Show J halls of fair harvard f special correspondence the pilgrim fathers better than they knew when on oct 2 1636 they passed the following vote in the general court the court agree to give toward a school or col lege whereof shall be paid the next year and when the work is finished and the next court to ap point where and what building this vote met with the approval of gov henry vane and his success or john winthrop it was voted that the proposed college be established at Ne and in the same year the name of the town was changed to cambridge because many of the colonias col had been educated in cam bridge in england and the american town was given the name of the eng elsh university when john harvard the non conformist minister died in and left his library of vol umes and half of h s fortune to the college his munificence was reward ed by the bestowal of his name on the infant educational institution two years latr the first pres dent of harvard henry dunster entered upon his duties and two years after this harvard sent forth its first giad bates nine in number since those long ago days harvard has become one of the greatest edu rational cat ional forces in the world with more than 5 students including the s school and nearly 15 in capital while its lands and buildings are valued at 5 more when the college celebrated Us anniversary james russell lowell was one of the speakers and he said not one of our older build ings is venerable or will ever be come so time refuses to console them they look at they meant business and nothing more this was eminently true of the first build ings erected at harvard although it might not be true of the buildings erected in recent years for some of them combine both utility and beauty there is no picture extant of hir vard s first hall and its exact loca tion is now a matter of conjecture it is thought to have stood on or near the site of the present gray s hall the first harvard hall or harvard college as it was called in those days was built in 1672 and it stood alone in the college yard until the year 1700 when another college was built and was named stoughton college in honor of its builder gov william stoughton in the year 1818 th general court of massachusetts made a grant for massachusetts hall which is now the oldest of all the halls of harvard massachusetts hall was completed in 1720 in which year harvard felt that it bad done itself phoud by sending forth a graduating class af 37 the exterior of massachusetts hall has never been altered in all of the years since it was built the walls doorways and windows are ex acely as they were nearly two cen tunes ago the ins de of the old hall has suffered a great deal of change at first it had many small rooms not much larger than cells for there was need of economy in space after the battle of lexington and natural philosophy edward ev erett W H prescott ralph waldo emerson wendell phillips and tro reau lived in hollis in their college days in the year 1780 stoughton hall was torn down to give place to a new hall which was not built until 1804 and then it was placed on a new site ic was at first called new hall but the old name of stoughton was finally given to it stoughton cost and three fourths of this urn was raised by a lottery authorized by the state stoughton has thirty two rooms and among the men of note who have aupied some of these rooms in the past have been edward ji hale phillips brooks and horace grey gore hall holworthy hall was built in the vear 1812 and again funds were raised by a public lottery it was named for sir matthew holworthy an english merchant who had left the college 5 by will in the year 1678 there are 24 suites of rooms in holworthy the suites consisting of a study and two small bedrooms the vis tor to holworthy may see room 12 which was visited by the prince of wales in the year 1860 and in the year 1871 the grand duke alexis also visited this room both of these royal personages presented pictures of themselves to the hall and these pictures hang in room 12 S P sm th author of america ccarles sumner samuel longfellow and robert gould shaw lived in hoi worthy in their college days the present harvard hall took the place of the hall of the same name destroyed by fire in the sear 1764 it was built in the year 1765 66 by the province of massachusetts it was here that washington was received in 1789 and there are many historical associations clustering around the old hall which is now used for lectures and recitations and contains several reference libraries memorial hall Is the finest build ing on the campus it was built as a memorial to the boys of harvard who fought in the great civil war and the funds were given by graduates ot the college the hall includes a great dining room a meeting place for the alumni and its cost up to the time it wae dedicated in july 1878 was and many additions and adornments have been made since that time at one end Is the great sanders theater given by charles sanders and occupied for the first time on commencement day in 1876 no other college in america has so large a dining hall as this and it 1 an interesting scene when the great army of harvard boys who take their here are at dinner that they have a jolly time goes without saying the halls of harvard are filled with a small army of college boys and with their fun and frolic most of them are there for the purpose of fit ting tt em selves for the serious duties of life from these halls have gone forth some of the greatest and most useful men america has known and it is only the pessimist and the soured cynic who believes that no more such the students occupying massachi Mass achu hall were sent to concord and he american troops occupied the hall in recent years massachusetts hall has been user tor society meet and lecture rooms and the hall aas not been used as a since the year 1871 among the fam ous men who roomed in massachi Mass achu hall in bydone years were john gorham palfrey jared sparks george bancroft caleb gushing james free man clarke arancis parkman george P hoar and john D long hollas hall was built in 1763 at a cost of nearly by the brov ince of massachusetts and was named in honor of thomas hollis who was the greatest benefactor the college had ever had up to that time he was an english merchant and a baptist and he established the hollas professorship of divinity and also the hollis professorship of mathematics men are to come forth from the halls ot fair harvard i |