Wesleyan Memorial Chapel

Last updated
Wesleyan Memorial Chapel
Wesleyan University - Memorial Chapel 01.jpg
View of the Wesleyan University Memorial Chapel and the Zelnick Pavilion in 2012
Wesleyan Memorial Chapel
General information
Architectural styleMid-19th-century Gothic Revival
Address221 High Street, Middletown, Connecticut
Coordinates 41°33′21″N72°39′22″W / 41.5557°N 72.6561°W / 41.5557; -72.6561
Construction started1867
Completed1871

The Wesleyan University Memorial Chapel is a Gothic Revival brownstone building at 221 High Street in Middletown, Connecticut. Its architect is unknown. More recent alterations have been from architects J.C. Cady [1] and Henry Bacon. [2] It stands as one of the only religious buildings known to have been constructed in Connecticut as a Civil War Memorial. [2]

Architectural Significance

As a brownstone Gothic Revival religious structure, it sits in a row of Wesleyan University buildings west of High Street in the center of campus. It was built as a memorial to Wesleyan University alumni and undergraduates who died in the Civil War. [2] [3]

On the south side, the second window from the back honors Wesleyan alumni and students who died from years 1861 to 1865. Eighteen names in upper and lower case are recorded although it is thought to only list half the number who actually died in service. [4]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green-Wood Cemetery</span> Cemetery in Brooklyn, New York

Green-Wood Cemetery is a 478-acre (193 ha) cemetery in the western portion of Brooklyn, New York City. The cemetery is located between South Slope/Greenwood Heights, Park Slope, Windsor Terrace, Borough Park, Kensington, and Sunset Park, and lies several blocks southwest of Prospect Park. Its boundaries include, among other streets, 20th Street to the northeast, Fifth Avenue to the northwest, 36th and 37th Streets to the southwest, Fort Hamilton Parkway to the south, and McDonald Avenue to the east.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wesleyan University</span> Private liberal arts college in Middletown, Connecticut, US

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts university in Middletown, Connecticut, United States. It was founded in 1831 as a men's college under the Methodist Episcopal Church and with the support of prominent residents of Middletown. It is currently a secular institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middletown, Connecticut</span> City in Connecticut, United States

Middletown is a city in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. Located along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. Middletown is the largest city in the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region. In 1650, it was incorporated by English settlers as a town under its original Native American name, Mattabeseck, after the local Wangunk village of the same name. They were among many tribes along the Atlantic coast who spoke Algonquian languages. The colonists renamed the settlement in 1653.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ithiel Town</span> American architect

Ithiel Town was an American architect and civil engineer. One of the first generation of professional architects in the United States, Town made significant contributions to American architecture in the first half of the 19th century. His work, in the Federal and revivalist Greek and Gothic revival architectural styles, was influential and widely copied.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">J. Cleaveland Cady</span> American architect (1837–1919)

Josiah Cleaveland Cady was an American architect known for his Romanesque Revival designs. He was also a founder of the American Institute of Architects.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Collegiate Gothic</span> Architectural style

Collegiate Gothic is an architectural style subgenre of Gothic Revival architecture, popular in the late-19th and early-20th centuries for college and high school buildings in the United States and Canada, and to a certain extent Europe. A form of historicist architecture, it took its inspiration from English Tudor and Gothic buildings. It has returned in the 21st century in the form of prominent new buildings at schools and universities including Cornell, Princeton, Vanderbilt, Washington University, and Yale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">James Gamble Rogers</span> American architect (1867–1947)

James Gamble Rogers was an American architect. A proponent of what came to be known as Collegiate Gothic architecture, he is best known for his academic commissions at Yale University, Columbia University, Northwestern University, and elsewhere.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Church of the Holy Trinity and Rectory (Middletown, Connecticut)</span> Historic church in Connecticut, United States

The Church of the Holy Trinity is an historic Episcopal church at 381 Main Street in Middletown, Connecticut. Completed in 1874, it is one of the city's finest examples of Gothic Revival architecture. Its nearby former rectory, also known as the Bishop Acheson House, is one of its finest Colonial Revival houses. The two buildings were listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Edward Augustus Russell House</span> Historic house in Connecticut, United States

The Edward Augustus Russell House is a Greek Revival house on the Wesleyan University campus in Middletown, Connecticut, USA. The house, at 318 High Street, faces west from the east side of High Street north of the corner at High and Court Streets. A large wooded lawn extends to the Honors College property to the north. High Street between Church and Washington Streets was the most prestigious residential area in Middletown during the 19th century. It was later home to the KNK Fraternity of Wesleyan University. The structural system consists of load-bearing masonry with a flat roof, and materials include brick and flushboarding walls and a brownstone foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Samuel Wadsworth Russell House</span> Historic house in Connecticut, United States

The Samuel Russell House is a neoclassical house at 350 High Street in Middletown, Connecticut, built in 1828 to a design by architect Ithiel Town. Many architectural historians consider it to be one of the finest Greek Revival mansions in the northeastern United States. Town's client was Samuel Russell (1789-1862), the founder of Russell & Company, the largest and most important American firm to do business in the China trade in the 19th century, and whose fortunes were primarily based on smuggling illegal and addictive opium into China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Henry Austin (architect)</span> American architect

Henry Austin was a prominent and prolific American architect based in New Haven, Connecticut. He practiced for more than fifty years and designed many public buildings and homes primarily in the New Haven area. His most significant years of production seem to be the 1840s and 1850s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Memorial Hall (Harvard University)</span> Building at Harvard University

Memorial Hall, immediately north of Harvard Yard on the Harvard University campus in Cambridge, Massachusetts, is a High Victorian Gothic building honoring Harvard University alumni's sacrifices in defending the Union during the American Civil War‍—‌"a symbol of Boston's commitment to the Unionist cause and the abolitionist movement in America".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eclectic Society (fraternity)</span> Fraternity (1838–1970) or its successor co-op at Wesleyan University

The Eclectic Society of Phi Nu Theta (ΦΝΘ) began in 1838 as a college fraternity at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, making it one of the oldest fraternities in the United States. In 1970 the alumni and active members split. The building was sold to the university and the Eclectic organization continued in the form of a co-ed cooperative living space, sharing the building with Wesleyan's dance organization, Movement House. The succeeding co-op dropped the use of Greek letters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Frederick Clarke Withers</span> American architect

Frederick Clarke Withers was an English architect in America, especially renowned for his Gothic Revival ecclesiastical designs. For portions of his professional career, he partnered with fellow immigrant Calvert Vaux; both worked in the office of Andrew Jackson Downing in Newburgh, New York, where they began their careers following Downing's accidental death. Withers greatly participated in the introduction of the High Victorian Gothic style to the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">St. Andrew's Episcopal Church (Walden, New York)</span> Historic church in New York, United States

St. Andrew's Episcopal Church is located at the corner of Walnut and Orchard Street in the village of Walden, New York, United States. It is a brick Gothic Revival structure designed and built in 1871 by Charles Babcock, a former partner of Richard Upjohn. Located at the center of town, near the village hall, it is a local landmark that dominates the village's skyline.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rufus G. Russell</span> American architect

Rufus G. Russell (1823-1896) was an architect working from New Haven, Connecticut.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Portland, Connecticut</span> Town in Connecticut, United States

Portland is a town in Middlesex County, Connecticut, United States. The town is part of the Lower Connecticut River Valley Planning Region. The population was 9,384 at the 2020 census. The town center is listed as a census-designated place (CDP). It is situated across the Connecticut River from Middletown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Queens Campus, Rutgers University</span> College campus in Middlesex County, New Jersey, US

The Queens Campus or Old Queens Campus is a historic section of the College Avenue Campus of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick, New Jersey, in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Xi Chapter, Psi Upsilon Fraternity</span> United States historic place

The Xi Chapter, Psi Upsilon Fraternity is a fraternity chapter at Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut. Its 1891 building, the Psi Upsilon Fraternity Building, is an architecturally significant example of Romanesque and Jacobethan architecture, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Indian Hill Cemetery</span> Cemetery in Middletown, Connecticut, US

Indian Hill Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 383 Washington Street in Middletown, Connecticut on a hill adjacent to Wesleyan University.

References

  1. "A Forgotten Architect of the Gilded Age: Josiah Cleaveland Cady's Legacy. Kathleen A. Curran". The Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America. 88 (1): 112. March 1994. doi:10.1086/pbsa.88.1.24304588. ISSN   0006-128X.
  2. 1 2 3 "CHS: Civil War Monuments of Connecticut: Memorial Chapel, Middletown". chs.org. Retrieved 2024-09-10.
  3. "HISTORICAL ROW: A CHAPEL FOR ALL SEASONS – Wesleyan University Magazine". 2002-09-04. Retrieved 2024-09-24.
  4. David B. Potts, interview, January 6, 1994.