66 IX BUILDINGS AND EQUIPMENT Growth of the Campus. Early Buildings. Campus in 1794. Buildings of 1803. Early Equipment. Building Era of 1832. Joseph Henry's Plan. Equipment After McCosh. The "Park" Versus the University Scheme. Nassau Hall. Dean's House. Libraries. Laboratories, Observatories, and Museums. Prospect. Art Museum. Marquand Chapel and Murray-Lodge. Athletic Equipment. Infirmary. The Dormitories. The Graduate College. PRIOR to its removal to Princeton the College owned neither land nor buildings and scarcely any equipment. For the course of lectures on natural philosophy and particularly on electricity which Mr. Evans delivered before the College at Newark in the autumn of 1751, President Burr had to hire apparatus. Soon after, he secured subscriptions to the amount of two hundred pounds, Pennsylvania currency, for the purchase of equipment. Had his acquisitions been in any way remarkable they hardly would have escaped the keen eye and ever ready notebook of the Reverend Ezra Stiles, who, when in 1754 he visited the College for the first time, saw nothing but the library worth an entry in his diary. Mr. Stiles failed to record the size of the collection, but an independent allusion 2 at this time informs us that the library contained " a considerable number" of books. The definite history of the library begins in 1755, when Governor Belcher presented his collection. The decision to settle at Princeton wrought a trans • Massachusetts Historical Society Proceedings, March 10, 1892. Preface to the Independent Reflector, N. Y., 1754. GROWTH OF CAMPUS 333 formation in the assets of the College. It immediately came into possession of the FitzRandolph gift of four and a half acres on which to erect buildings, besides the ten acres of cleared land" contiguous to the site of the College," and two hundred acres of woodland within easy hauling distance, to guarantee a fuel supply. The woodland was eventually disposed of and for over a century the campus showed no enlargement. By 1887 it had, however, grown to fifty-five acres, which the acquisitions of the next three years increased to two hundred and twenty-five acres, known as the central tract of the campus, and contained roughly within the rectangle formed by Nassau Street on the north, Washington Road on the east, Stony Brook on the south, and the railroad on the west. In 1905 the University by gift came into possession of the western tract of the campus, known as the Springdale Farm, of two hundred and twenty-one acres and including the land occupied by the University Golf Links. In the same year the eastern tract of the campus, consisting of some ninety-three acres, running from the ridge of Prospect Avenue down to Stony Brook, including Laughlin Field and the woods on the lake shore, and known as the Olden Farm, was also presented to the University. In 1912 a further gift of ninety-three acres, called the Butler tract, and adjoining Olden Farm, brought the present total number of acres in the campus up to six hundred and thirty two. When the College moved to Princeton in 1756 it found in Nassau Hall and the president's house its two first buildings and experienced for the first time a visible, tangible existence. Governor Belcher's legacies were brought to Nassau Hall; his pictures were hung in the prayer-hall and his books were shelved in an upper room over the main entrance to the building, henceforth to be known as the library room. This was the room in which were held the sessions of the State legislature in 1776, and in 1783 the ordinary sessions of the Continental Congress. The next building on the campus was a modest engine house," in all probability little more than a shed or small barn, put up to shelter the college fire engine, the hundred leather buckets, and the two ladders ordered by the board of trustees soon after the occupation of Nassau Hall. Six years later (1762) a new kitchenhouse was built near the east end of Nassau Hall. This must have been a fairly substantial building since it also contained quarters for the steward, and lasted until the rearrangement of the campus in the middle thirties. In 1766 a new engine house with new buckets, numbered and lettered "N. H.," replaced the old establishment. These constructions, with Nassau Hall, the president's house, and an additional shed in the south campus, constituted the entire group of college buildings until the end of the eighteenth century. The earliest picture of the campus is the engraved frontispiece of Blair's" Account," of 1764. The campus was then a bare unenclosed lot, a footnote in the text of the "Account" informing us that the wooden fence shown in the print was only "the fancy of the engraver. In 1765 a number of young buttonwood trees were planted in the "college yard "-the shade trees ordered by the board of trustees. Nine years later these trees were still too small to obstruct the wide view that Mr. John Adams enjoyed when President Witherspoon escorted him up into the balcony of Nassau Hall. In CAMPUS IN 1794 1 335 1770, by order of the board, the front campus was handsomely & well" inclosed on the street front by a brick wall and "pailed fence" on a stone foundation which it was declared by formal resolution "would add to the beauty, convenience, & reputation of the College." At the same time, to render the lower tier of rooms in Nassau Hall more habitable, the soil to the depth of two feet was graded away from the building to the street, making the present basement floor nearly on a level with the ground. No extended description of the campus in the eighteenth century is known save the one left by Moreau de Saint-Méry 1 after his visit in 1794. He found the brick wall in bad condition, and as he makes no mention of the paling fence the latter had probably vanished in smoke during the British occupancy of Nassau Hall in Revolutionary days. At equal distances in the wall were pilasters, each intended to support a wooden urn, but several of the urns were lying on the ground. The urns were painted gray. Wooden steps, unguarded by balustrades, led up to the three entrances into the building. The two upper floors were given over to students' rooms. On the main or entrance floor, which was some seven or eight feet above the ground, were the dining-room, the library containing two thousand volumes, and the Rittenhouse orrery, and the prayer-hall furnished with plain wooden benches and Peale's portrait of Washington. The recitation rooms were probably on the basement floor, or what Moreau calls the cellar. His description of the appearance of the campus is vivid: "It is untidy and covered with the dung of the cattle that come there to graze. In the center of it is an old iron four-pounder, minus its carriage. This cannon, the "Voyage aux Etats-Unis," pp. 114-116. 1 bad condition of the wall, with several of the urns fallen on the ground, all bear the mark of neglect, and you reach the edifice sorry that the students should have such a regrettable example before their eyes. . . . Behind the College is a very large yard, dirty and lying fallow, so that everything in the place looks neglected." Under President Smith improvements began to be made and additional buildings were erected. In 1799, for the elder Professor Maclean, a house was put up in the same position relative to Nassau Hall as the president's house, but on the east side of the campus, becoming known later as the vice-president's house. It was removed in 1871 when the front campus was enlarged. In 1803-1804 northeast of Nassau Hall the refectory was built, later known as "Philosophical Hall." On the opposite side of the campus, northwest of Nassau Hall, was placed the corresponding library building (now the University Offices) which contained besides the library the freshman and sophomore recitation rooms and a room for the president's classes. At the southwest end of Nassau Hall a second professor's house was next built, matching in style the Maclean house. The divinity students were moved into "Divinity Hall," one of three houses purchased from the adjoining property in 1804 and situated east of the present south stack of the University library. The space gained for dormitory use in Nassau Hall by these improvements rendered the accommodations there sufficient for the next thirty years to house all the students. Turning to the equipment during this period, we find that when Dr. Witherspoon arrived in 1768 it was negligible. We have seen that in the resolution of 1769 empowering a committee to purchase up to the amount of two hundred and fifty pounds the trustees stated that |