2. Houghton Seminary adds four-year college (1899)

1884 Seminary Building

 1. From 1884 to 1899, Houghton was only a Christian high school or "seminary" as they called it. Then a full college program was added in 1899. This is the second post in some notes on the story of Houghton.

For more than one reason, we think of James S. Luckey as the first president of the school. More on him in the next post. But there were a number of principals before Luckey came to stay in 1908.

Except for Luckey, all of the first leaders of the school were preachers. William H. Kennedy was the first, apparently a very dynamic teacher (1884-86). The red-haired A. R. Dodd was principal for six years while also pastoring the Filmore Wesleyan Methodist church (1886-92). E. W. Bruce was principal for a year and pastor of the Houghton church. He would return to teach theology from 1905-11.

Luckey did take a stint as principal from 1894-96 before going on to do further study. It was in his second year, with around 60 students, that they started calling the leader of the school a "president." But there were still no college students yet.

Silas W. Bond
Luckey Building

2. The most significant of these other early school leaders was Silas W. Bond, who was president from 1896-1908. During his time as president, Houghton would start offering college classes. During his time, Houghton would move from its original site to its current one. One of the buildings constructed during his time still stands, albeit in a different location. My office was in that building my first year at Houghton (Fancher).

I have a hunch that Bond was a little peculiar. But he must have been very capable. He ran for office unsuccessfully a number of times for the Prohibition party. In any case, in 1908 he went to be the founding president of Miltonvale Wesleyan College, which would eventually merge with Bartlesville Wesleyan College. He was the only one other than Luckey to be called a president in those early days.

3. The first graduate of the seminary came in 1887. [1] The second was the great James Luckey himself in 1889. Programs were added one by one. In 1886 the principal's wife started a complete course in drawing, crayoning, and oil painting. In 1885 a business course was added for both men and women. I've already mentioned the Bible Training class in 1888. In 1890 a music department was added. In 1893 a two-year elementary teacher course came. Notice how late formal Bible training was added!

Then in 1895, the denomination approved the addition of college-level courses, an "Advanced Department" or "Academic Department." In 1899, they voted to raise the level of the seminary to that of a college as soon as possible. A four-year college curriculum was implemented that fall, with John Willett as its first graduate in 1901.

At first, the curriculum was very prescribed (Wing describes it as "imaginative"). [2] Five faculty taught everything. There was German. There was all sorts of Greek and Latin literature, and they assumed you would already have learned the Greek and Latin languages in high school. There were multiple philosophy classes, the histories of England, France, and Germany. Chemistry, physics, biology, and more.

When Luckey came back in 1908, he would follow the Harvard model and incorporate a new concept known as "electives."

4. The original site of the seminary was a bit of a haul up the hill, particularly in winter. There was a plateau even further up the hill, but few had the stomach for expansion there.

memorial to
Houghton's birthplace

So practical minds began to eye the property where Houghton College now sits. This is where the house of Willard J. Houghton's birth was, in the grassy lawn where Fancher is now. In 1914, the remains of the last Seneca native American, Copperhead, were moved across the street and given a boulder to commemorate him, a gift from Houghton's son Leonard. Thus the student yearbook of Houghton was named The Boulder. [3]

I smiled a little reading the account of this campus move in the Gillette and Lindley story of Houghton's first fifty years. [4] One gets the impression that there were people in 1902 who did a lot of talking about moving. Then there were a couple doers who got things done.

The first doer, if I am reading correctly, was the Reverend Sylvester Bedford. He bought the land where the current Nielson Center and art building are. The intention, at least in part, was to use it as a camp meeting site. To this day the annual camp meeting of the Wesleyan Church is held on the Houghton College campus. [5] At that time, the Wesleyan Methodist conference was called the "Lockport conference." 

The second doer was A. W. Hall, who bought the southern part of Bedford's land for the seminary/college (for $547.27). This is where the central Houghton College campus now sits. Still, conflict with an out-of-state brickmaker delayed groundbreaking on "Jennings Hall" till 1905.

5. Hall was the financial agent of the college at that time, just as Willard

A. W. Hall

Houghton had been. I see his name as one thread in this key period. I might add that he went on to work with the funds of the denomination but was eventually removed from denominational service for shifting funds around between accounts without permission. I don't mean embezzlement. I mean using money designated for one purpose for another. He thought this was his prerogative. The trustees of the church disagreed.

Two buildings constituted the new campus. The first was "Jennings Hall," now known as Fancher Hall. [6] The second was a girl's dorm, started in 1906. It was first known as Besse Hall and then as Gaoyadeo.

Besse and Jennings Halls

Of course, these buildings are different now. In 1987, Gaoyadeo was torn down. Fancher was then rotated 90 degrees and moved to where Gaoyadeo had been. In the picture to the left, you can also see in the back the "plumbing facility" for the dormitory (read, brick outhouse) and the heating building for the dorm.

6. Another one of Hall's legacies was the relationship between the Wesleyan Methodist Church and Sierra Leone, Africa. In 1889, the church sent Hall there and the report he returned was the spark that made the connection permanent. [6] The first missionaries of the church were to Sierra Leone, and most of those missionaries were Houghton grads.

Mary Lane left Houghton in 1900 for Sierra Leone and married George Clarke, whose wife died there after four years in Africa. Marie Stephens went in 1901, dying there also in 1904. John and Lizzie Ayers married and left in 1905. He died back stateside by year's end. James Luckey's old roommate, William Boardman, died in Sierra Leone less than a month after arriving with his new wife in 1902. By 1949, eighty-eight Houghton alumni had served on the mission field in sixteen different countries.

[1] Melvin Warburton.

[2] A Vine of God's Own Planting: A History of Houghton College from Its Beginnings Through 1972 (Indianapolis, 2004), 76.

[3] A contest was held and Keith Farmer of the class of 1925 won with this name.

[4] Frieda A. Gillette and Katherine W. Lindley, And You Shall Remember... a Pictorial History of Houghton College (1982), 67.

[5] I suspect this past year was the first time since its founding that it did not take place, because of the pandemic.

[6] A.k.a. "Old Admin."

[7] His reflections were published as Three Hundred Miles in a Hammock or Six Weeks in Africa.