The Council of Independent Colleges: Historic Campus Architecture Project

West College

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West College (view from the southeast, ca. 2001), Williams College

West College (lithograph, ca. 1815), Williams College

Institution Name: Williams College
Original/Historic Place Name: Williamstown Free School
Location on Campus: 931 Main St.
Date(s) of Construction:

1790-1791	original construction
1855	remodeled
1951	rebuilt after fire Perry, Shaw & Hepburn

Designer: unknown; 1951 rebuilding: Perry, Shaw and Hepburn
Type of Place: Individual building
Style: American colonial (Glossary)
Significance: architecture, education, history
Narrative: see below
References: see below

Materials:

Foundation: stone

Walls: brick

Roof: slate

Function:

ca. 1791	library
ca. 1791	chapel
ca. 1791	dining hall (and kitchen)
ca. 1791	classrooms
1791-present (2006)	residence hall

Narrative:
West College is perhaps the most important building for the history and identity of Williams College. Built to house the Williamstown Free School, in fulfillment of the wishes of Ephraim Williams, Jr. (1715-1755), West College served as the first of the college's buildings when the institution received its charter in 1793. (Williams was the second college established in Massachusetts.) It is associated, therefore, with the college's first president, Ebenezer Fitch (1756-1833), and the first trustees, among whom were John Bacon (Mass. State Senate and U.S. House), Theodore Sedgwick (U.S. House and Senate, Mass. Supreme Judicial Court), Woodbridge Little, William Williams (1734-1808, Mass. Senator and president of the college's founding trustees), David Noble (judge in the Court of Common Pleas), and Thompson J. Skinner (Mass. State Treasurer).

In Reflections on the Architecture of Williams College, Stoddard explains that the original structure was remodeled in 1855, altering the west-east passageway in favor of north and south doors, and remodeled again in 1904. When much of the building was devoured by fire in 1951, architects Perry, Shaw and Hepburn took charge of the reconstruction. "Despite all these changes, the building's wonderful, simple brick masses and the elegant spacing of its windows and string courses still give this simple structure great dignity."

References:

Brewster, Sam F. Campus Planning and Construction: Physical Facilities for Universities and Colleges. Washington, D.C.: Association of Physical Plant Administrators of Universities and Colleges, 1976.

Lewis, R. Cragin, ed. Williams 1793-1993: A Pictorial History. Williamstown, MA: Williams College Bicentennial Commission, 1993.

Rudolph, Frederick. Mark Hopkins and the Log: Williams College, 1836-1872. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1956.

Rudolph, Frederick. Mark Hopkins and the Log: Williams College, 1836-1872. Reprint, with an appendix by the author, "Williams College 1793-1993: Three Eras, Three Cultures," Williamstown, MA: Williams College, 1996.

Schuyler, Montgomery. "The Architecture of American Colleges VI. Dartmouth, Williams and Amherst." Architectural Record 28 (December 1910): 424-42.

Spring, Leverett Wilson. History of Williams College. Boston, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1917.

Stoddard, Whitney. Reflections on the Architecture of Williams College. Williamstown, MA: Williams College, 2001: 18.

Turner, Paul Venable. Campus: An American Planning Tradition. New York: Architectural History Foundation; Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1984.