Slide 16
Gambier Post Office mural
by Norris Rahming, 1943
Bishop Chase answered by saying, "Come, Mr. C., I will go with you up to the top of this hill, and we will see how it looks." The Bishop and myself proceeded alone to mount the hill. The side was thickly set with an undergrowth of oak bushes, frequently interlaced with rambling grape vines. We struggled through these tangles on our horses until about half way up the hill, when the Bishop, becoming discouraged with that mode of proceeding, proposed that we should take it afoot. We dismounted and hitched our horses, and then proceeded as well as we could until we emerged on the top of the hill, on the very spot where the old College building now stands.
The heavy timber that had once covered the crown of the hill, had principally, many years before, been prostrated by a storm, or otherwise destroyed, so that, excepting a more stunted growth of brush than that we had just come through, the place on top was comparatively open and free from obstruction to the view. Passing a little northward, the whole panorama of the beautiful valleys lay at our feet, the undulating line and varying surface of the distant hills, eastward, southward, and westward, with the windings of the river, all were brought into view, and presented a scene and landscape of unsurpassed loveliness and beauty. It certainly so appeared to me then, and so it seemed to strike our good Bishop. Standing upon the trunk of an old fallen oak, and permitting his eye to pass round the horizon and take in the whole prospect, he expressed his delight and satisfaction in the brief but significant exclamation: "Well, this will do!"