Zimmerman opposite, with Brace Commons connecting the two underground. Andres contains an Area Director apartment and uses suite configurations, holding 84 in 50 singles and 17 doubles in 1990 (ORL). The class of 1943 sponsors the cluster.
AQUINAS HOUSE (II) 1961-1962
The independent Catholic Students' Center stands near the end of Webster Avenue. The construction required the demolition of the L.H. Dow House, which was built in 1896 (The Dartmouth, 19:292). The organization had occupied what is now the Dean's House during much of the 1950s.
ASIAN STUDIES CENTER ca. 1944-1954 (DELTA TAU DELTA HOUSE [II]) (SIGMA ALPHA HOUSE) (ALPHA SIGMA PHI HOUSE)
The house occupies the site of the Alpha Sigma Phi House, which burned in 1936; the site was still vacant on Sanborn maps of 1944. The Tucker Foundation occupied the house by 1984, and the Asian Studies Center opened in the house in 1985. The house contains six rooms for eight students as well as a faculty room (ORL). The building stands on the northwest corner of North Main and Clement Road.
B
BAKE HOUSE* 1772 (18XX)
Wheelock directed in the summer of 1772 that a Bake House be built (Chase, 257).
BAKER MEMORIAL LIBRARY 1928 (LIBRARY [VI])
The library stands on the sites of houses at 19, 21 and 23 North Main Street among others. Jens Frederick Larson of Larson & Wells designed the building to replace the Wilson Hall library; the College named the building for Fisher Ames Baker 1859, whose nephew George F. Baker funded the construction (R.N. Hill, 307). George Baker had made his fortune founding the predecessor of Citibank. The location of Butterfield Hall, which the College demolished soon after it finished Baker, caused planners to site Baker farther north, i.e. closer to Elm Street, than they desired.
The building contains the Reserve Corridor with its Orozco Frescoes, Hough's Room (the Treasure Room), the Woodward Room (a memorial to him and a reproduction of the College's first library), the Tower Room, the Class of 1902 Room and the Ticknor Room of 1969 (Graham 1990, 158). Larson wrote of Baker's periodicals room "that he would rather have a room more architecturally charming" than other such rooms he had seen (Larson, 561). Smoking was originally permitted in the Reserve Corridor and the Tower Room. Designers at one time planned what later became the microtext room and map room to be reserve reading rooms. A second floor has been added to the periodicals room and the wooden cases that projected from its walls have been replaced by central metal shelving. The two courtyards that the library now surrounds came about when the College added wings housing the Stefansson Collection and Special Collections in 1959 (Widmayer 1991, 144). The French sculptor LeJeune created the bronze relief in memory of Richard Nelville Hall '15 that stands outside the west entrance to the Reserve Corridor; Edward Tuck donated the monument in 1920 and it originally stood across Crosby street from Memorial Field (The Dartmouth 42 [27 September 1920]). Larson designed Baker with the possibility of extending a large stack across the building to the north (Larson, 561) where the Berry Library now stands. Other remodelings occurred in 1941, 1969, 1972, and 1974 (Facilities).
The bells in the tower were a special desire of President Hopkins after a visit to Oxford, and the fifteen original bells in the tower were the gift of Clarence B. Little 1881 (Widmayer 1977, 114). The carillon has since expanded.
BALCH HOUSE* 1871 (1900) (DELTA KAPPA EPSILON HALL [III]) (DAVISON'S BLOCK)
A.P. Balch built the large yellow Victorian mansion on the northwest corner of Main and Wheelock Streets where the Collis Center now stands. Nicknamed the Golden Corner, the building was numbered 1 West Wheelock Street.
Eleazar Wheelock had originally granted the land to carpenter Comfort Sever of Stillwater, N.Y. who arrived in 1772; Richard Lang bought the land in 1792 and began a store on the corner in 1795, which he soon changed to a house. He lived in the house until his death, after which C.B. Haddock and wife, Susan (Lang) Haddock occupied it (1840-50); Mrs. L.C. Dickinson bought it in 1850 for use as a school; Samuel Gilman Brown bought it from her instead; and he sold it in 1867 to the Dartmouth Savings Bank, located next door to the north (File "Hanover houses/historic houses," Dartmouth College Archives). A.P. Balch bought the house from the bank and sold it to be moved, replacing it with his mansion (Richardson 1932, 576).
F.W. Davison bought the mansion in 1887 after the Main Street Fire of 4 January 1887 forced his business out of the Tontine, and he made the house into a store with a meeting hall in the second story. Delta Kappa Epsilon, also burned out of Tontine, moved the next year into "more pretentious and comfortable quarters" in this the hall and the floor above,where 18-20 members had rooms (Aegis 1893, 61). The society moved out to its fourth home, the old Storrs Mansion,when the Balch Mansion was partly burned in 1900. The College bought the property at that time (J.K. Lord 1928, 47) and soon replaced the building with College Hall (see Collis). The granite steps to the Collis Center porch are all that remains of the Balch House. BANDSTAND* 1884 (1884)
Prominent Town resident D.B. Currier began to build the bandstand on southwest corner of the Green (J.K. Lord 1913, 450), but the College had clear enough title to the Green to halt the construction by injunction and the stand "was one night found to be in flames, believed to originate from the incendiary efforts of undergraduates" (Richardson 1932, 649).
BANWELL BUILDING 1971
The Banwell building bears the name of its designer and original architect-occupant. Barrett notes the name of the building in "Main Street," the 1997 Town of Hanover Calendar. The building consists of a single International-Style story elevated over a parking lot on steel columns; the building occupies the site of the Nugget Theater, which burned in 1944.
BARTLETT HALL 1890-91 (Y.M.C.A. BUILDING)
The red brick Romanesque building stands at 3 East Wheelock Street and began as the College YMCA headquarters, essentially the student headquarters for all religious work (Emerson 1911). The Agricultural College originally offered to lease to Dartmouth land for the building next to Wilson Hall, but Dartmouth eventually selected a site across the street instead (NHCAMA Trustees' Records 22 April 1890, Special Collections, University of New Hampshire). The Trustees appropriated some of the funding for the castellated $17,000 building and President Bartlett also raised some of the money, which prompted the Trustees to name the building in his honor (Emerson 1900). Lambert Packard, designer of the Wheelock Hotel, designed the building (Barrett, 116). The Y.M.C.A. organization later moved to College Hall (Richardson 1932, 620) and by the late 1950s the building housed the music department; it was remodeled in 1963 after musical functions moved to the Hopkins Center, and now it houses the language lab and other offices.
BARTLETT TOWER 1885-1895 (THE TOWER)
"Tower erected near the site of the Old Pine, destroyed by lightning, bears this inscription: 'This tower suggested by President Bartlett was erected by subscriptions from the classes of 1885 to 1895 inclusive.' The total height is 71 feet, and the summit is reached by a spiral stairway; the material for which the tower is built of hornblende schist, a rock found in abundance in the Park" (Emerson 1900). At one time the tower was visible over the trees.
BASEBALL CAGE* 1891 (by 1913)
The Thayer map places the cage "built for winter practice" across the street from today's Fairbanks South on Sanborn Lane. Students subscribed the $3,000 it took to build the structure (Richardson, 643). Richardson described the building as a large wooden baseball cage of two stories and recalled, possibly by mistake, that the building was on the present site of South Massachusetts Hall, (Richardson 1943). By 1912, the cage appeared as a "storehouse" on Sanborn maps, and the College presumably demolished it in order to place Sanborn House on its site around 1913 when that building in turn had to make room for Robinson Hall. The cage no longer appears on Sanborn maps of 1922 and 1927: Sanborn is in its place.
THE BEMA 1882
The natural and improved amphitheater stands in College Park, and underwent its construction/improvement at the hands of the class of 1882 on Class Day (Richardson 1932, 621). President Bartlett directed that the Grotto be excavated and partly roofed by stone slabs in a ledge on the hillside (J.K. Lord 1913, 450). All of this was part of park improvement that Bartlett undertook (Thayer), which also included the construction of pathways, bridges and gazebos in the Park. Commencement exercises took place here from 1932 to 1953, and Class Day Exercises continue to occur here.
Pastels in Prose
In the Park at Midnight
By Edwin Osgood Grover '94
With open arms the Bema embraces the lingering moonlight, and reveals its grassy plot of ground in the darkenss of its overhanging rocks.
Hiding, as it were, in its own shadow, the Grotto peers out into the mellow monlight. Only the grim blacknes of its own visage is visible in its rocky cavern.
The ragged remnant of the Old Pine gases tenderly at me throught the nocturnal light:
But a beauty not born of color dwells in this solitude.
A beauty in black. A blending of moonlight and shade, that makes the meanest object lovely. A half indistinctness, which lends a grandeur to the towers of the chapel and the church, as they rise into the low light of the moon above the campus. (Hapgood and Laycock, 68-9)
BERRY LIBRARY 1998-2000 (LIBRARY [VII])
Venturi, Scott Brown and Associates with Geoffrey T. Freeman of Shepley, Bulfinch, Richardson and Abbott of Boston designed the 80,000 square-foot addition to the north of Baker Library. Freeman was also involved in the design of the Howe Library. A gift from George Berry, who made his fortune in through his father's L.M Berry Co., originators of the Yellow Pages, contributed the bulk of the building's cost, which along with other gifts and earnings totalled $50 million. Carson Hall will adjoin the building to the west. The hall stands on the site of Elm Street and required the demolition of the 1931 Dragon Hall and 1961 Bradley-Gerry complex.
BERRY SPORTS CENTER 1987
Gwathmey & Siegel designed the gymnasium to house weight rooms and basketball and racquetball facilities. The building stands on the site of Davis Rink. John Berry '44 funded the building and and Ed Leede '49 , basketball star and independent oilman, gave Leede Arena, the largest space inside the building.
BETA THETA PI HOUSE (III) 1931 (BETA HOUSE)
The organization that descended from Sigma Delta Pi of 1858, became Vitruvian in 1871 and Beta Theta Pi in 1889 (R.N. Hill, 234), built its second house at 6 Webster Avenue built in 1931. The fraternity was known as the local Beta House ca. 1960. The fraternity was banned in 1997 and Alpha Xi Delta sorority of 1996 rented the house.
BILLINGS LEE NURSES' HOME 1920 (BILLINGS-LEE)
The three-story white dormitory building stands north of the Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hospital and Dick's House and connects to Building 37. The building originally held 37 nurses of the M.H.M.H. School of Nursing (Land, 46). The Billings and Lee families donated the building (Land, 22).
JABEZ BINGHAM HOUSE 1772
The original farmer that Wheelock attracted to the College built the house in 1772 on the site of what would later be the Dartmouth Savings Bank, the northeast corner of Main and Lebanon Streets. Later occupants used the building as a store (J.K. Lord 1928, 24/38) and moved it in 1833 (J.M. Lord, 101) to become the ell of the house at 8 Pleasant Street, the Roland Lewin residence.
BISSELL HALL* (a) 1866-7 (ca. 1958) (BISSELL GYMNASIUM) (GYM [I])
The two-story red brick gymnasium stood on the southwest corner of Wheelock and College Streets at 12 College Street, occuping the site of a house that had departed before 1840. Joseph B. Richards and his partner in the firm of Richards and Park of Boston designed (Richardson 1943, 18). George H. Bissell, class of 1845, a New York City lawyer who was the first to recognize the commercial value of petroleum and make it "an article of trade," funded the building (J.K. Lord 1913, 346). The building measured 90 by 47 feet and was oriented in a north-south direction and bore a small columned front porch that often appears in the background of old sports team photographs. The ground floor contained six bowling alleys which were later torn out, while the second floor was a gymnastics hall, (J.K. Lord 1913, 346) and later had a track suspended from the ceiling. Mr. Bissell allowed the building to be converted to a library in 1877 (Patrick, 134), though it seems not to have been done. Bissell became the home of the Thayer School labs beginning in 1910 (J.K. Lord 1928, 46) or 1912 when Alumni Gymnasium took its place, through 1939 (From Dartmouth 1971, 19). The College contemplated demolishing the building to make room for a new Webster Hall c.1929 (Widmayer 1977, 219). The gymnasium was demolished for the Hopkins Center around 1958; today the main entrance to the Hop occupies part of its site, while the rest became the paved plaza before the Hop.
BISSELL HALL (b) 1958
The dormitory in the Choate Road cluster shares a lounge with Cohen, to which it is connected by skywalk. The College built the Choates on the playing field of the Clark School that the College had acquired in the Fall of 1953 (Widmayer 1991, 94). The Choates were the first major buildings of the Dickey reign and introduced Modernism to Dartmouth; the College began construction in the Summer of 1956 at a cost of $1.5 million, with funding from the U.S. Housing and Home Finance Administration (Widmayer 1991, 136). Bissell opened in the Fall 1958 (Widmayer 1991, 108).
The buildings had ground -level faculty apartments in the pods under the lounges, "a new concept of dormitory life as recommended by the Commission on Campus Life" (Widmayer 1991, 107). The building originally held 75 in eight or nine-man suites, including 27 singles and 24 doubles (Office of the Bursar), and it held 72 in 30 singles and 21 doubles in 1990 (ORL). The College remodeled the building in1958 and 1984 (Facilities). In 1970 the Choates became a "semi-autonomous living unit" housing two faculty members and 75 women transfer students (From Dartmouth 1970, 34). The building bears teh name of George Bissell of 1845 because the College had demolished the earlier Bissell for the Hopkins Center (Widmayer 1991, 108). Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty designed the dormitory group.
BLACKSMITH'S SHOP* 1774 (1779)
The College blacksmith's shop once stood on the Green north of Commons (J.K. Lord 1928, 25), on the eastern side above the middle part of the clearing; it held three fires. The building burned in 1779 (Chase, 264).
BLUNT ALUMNI CENTER ca. 1810, 1896, 1980 (CROSBY HOUSE [b])
Professor Zephaniah Swift Moore, who became president of Williams and the first president of Amherst, built the two-story brick house on land originally granted to Ebenezer Woodward in 1792 in payment for his work on Dartmouth Hall. The house passed to Dr. Reuben D. Muzzey, who used it from 1815-38, after which Dr. Dixi Crosby owned the buiding and moved Lang Hall behind it in 1865. The College bought the building with some of the Chandler fund in 1884, remodeling in 1896 into a dormitory holding 45 (J.K. Lord 1928, 49) or 55, and naming it Crosby House. Architect Charles Rich added the columns added to front, painted the building yellow, added a third story and designed the large wooden dormitory annex to the rear (J.M. Lord, 110). This annex replaced a previous domestic ell. The house became a barracks in 1918 (R.N. Hill, 241). Along with Wheeler and Richardson, Crosby was one of the few dormitories the College used allotted to civilian students during its lowest enrollment in a century, in 1943 (Widmayer 1977, 277). The College remodeled the interior and abandoned the dormitory function in 1949 when Alumni Records moved in from Parkhurst. The building was renovated when the Modernist white-painted brick office addition replaced Rich's earlier frame dormitory addition ("Adorning a Comfortable Old Shoe"). The addition was designed by Benjamin Thompson Associates and opened in June 1980. Crosby is the oldest house in Hanover on its original foundation and bears a memorial to petroleum, the first scientific examination of which took place here, on its south wall (R.N. Hill, 105).
BOATHOUSE* (I) 1857 (1857)
The boathouse and a raft stood on the River south of the bridge and housed an eventual six boat clubs before an August freshet washed them over the dam (Richardson 1932, 495) (J.K. Lord 1913, 311).
BOATHOUSE* (II) 1872 (1877)
The Dartmouth Boat Club built the boathouse on the River north of the Bridge (J.K. Lord 1913, 393), but the roof collapsed under the weight of snow in 1877 (Richardson 1932, 564). Students did not resume the sport until the mid-20th Century.
BOATHOUSE* (III) 1934 (1952)
Snow again destroyed the boathouse (R.N. Hill, 286).
BOATHOUSE* (IV) after 1952 (1987?)
A sturdy boathouse replaced the 1934 building that had collapsed in 1952 (R.N. Hill, 286); presumably this building made way for the Friends of Dartmouth Rowing Boathouse.
BONES GATE HOUSE 1925 (DELTA TAU DELTA HOUSE [III])
Blackall, Clapp & Whittemore designed the house at 10 Webster Avenue, giving it a gambrel roof with a projecting entrance bay and specifying "non-fireproof" construction. Enclosing approximately 100,000 cubic feet, the Delta Tau Delta fraternity completed the house in July of 1925 at a cost of 46.5 cents per cubic foot (Architectural Forum [December 1925]: 375). Founded 1901 (Richardson 1932, 732), the fraternity moved from the house at 39 North Main Street. Fire gutted the building in 1929 (Barrett, 90) after which Wells & Hudson rebuilt it. The fraternity went local and changed its name to Bones Gate in 1960 (R.N. Hill, 234).
ALEXIS BOSS TENNIS CENTER AND ALAN GORDON PAVILION 2000
The tennis complex stands east of South Park Street near Thompson Arena. The Alexis Boss Tennis Center contains six regulation-sized doubles tennis courts with a multi-layer competition surface. The Gordon Pavilion houses the accompanying lobby, lounge, and locker shower rooms and joins the facility to Scully-Fahey Field. Marjorie and Russell Boss Õ61 and their family donated the tennis center in memory of their daughter, Alexis Boss Õ93, a five-time All-Ivy player. Lynn and Alan D. Gordon Õ77 donated the Gordon Pavilion (Office of Public Affairs 2000).
LUMAN BOUTWELL HOUSE 179X (THE LYCEUM) (23 WEST WHEELOCK STREET)
McClure built the shop at 12 North Main Street north of his house, the Shurtleff-Brown House, on land granted to him in 1784; the site is now approximately the south wall of Parkhurst Hall. McClure used the shop in his capacities as tailor, barber and postmaster. Students' rooms later occupied the building along with a hall called the "Lyceum" which the College used during the University controversy (J.M. Lord 1928, 106). In about 1839 the owner moved the building to 23 West Wheelock Street where it became the home of Luman Boutwell (J.K. Lord 1928, 48).
BRACE COMMONS 1985-87
Not a freestanding building, the underground room connects Andres and Zimmerman dormitories on East Wheelock Street and supports a paved patio above. Brace forms the social center of the "Supercluster."
BRADLEY COURT 1961
The paved area north of Kiewit connects Bradley Hall to North Main Street and features concrete benches, a large elm tree, and low concrete defining walls.
BRADLEY HALL 1961
E.H. and M.K. Hunter designed the building to house classrooms, offices and laboratories of the mathematics department in 1961, along with Gerry Hall to which it is connected. The Hunters designed a number of Modernist houses around Hanover; they also taught an architecture class at the College. The Lincoln and Teresa Filene Foundation funded Filene Auditorium, a 200-seat hall connecting Bradley to Gerry (Widmayer 1991, 166). Students refer to the buildings as "the Shower Towers" because of their blue and green tile pattern. The College renovated the building in 1980. Kliment and Halsband designed an addition for the building in 1987 that was not built (Architecture and Urbanism [May 1988]: 51-54).
BREW HOUSE* by 1773 (18XX)
Wheelock in his 1773 Narrative mentioned the Brew House along with the Malt House (Brown, 17), though its location is unknown. Chase also refers to the building (Chase,239).
BREWSTER HALL 1938 (KAPPA ALPHA THETA HOUSE) (EPSILON KAPPA THETA HOUSE [I]) (INTERNATIONAL HOUSE) (INTERNATIONAL STUDENTS CENTER [II])
The College built the dormitory on the site of a house at 3 College Street as housing for Hanover Inn employees (Dartmouth Alumni Magazine 31, no.7 [April 1939]: 18) and named it after the tavernkeeper who had built a precursor to the Inn. The building became a College dormitory at some time and underwent a 1984 remodeling. Kappa Alpha Theta sorority occupied the building after 1990 and vacated it around 1993 when it became the local Epsilon Kappa Theta; the College remodeled the building again to house international students, with the porch on the top floor being enclosed around 1994 along with work in the basement. Jens Frederick Larson designed the building.
BREWSTER'S TAVERN* c.1780 (1813) (INN [I]) (DEACON DEWEY'S COFFEE HOUSE)
Brewster's Tavern was an inn that occupied the site that the Hanover Inn now holds; the lot was one that the College gave in 1778 to Gen. Ebenezer Brewster of Preston, Conn. to induce him to settle and be the College Steward. Brewster built the tavern and provided unexpected competition for the earlier Storrs Tavern across the street (J.K. Lord 1928, 25). Brewster kept the business until 1802 when he leased it to Deacon Benoni Dewey as Dewey's Coffee House, as well as others; Brewster's son Col. Amos Brewster built the Dartmouth Hotel on the site 1813 (J.K. Lord 1928, 43) when his father was out of town. The younger Brewster moved the tavern to the northeast corner of Main and Lebanon Streets, where it remained until the builders of the Dartmouth Savings Bank tore it down in 1913 (Hurd, 128).
BRIDGE* (I) 1796 (1804)
Rufus Graves 1791 designed the bridge (Richardson 1932, 654) and had it built with Ebenezer Brewster, owner of the Inn's precursor, and Aaron Hutchinson, a Lebanon lawyer who built the Hutchinson House. With Boston capitalists they formed the White River Falls Bridge Company (Waterman, 35). The structure cost $12,000 and stood on the site of the ferry where the current bridge also stands (Richardson 1932, 227). The wooden bridge consisted of a single open high-arched span unsupported for 344 feet
(Waterman, 35). It was the second longest single span in New England (Richardson 1932, 227) and since it was 20 feet higher in the center it occasioned an unusually steep drive up one side and down the other (J.K. Lord 1928, 31). The bridge collapsed under its own weight in 1804 (Heinrichs 1994) and caused Graves to fail financially (J.K. Lord 1928, 26). The paper wrote (with punctuation added):
On Monday night last the bridge connecting this town with Norwich (Vt) unfortunately gave way and was reduced to a heap of ruins, on account of the coldness of the weather, for some weeks past. It did not penetrate the ice and the most valuable part of the materilas will doubtless be secured. This loss is to be regretted, both as depriving us of a safe conveyance across our river in an uncomfortable and tempetuous seasona nd as depriving a few individuals of a considerable property
("Connecticut River Bridge Destroyed")
BRIDGE* (II) 1806 (1839)
The second bridge between Hanover and Lewiston and Norwich was again an open span but used a center pier of stone. The original work on the bridge bridge seems to have poor, and the bridge company repaired the structure in 1823 (Waterman, 36) and completely rebuilt it in 1839 (Heinrichs 1994). The shareholders in the bridge company made a profit.
BRIDGE* (III) 1839 (1854)
The third bridge was an open span that the bridge company built to replace the 1806 bridge. The bridge was in disrepair by 1854, when a suspicious fire destroyed the structure. The company had blocked the ice road that ran across the River in order to force people to cross the bridge and pay the toll (Heinrichs 1994). The Ledyard Free Bridge replaced it and was the first covered bridge at this site.
BRIDGMAN BLOCK (EAST SIDE) 1887 (SIGMA CHI HALL [I])
The block stands on the east side of Main Street above the Ledyard Bank Building and occupies the site of the first brick block in town, the Tontine Building, which had burned in January of 1887 in the Main Street Fire. The block stands south of the Currier Block and consists of two sections: the main northern section of the building has a seven-window facade, the central window of which was originally circular and might have represented a fraternal emblem, over which a gabled pediment originally rose. This pediment is now a simple horizontal cornice and the circular window is now rectangular, though a trace of the gable remains above in the brickwork. This section of the block bore the number 12 in 1893 and 22-28 in 1931. The building held the hall of Sigma Chi by 1893 before the organization moved to Webster Avenue. From 1925 the Masons met in a hall on the second floor of a block on the east side of Main Street that the Baptist Society owned (J.K. Lord 1928, 287), possibly in this block. A small two-window section to the south of the building has also been part of the complex for some time.
BRIDGMAN BLOCK (WEST SIDE)* (I) ca. 1900 (1906) (PUKWANA CLUB HALL [I]) (DELTA KAPPA EPSILON HALL [IV], KAPPA SIGMA HALL [I], PHI SIGMA KAPPA HALL [I]) (ODD FELLOWS HALL [III])
The block stood as the second building below the corner on the west side of Main Street, next below the Davison Block. D.S. Bridgman built the structure, and it housed the Sigma Nu-precursor Pukwana Club, Delta Kappa Epsilon, Kappa Sigma and Phi Sigma Kappa Halls by 1905. The Odd Fellows used the building from 1900 (J.K. Lord 1928, 289). The building burned in 1906 (J.K. Lord 1928, 33).
BRIDGMAN BLOCK (WEST SIDE) (II) 1906 (I.O.O.F.) (MASONS' LODGE [V])
D.S. Bridgman built the block to replace the one that burned in 1906; numbered 19-27 Main Street in 1931, it contained the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, whose letters appear below the cornice of the northern portion. The Masons also used the Odd Fellows' Hall from 1908-1925. Today the shopfront contains only Dartmouth Co-Op; notable on the second floor are the bow windows at the north and south ends. The building is connected to the 1893 Davison Block to the north.
BROWN HALL (b) 1956-1958
The College began the dormitory in the Choate cluster "as an experiment in student living" (ORL) and named it for Trustee Albert O. Brown of 1881 (ORL). The hall is arranged in suites, each with a bathroom, and shares a separate lounge with Little to which it is connected by skywalk. The building beneath the lounge houses the Women's Resource Center. In 1961 the hall held held 75 in eight or 9-man suites including 27 singles and 24 doubles (Office of the Bursar); the hall held 72 in 30 singles and 21 doubles in 1990. In 1970 the Choates became a "semi-autonomous living unit" housing two faculty members and 75 women transfer students (From Dartmouth 1970, 34). Campbell, Aldrich & Nulty designed the dormitory group.
JAMES S. BROWN HOUSE 1810-12 (CROSBY HOUSE [a]) (ELM HOUSE [a])
James S. Brown built his house on the southwest corner of Elm and College at 36 College Street (R.N. Hill, 111), a site that was part of the Woodward lot (Thayer). Brown, a saddler who had previously kept a shop across the street, built the house on the slope of the ravine and had a basement to the north in which he kept shop until his 1817 when he moved his business to the Tontine. Brown left by 1821 and Dr. Daniel Oliver owned the house from 1821-4, when he exchanged it with the College for Dr. Perkins' house on the west side of the Green. The College sold the house in 1834 to Dr. Asa Crosby, with Professor Alpheus Crosby living in it from 1836-49 and Dr. Thomas R. Crosby from 1854-72, followed by his widow until 1897 when the College again bought the building. In 1897 the College remodeled the house into a dormitory to hold 20 and called it Elm House (J.K. Lord 1928, 54) (Richardson 1932, 677). Later the building became a tenement, and A.A. McQuide purchased it. McQuide or the College moved the house in 1927 to 26 East Wheelock Street, next door to the current Kappa Kappa Gamma House, to make room for Baker Library. The College apparently has owned it since and used it for faculty housing. The building currently has a smaller central chimney than it originally had, but the exterior is mostly original, including the pedimented gable ends on the exterior and an unusual spiral stair and much wood trim inside (Barrett, Town of Hanover Calendar [oldest houses in the village]).
-PETER BRUNDAGE LODGE 1956
The College named the lodge at the Dartmouth Skiway for Peter Brundage '45, who was killed on Okinawa; his father donated the funds for the building (Hooke, 268).
BUCHANAN HALL 1968 (TUCK MALL DORM)
Tuck School of Business students use the dormitory on Tuck Mall; it adjoins Woodbury House. The dormitory contains 68 singles and five suites (Widmayer 1991, 240). The building was renamed Buchanan in 1987 (Tuck School website).
BUILDING 37 1936-37 (THE 37 BUILDING) (HOME 37)
The M.H.M.H. School of Nursing built the dormitory of 48 rooms for north of Dick's House, between Billings Lee and Building 50 (Land, 66). The building takes its name from its year of construction. The College now owns the building, having purchased the whole M.H.M.H. property c. 1989.
BUILDING 50 1950 (SCHOOL OF NURSING) (HOME 50) (THE 50 BUILDING)
The 1950 building is a modern addition to the 37 Building and included living quarters, classrooms etc. (Land, 97) for the Nurses' School; it stands north of Dick's House, and east of Building 37, which it adjoins (Land, 66). The College now owns the building.
BULLETIN ELM*
The elm once stood at northeast corner of the Green and students knew it by this name at least by 1864 ("Webster Cottage." Hanover Historical Society.). The tree features in a postcard dated 1912 and seems to have been a central information point for the College.
BURKE CHEMISTRY LABORATORY 1993-94
Ellenzweig Associates of Cambridge and R.M. Kliment and Frances Halsband of New York designed the laboratory building on North College Street adjoining the Fairchild Center.
BURKE HOUSE* 1809 (1856)
Amos Wardwell built the large two-story house south of today's South Fayerweather in 1809. The house later became known as the Burke house; President Lord owned it at one time, and students later occupied it. The house burned in 1856 (J.K. Lord 1928, 64) (J.K. Lord 1913, 310).
BUTLER* (a) after 1944 (ca. 1993)
The medical school building adjoined Nathan Smith to the north and fell to make way for Burke in the early 1990s.
BUTLER 1&2 (b) 1964
The Medical School dormitories stand west of Strasenburgh (Facilities).
BUTTERFIELD HALL 1940 (NEW BUTTERFIELD )
Millionaire philanthropist Ralph Butterfield of 1839 funded the 1895 Butterfield Museum; after that building fell to make way for Baker Library, this building took the name. Jens Frederick Larson designed this last of the pre-war dormitories. The building held 59 students in 1961 and 55 in 1990, occupying 35 singles and 10 doubles at that time (ORL). The dormitory was one of ten Navy V-12 dormitories and operated as the ship "U.S.S. Butterfield" during W.W.II. (Navy 1944). The Hyphen of 1988-9 connects the building to the adjacent Russell Sage Hall.
BUTTERFIELD MUSEUM* 1895-6 (1928)
The bequest of Ralph Butterfield, M.D., of Kansas City, Mo., of the class of 1839, provided for a building to keep and exhibit specimens of botany, ethnology etc. (Emerson 1900). Lamb & Rich designed the hall; the cornerstone was laid with much ceremony at Commencement 1895. The Italian Renaissance museum had a granite foundation and buff-colored Roman Brick superstructure with a copper roof. The building stood as the end of a quadrangle formed by Memorial Hall/Webster Hall and the College Church. The museum measured 145 by 55 feet, was four windows deep, and stood three stories high with a basement. Butterfield was built at a cost of $87,000 to house the departments of biology, geology and sociology (Richardson 1932, 679). The cross-block path ran in front of the building almost directly to the front door of Crosby Hall. In 1917-18 the Telephone Department of the D.C. Training Detachment used the building for the war effort (Clark, 41). The hall was "unfortunately planned and unfortunately placed" and its color as well did not harmonize with other edifices (Richardson 1932, 679). While still serviceable, the College demolished the building as soon as Baker was built directly behind it. Excavations for the Rauner Special Collections Library in Webster Hall in June of 1997 uncovered some remnants of the building's foundations (http://www.dartmouth.edu/~speccoll/webster.html).
BYRNE HALL 1992
Centerbrook designed the Tuck School dining hall, which connects the old refectory, Stell Hall, to the Murdough center to the south.
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