From his second-story office in Woodburn Hall, M. Duane Nellis, dean of the Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, can survey the lower portion of WVU's downtown campus from eight-foot-high windows facing south. Looking west, even the most energetic personality could be lulled to relaxation as the Monongahela River meanders toward rolling hills and the Engineering Sciences Building, just visible above the lush green growth of summer on the Evansdale Campus. To the north, a nearly impossibly high crane looms above the steel beams and concrete base of what will be the Life Sciences Building by the fall of 2002.

Nellis, a professor of geography and an expert at using satellites and other technologies to examine the Earth, is well aware of the significance of place-including his own place in the building that might come closer than any other at WVU to being an ivory tower.

"From the moment you walk into Woodburn you have a sense of grandeur, of the history of this place, of an educational institution with humble beginnings which has endured more than 130 years, and of a building that is nearly as old," Nellis says.

The buildings seen through the windows behind Nellis's desk chair-Armstrong, Hodges, and Brooks Halls- are of bland, functional 1950s architecture. They contrast sharply with the 21st century home for the biology and psychology departments being pieced together not more than 100 yards beyond a window in front of him. He's been impatiently watching the Life Sciences Building's progress.

Nellis considers how Woodburn Hall—the headquarters, so to speak, of the liberal arts and sciences at WVU—bridges the traditions and ideals of a liberal arts education with the technologically advanced facilities needed by a higher education institution to teach 21st century science, earn research dollars, and attract outstanding faculty members and students.

"Sitting here in this grand old building while watching the construction of that amazing facility on the north end of campus, I can't help but reflect on how far this University has come over the decades, how much it has changed during just the past five years, and how dramatically different the campus will seem to alumni and friends who haven't been back for a few years," Nellis says.

"With the new library, recreation, office, and life sciences facilities and more improvements soon to take place, with the outstanding faculty hires we've made, and the tremendous support we're receiving from our alumni and friends, I feel that WVU is on the cusp of breaking through into the next higher class of research institutions. We are striving for greatness, and it's truly an exciting time to work in Woodburn Hall and to be part of this University."

Creating a State University
While neighboring Martin Hall, home of the Perley Isaac Reed School of Journalism, is older, Woodburn Hall has been the centerpiece of WVU's campus since the University's beginnings.

Morgantown's status as an educational hub predates the establishment of WVU and of West Virginia. The Monongalia Academy was founded in the early 1800s as a private men's school at the corner of Walnut and Spruce streets, overlooking Decker's Creek. Several private women's schools were formed later.

The Virginia General Assembly incorporated the Woodburn Female Seminary in 1858. The new seminary, affiliated with the Presbyterian Church, was housed on the site of today's Woodburn Hall in a home built in 1835 by Thomas P. Ray. The name Woodburn comes from Sir Walter Scott's Guy Mannering, and means "streamlet in a shady glen." The name referred to Falling Run, which ran through a wooded ravine known as Falling Run Hollow, just north of Ray's large home.

Several hundred women attended and some 35 graduated from the Woodburn Female Seminary, which was run by Reverend James R. Moore and his wife, Elizabeth I. Moore, who came from Wheeling. James Moore died in 1864, and the seminary closed two years later.

Confederate troops invaded Morgantown in 1863 in search of horses. Elizabeth Moore invited the soldiers to the seminary for bread, butter, and coffee, and her hospitality is credited with saving the seminary from destruction. WVU remembers Mrs. Moore through Elizabeth Moore Hall, which was dedicated to her memory as a recreational center for women students.

West Virginia became a state on June 20, 1863, and on October 3 of that year, the new state made known its acceptance of the terms of the National Land-Grant College Act of 1862, known as the Morrill Act.

The Morrill Act offered every state an endowment of land or land scrip providing 30,000 acres per each of the state's senators and representatives in the U.S. Congress. These endowments were to be used to support "at least one college where the leading object shall be, without excluding other scientific or classical studies, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts, in such manner as the legislatures of the States and Territories may respectively prescribe, in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life."

West Virginia received a grant of land scrip entitling it to the proceeds of the sale of 150,000 acres of public land, 30,000 acres for each of its two senators and three members of the House. The scrip was valued at $1.25 an acre. Since West Virginia had no public lands yet, its educational subsidy was located in Iowa and Minnesota. Without legislative advice, Governor Arthur I. Boreman sold the land for $79,000, just under 53 cents an acre, and invested the proceeds in U.S. government bonds. The state then went about the task of creating a land-grant institution of higher learning.

Applications came from the villages of Bethany, Frankford, Greenwood, Harrisville, Morgantown, Philippi, Point Pleasant, Ravenswood, and Spencer. The larger towns of Charleston, Clarksburg, Parkersburg, and Wheeling did not apply, for fear of eliminating their claims on the state capital.

Some in the state legislature evidently favored Moundsville, where the state penitentiary had been tentatively established, or Weston, where the state of Virginia had located a mental institution. The promoters of these towns evidently considered the uncertainties of a state agricultural college and preferred the sure economic benefits of a prison and an insane asylum.

When the Woodburn Seminary closed in 1866, the trustees of the Monongalia Academy acquired the property. They then offered the state legislature both properties, valued at $51,000, as an enticement to locate the new land-grant institution in or near Morgantown, then a village of 700 residents.

Morgantown was considered an unfit location by some legislators representing the southern half of the state. They feared the institution would serve Pennsylvania more than West Virginia. Representatives of Frankford offered 400 acres of prime farmland if the legislature would locate the college in Greenbrier County.

Morgantown evidently won the prize through an agreement between the delegates from Kanawha and Monongalia counties, who supported each other in locating the college in Morgantown and the state capital in Charleston.

A Center of Intellectual Life
On February 7, 1867, the West Virginia legislature established the Agricultural College of West Virginia in Morgantown and accepted the gift of the grounds and buildings from the trustees of the Monongalia Academy—along with $10,000 in cash from the assets of the two schools.

The legislature created a board of visitors to oversee the new college, and the board hired Reverend Alexander Martin as its first president. Martin persuaded the state legislature to rename the college West Virginia University in 1868 to reflect a broader range of instruction.

WVU's first classes met in the Monongalia Academy's building downtown, and the Woodburn Female Seminary building housed about 30 students as well as several faculty members, including President Martin during the first two years of his presidency. The downtown property was sold and the proceeds were used to build University Hall in 1870, which was later renamed Preparatory Hall and then Martin Hall, in memory of the University's first president.

In January 1873, a fire burned down the Woodburn Seminary building. To replace it, the state legislature immediately contracted with Klives, Kraft & Co. of Wheeling to build New Hall for $37,386. The state paid for the building by placing a five-cent tax on every $100 of taxable property. The center portion of what is now Woodburn Hall was completed in 1876 at a final cost of $41,500. The interior walls were completed and furniture was purchased in 1878, and the University library moved into the new building, then known as the University Building.

During the years that followed, nearly every academic discipline was taught in Woodburn, including engineering, journalism, law, medicine, and music. Woodburn also became home to numerous student activities, including the Athenaeum and the Cadet Corps. Commencement took place in the third floor auditorium until 1890, and the University's early agricultural program amounted to whatever planting could be done by students in the field that is now the green space of Woodburn Circle.

Women entered WVU and attended classes in Woodburn Hall for the first time in 1889, just six years prior to the establishment of the College of Arts and Sciences. The new college brought several of WVU's finest and most-revered faculty members to teach in Woodburn Hall at the beginning of the 20th century.

Men like Daniel Boardman Purinton, a philosopher; James Morton Callahan, a historian and political scientist; and Friend E. Clark, a chemist, were among the early names linked to the arts and sciences and Woodburn Hall. Just a few years later they were joined by Oliver Perry Chitwood, in history; Jasper Newton Deahl, a professor of Latin; and the eminent mathematician John Eiesland.

Today, Woodburn Hall remains the primary site where students take courses from stellar arts and sciences professors such as Robert DiClerico in political science, Ron Lewis in history, and Patricia Rice in anthropology, among many others. In Woodburn Hall, instructors of all academic ranks and disciplines—teaching assistants to chaired professors, romantic literature to quantum mechanics —have influenced students of varied backgrounds and levels of ability.

Students come to WVU today from all of the state's 55 counties, at least 48 U.S. states, and some 100 nations. Probably all students who spend their complete undergraduate careers at WVU take at least one course in Woodburn, perhaps the only building on campus that can claim this distinction.

One of those recent students is Peter Love, who graduated in May with bachelor's degrees in political science and finance. Love was one of 20 students nationwide named to the 2001 USA Today All-USA College Academic First Team.

"I remember very clearly entering Woodburn Hall for the first time as a WVU freshman," Love says. "Walking through the front double doors, down the high-ceilinged hallways, and through the classroom's huge doorway, I remember being a bit nervous, but also excited about the journey I was about to begin. I sat down, looked around at my new colleagues, opened my notebook, and then the instructor, a man named Tom Carney, entered and began a discussion on why the Civil War had begun.

"I knew then, during those first few moments of my first college course, that I had arrived at a new stage of my life. I was in a place I would call home for the duration of my collegiate studies, West Virginia University, and I was seated within the focal point of its historic downtown campus, in Woodburn Hall. I was not alone. Nearly every day, thousands of curious minds enter this building. Less than an hour and a half later they leave the building enlightened, yet usually with more questions about the world they are coming to know more deeply."

WVU's president, David Hardesty, graduated with a bachelor's degree in political science in 1967. His wife, Susan, is also a 1967 WVU graduate.

"The 1960s saw the student rights, civil rights, Vietnam War, and a number of other protests and demonstrations, some of which occurred on the lawn outside Woodburn Hall. I can remember debating with Professors Wes Bagby of history and John Williams of political science over the merits of American policies," Hardesty says. "Students were interested in service, but also in testing authority. It was a wonderful time to be on the college campus, and Woodburn Hall is where I had most of my classes as a WVU student. "It's not the church, but the faith that matters. I

t's not the stadium, but the team spirit that is important. And it's not Woodburn Hall, but what it represents, that inspires us all," Hardesty says. "This is truly a University where greatness is taught, and where greatness is learned, thanks in large measure to the people and programs of Woodburn Hall."

Sources: William T. Doherty Jr. and Festus P. Summers, West Virginia University: Symbol of Unity in a Sectionalized State (Morgantown: WVU Press, 1982). Barbara J. Howe, Tales From the Tower: If Woodburn Hall Could Speak (Morgantown: Eberly College of Arts and Sciences, 1997). Photographs are courtesy of WVU Photographic Services.

 Woodburn Hall, 1876 to 2001

1876 1878 1884 1893 1900 1901 1903 1910 1950 1974 1978 1993 2001

Center portion of Woodburn Hall, then known as New Hall, is finished. New Hall is renamed the University Building. Seth Thomas clock is purchased for $500 and installed in Martin Hall. Chitwood Hall, then known as Science Hall, is built, completing Woodburn Circle. North wing is completed. Building is renamed Woodburn Hall. Ivy is planted in front of Woodburn Hall by the Class of 1903. The planting is repeated 27 years later by the Class of 1930. Construction of the south wing is completed. Clock is moved from Martin Hall to the new east tower of Woodburn Hall. Plans to demolish and replace Woodburn Hall are abandoned. Woodburn Circle is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. Interior of Woodburn Hall is renovated extensively . Exterior of Woodburn Hall is restored to its early 20th century appearance. Ivy is removed. 125th Anniversary of Woodburn Hall.

Fall 2001 Contents

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