This month is the centennial of an important event. Exactly a century ago, on Feb. 8, the trustees of Richmond College (now the University of Richmond) met to consider relocating the school from its campus located close to the city to land in the far western suburbs known as Westhampton. The story of that day is a Baptist story.
Founded by the Baptists in 1830, the school had evolved from academy to seminary to college; and it had been at the near-downtown location since 1834. In 1840 the seminary became Richmond College, a liberal arts school.
Fred Anderson
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Although “the College” was open to all faiths, the primary constituency was Baptist. Some of the young men were destined for the gospel ministry, though the vast majority headed for other careers. Yet most would become active laymen in Virginia churches. Most of the faculty members also were Baptists and many of them were outstanding leaders in Richmond churches. The trustees were Baptists. For generations the school was the crown jewel of Virginia Baptists.
In 1894 Frederic William Boatwright was elected the third president of the college. He was only 26 years of age. A graduate of the college, he also had studied abroad and returned to alma mater to teach languages. He was a favorite of one of the leading trustees, William E. Hatcher, who had been a Richmond College classmate with the young Boatwright’s father. Hatcher likely influenced the trustees to elect the young professor. The older professors objected. Boatwright was hanged in effigy by some students and a coffin was fashioned which represented Richmond College, signifying that the school had died after choosing the new president. Some leading faculty members resigned. (Boatwright survived and served as president for over a half-century!)
At the beginning of the Boatwright presidency, the college was confined to a 13-acre campus. (Readers not familiar with the location can find it by going to Stuart Circle on Monument Avenue and head one block north on Lombardy to Grace. There are brick columns marking the boundary and old Columbia still stands. It is the Federal-style mansion which the college occupied when it first moved to the site; and in one way or another, it was used by the school until its sale in the 1980s.)
It is difficult to imagine the school which Boatwright inherited. It had nine professors, a student body of 183 young men and an annual income of less than $30,000. The total resources were under $500,000. Twenty years earlier the Baptists of Virginia had rescued the school and replaced its endowment, which had been lost at the close of the Civil War.
Besides youth and a keen intellect, Boatwright possessed vision and an appreciation for his people, the Virginia Baptists. He frequently was seen at large Baptist gatherings and promoted the college at every opportunity.
With the new president and the dawning of a new century, there developed the germ of an idea of enlarging the school either at the existing campus or at some site just beyond the city. A farm along west Broad Street was considered. Attention was drawn to a large site in the far western reaches which had been used as an amusement park. There was a lake for swimming. Land developers were keen for the school to locate in hopes of building new houses in a growing suburb known as Westhampton. There also was a movement to establish an entirely new college for women.
On Tuesday, Feb. 8, 1910, the trustees of the college met at First Baptist Church, located downtown at 12th and Broad Streets, to consider the matter of relocation and the proposed Westhampton site. The day was recalled as “cold and gray.”
Among the trustees were many personalities known to most Virginia Baptists of the times, including Lt. Gov. J. Taylor Ellyson, Editor R.H. Pitt of the Religious Herald and J. Hunt Hargrave (whose name is perpetuated in the academy at Chatham). There were 22 trustees voting on that fateful day.
Charles Hill Ryland was absent due to illness, missing his first board meeting in 30 years. Ryland was one of the foremost leaders among Virginia Baptists, a minister, and long associated with “the College” as treasurer and librarian. Interestingly, Ryland died on the first day of August 1914, just prior to the school’s move to the new site; and he never lived to see the actual relocation.
George Braxton Taylor was there. He was a trustee; and at the time, he was a pastor in the Roanoke area and a Bible teacher at Hollins College. He was a graduate of Richmond College and keenly interested in its future. In his diary, Taylor recorded impressions of the momentous day. “The committee on site reported advising the acceptance of the gift of 200 acres of land out at Westhampton, some five miles from Richmond. After lunch served at the church, by the ladies, in a special electric car [that is, a streetcar or trolley], we went to Westhampton & notwithstanding the rain got a good idea of the tract & were favourably impressed with it.
“Upon our return, our car landed us at ‘The Jefferson’ & in a private room on the 6th floor we continued our session. At 7 p.m. we had dinner in a private dining-room—a fine dinner—too fine, all the way from oysters on the half shell to coffee, cheese & ice-cream. I think I had never before seen fish cooked & served on ‘planks.’
“We finally came to a vote & all favored the acceptance of the site, except [five trustees]. We found, however, that the bylaws provided that our meeting be [the] first week in February. So we shall have to have a called meeting to ratify our action & make it legal. We were in session until 11 o’clock.”
Despite the technicality, the momentous action had taken place and the movement to the new campus had its beginning with a vote of 17 to 5 in favor. The Baptist trustees had been fed a heavy meal of reason and of oysters. They were not wined but they certainly were dined!
The school did relocate to the suburban site. President Boatwright was impressed with the English style of collegiate education as well as collegiate architecture. He led the architect to choose a pleasing, attractive and timeless architecture of collegiate Gothic.
Virginia Baptists rallied behind the concept and helped in the financing of the new campus. The original buildings remain and have been joined by many newer buildings which also have been designed in the Gothic style with brick and stone.
Plan a visit to the University of Richmond and see what Baptists set into motion a century ago. While there stop into the Virginia Baptist Historical Society’s wing of the library and see exhibits on the history of Virginia Baptists.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.