The Kenyon Campus at 175: How It Grew

Bexley Hall, circa 1843
 

The next permanent structure to be built on the hill was Bexley Hall, situated facing Old Kenyon at the far end of the plateau, with almost exactly one mile separating the two buildings' front doors. At least one historian has suggested that Chase was inspired by the U.S. Constitution in his plan to so separate his seminary from his college. With support obtained from Nicholas Vansittart, Lord Bexley, by Charles Pettit McIlvaine, Chase's successor as bishop of Ohio and president of the College, the distinguished English architect Henry Roberts was engaged in 1835 to design the building. The cornerstone was not laid until 1839, however, because the funds for the building's construction were needed elsewhere. Although it was first occupied in 1843, Bexley Hall was not completed until 1858.

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