Gifford Morgan & the cornerstone

We have many buildings on campus today, a couple of which were quite recently built, the SERC and the Liberal Arts Building. For a very long time however, from the start of the school in 1835 till after WWII, the college was essentially a one building school. The original building was badly damaged by fire in the 1850s (supposedly the fire was accidently started by students cooking taffy in their room!) That was rebuilt, and then wings added on in 1867 and again in 1900. That complex was still here in the 1930s, but much of it was in poor condition, in part because for years poor funding had precluded the routine maintenance necessary for any building.

Ernest Hartwell came here as principal, as the president of a Normal school was called, in 1936. He worked hard, and successfully, to stave off the threat of closing the school, and in fact managed to secure funding for an entirely new building complex, today's Hartwell Hall. An important supporter of his campaign was Gifford Morgan, who was on the board of the school, and member of a prominent local family with many political connections. The Morgan Manning House on Main Street was the Morgan family home then. Shown here is Gifford Morgan laying the 1938 cornerstone for the new building.