Ballou Hall, the nucleus from which our present score of buildings grew, was built in 1853. On the twenty-third of July of that year the corner-stone was laid by the president-elect, Hosea Ballou 2d, with appropriate ceremonies. The old Hill presented a festive scene and the ceremonies were marked throughout by a spirit of confidence, of fidelity and of success.

It was then almost as it is to-day, rectangular, one hundred feet long, by sixty broad, built in Italian style of red-faced brick, with sandstone trimmings. On the first floor the corridor ran the entire length of the building, with two rooms to right and left at the farther end, corresponding to those at the entrance now. There was no " office " in those days, but all business and Faculty meetings were held in the room now assigned to the Dean. Only this little room and the one adjacent, the mathamatics room, remain undisturbed. The two rooms opposite formed one known as the "small Chapel." The "large Chapel," was a single hall occupying the westerly half of this floor, now divided into four or five rooms, There was no " Bookstore" then. The upper floor has undergone the least change; the three middle windows on the front looked out from one large room, the College Library open on certain hours, for which the student paid a fee of one dollar a year.