Items

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  Chi Psi

  The foundation for the Chi Psi Lodge, the campus home of the fifth national fraternity founded at Union College, was laid in 1901. Located between the Alpha Delta Phi and Psi Upsilon houses, the building was formally known as the Philip Spencer Memorial Building in honor of one of its student founders. The Chi Psi fraternity remained in residence in the building for over 100 years. Although Mrs. Perkin's family was often involved in fraternity life, this particular society did not always land in her good graces. She writes, "The Chi Psis have been having a great convention here, and a great ball last night and the carriages woke me up at four o'clock, and I was very indignant, considering [sic] what society it was!" (May 16, 1902). The building was renovated and greatly expanded in 1928. In 2004, after further renovations, it became one of the seven Minerva Houses on campus, Golub House.
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  Psi Upsilon

  Home to the Psi Upsilon Society, this building was the first fraternity house to be constructed on the Union College campus. Psi Upsilon was the fourth national fraternity founded at Union, started by a group of sophomores and freshmen in 1833. The society petitioned the trustees for a building site in 1884, originally planning to build at the foot of the Union Street hill. Construction in the final location did not begin until 1890 and lasted until 1892, immediately prior to which the society had meeting rooms on State Street. Mrs. Perkins often mentioned Psi Upsilon in her letters, relating news of new members and events such as dances and “smokers.” After attending one afternoon tea at the house, Mrs. Perkins wrote, “It is a comfortable homey sort of a house and the piazza is fine” (June 27, 1899). In 1901, Professor Perkins and Jack had dinner with the Psi Upsilons, which Mrs. Perkins thought was an excellent way to establish closer bonds between students and professors. A year later a fire, likely started by an electric wire, broke out at the Psi Upsilon house, and Mrs. Perkins reported the event in great detail. The firemen had trouble putting it out, because the two hydrants by the house were frozen and a hose had to be carried up Union Street. “The Eastern part is pretty well burned up, and the inside of the house ruined I fear. What with water and smoke, everything is black or drenched” (February [?], 1902). The homeless students were taken in by other fraternities, and the belongings they managed to save by throwing them out the windows were temporarily stored in the YMCA building. It is unclear how long it took before repairs were completed, but fraternity activities continued, and Mrs. Perkins wrote in 1904 that a skating rink was ploughed out near the Psi Upsilon house because of the convenient low ground there. In 1916, extensive renovations were made to the interior, and the house was put to use as quarters for officers during World War I. The original structure was razed in 1937, and a new one, which better matched Joseph Jacques Ramée’s designs for campus buildings, was constructed on the same site. In 2004, the second Psi Upsilon house was renovated and reopened as Beuth House, one of the seven Minerva Houses on campus.
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  Public Library

  The Schenectady Free Public Library Association purchased this building site from the College, and the facility was constructed between 1901 and 1903 with the support of $15,000 from the General Company and $50,000 from Andrew Carnegie. Originally the Association had planned to build the library further west, well off campus at the corner of Union and Jay Streets. An eager library user, Mrs. Perkins did not approve of this location because it was farther from the trolley and surrounded by small houses. Although she argued that either upper State Street or the Union College Pasture would be a better spot, she was upset when part of the latter was indeed sold as a site for the library. However, she was consoled by the idea that the College would be a more appropriate setting for the “dignity and beauty of the building” (March 12, 1901) and by the thought that the money Union received for the land might go toward building a badly needed new dormitory. Mrs. Perkins was unimpressed by the ceremony that marked the beginning of the library’s construction: “There was a great laying of the New Library cornerstone by the Masons, and many wavings and clappings to the four corners of the earth and other capers. I suppose it is because I am ignorant, but they do seem very funny doings” (May 6, 1902). Nonetheless, Mrs. Perkins was a frequent patron of the library once the building was completed. After the public library moved to a larger building in downtown Schenectady in 1970, the College repurchased the land as well as the structure and used it for offices before converting it into dormitories in 1973. At that time it was named Webster House in honor of former College President Harrison Webster.
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  The Pasture

  The Pasture, also called the College Park, was once an attractive territory stretching from the Terrace Wall westward to Park Place in Schenectady (one block west of the current main campus). Sheep, horses and cows belonging to professors and townspeople grazed among its trees, despite the antics of mischievous students who were know to “kidnap” the animals for College pranks. In the late 1890s, President Raymond and the Perkins’ son-in-law, Professor of Rhetoric and Logic Edward Everett Hale, also established a golf course there. At the time Mrs. Perkins was writing, the College’s financial problems led it to sell off huge portions of the Pasture. In 1901, for example, Union sold one parcel for the construction of Schenectady’s Public Library and successfully divided up and sold an additional forty-four building lots on its former open space. Mrs. Perkins regretted the shrinking of this lovely green area: “It was absolutely necessary, as Park Place is to be paved, and we would have to pay half, and it would be destroying. I don't talk about it; I know it has to be” (undated letter, 1901). Eventually, the Pasture only stretched to the newly created Seward Place. The remaining area had varied uses as a tree nursery, a skating rink, a baseball field, and even parking for a tank manufacturing company during the Second World War. The building of a number of new dormitories around the middle of the twentieth century closed off the westward facing campus planned by Ramée and today, West Beach is all that is left of the Pasture.
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  Athletic Field

  Most of the College's athletic activities and games during its first century took place on this field. Students started playing baseball and football regularly there in the 1870s. Class games were also held in this open area. Because the Athletic Field was right across from her house, Mrs. Perkins often sent her son the College's athletic news, including scores and her assessment of any new equipment in use on campus, such as bleachers or megaphones, the latter of which she found "mournful and mooing." She often reported the action as it was happening, reporting in undated letter from 1895, for example, "There is a furious ball game going on [and] an immense deal of shouting and cussing." Watching a game from her windows was not always a safe pastime. Right before a match against Colgate in 1899, "a ball came smashing in and broke the window and the ball rolled into the middle of the room. The two culprits' 'skinned away', in the language of their kind and I retain the ball" (May 4, 1899.) Regarding another game in 1900, attended by at least 1000 people, she noted that the seats in the stands cost an extra fifteen cents. The Athletic Field became known as Library Field after 1905 when the library moved into the Nott Memorial. It was no longer needed for intercollegiate games once Alexander Field was established on the eastern end of the campus in 1913, but intramural games and varsity practices were still held there. It was also the site of drills during the two World Wars and, in later years, the activities of the campus Air Force ROTC. It is now used for intramural sports, rugby games, outdoor ceremonies, and other types of College gatherings.
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  Library/Nott

  The building that appeared as a round and windowless “chapel” on the campus plan of Joseph Jacques Ramée was finally constructed, after the design of Edward Tuckerman Potter (Union College Class of 1853), as a sixteen-sided Alumni Hall that ultimately became a memorial to Eliphalet Nott and an iconic Union College landmark. Due to the College’s financial difficulties in the mid-nineteenth century, when the building was constructed, it took over 20 years to complete. Impractical for most uses when it opened in 1877 and very difficult to heat, social events were still sometimes held there. “The idiotic sophomores insisted upon having their soiree in the Middle Building! It is freezing ten inches from the big stov[e],” wrote Mrs. Perkins in 1897. Student mischief was common in the “Round Building,” which also housed a modest museum for many years. Freshmen and sophomores fought to keep their class flags on top of the dome in November of 1903. Earlier that same year, Mrs. Perkins reported that some freshmen took the plaster casts of classical statues and the marble busts from the museum and put them on the Athletic Field’s baseball diamond, “the Discus thrower appropriately placed on the pitchers place, the Venus with uplifted arms on first base and so on, until for fielders etc. they were reduced to the small busts” (March 16, 1903). Believing that the building would soon crumble if not repaired, Mrs. Perkins was glad to see it turned into the campus library in the early 1900s thanks to a $40,000 gift from Andrew Carnegie, which helped fund the necessary renovations. The library remained in the building until 1961, after which the building had varied uses, including serving as the College theatre and bookstore. Following extensive renovations and a rededication ceremony in 1995, it now houses a large multi-use hall, art galleries, and student study space.
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  Washburn Hall

  Washburn Hall (or the Powers-Washburn Building) was built in 1883 during the administration of the College’s seventh president, Eliphalet Nott Potter (Union College Class of 1861). Although inspired by Joseph Jacques Ramée’s plans for the campus, its Victorian-style design by William Appleton Potter (Union College Class of 1864) featured red brick and molded ornaments that made it quite distinct from the stuccoed buildings that had been erected previously on the College grounds. Originally named for donations made in honor of Thomas Henry Powers as well as Edward Abiel Washburn (both of whom had a distant connection to the College), it was the first building at Union to carry its donors’ names. Providing at various points a home for the library, classrooms, numerous academic departments and administrative offices, student publications, the radio studio, theatre, bookstore, snack bar, a naval issues store, and the headquarters of the maintenance department, it boasted a bewildering variety of uses over its lifetime. The central section of the building, originally called Washburn Memorial Hall, contained the College library from 1884, until its relocation to the Nott Memorial in 1903. The library was a long and handsome room with large balconies on two sides and served as a social space as well, twice hosting the Senior Ball. However, the library was quite cold until 1894, when President Raymond installed heat and electric lights. After the library left, the Civil Engineering Department took over the space. Although Mrs. Perkins must have had a good view of Washburn Hall from her windows and made use of the library, she rarely mentioned the building. Once she drew attention to the fact that while the building had relatively comfortable rooms, people were often cold inside due to its many doors to the outside. She wrote, “It has been so cold all this week in the Red Building that the boys have had very few recitations, but to their sorrow the laboratory has been very comfortable” (March 4, 1896). Eventually the College concluded that Washburn Hall not only clashed too much with the other buildings on campus, but also was too expensive to maintain. Its decision to build Schaffer Library right behind the building sealed Washburn Hall’s fate, and it was razed in 1963. Roger Hull Plaza now covers the place where it stood.
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  Running Track

  Early outdoor track and field meets were held in the College Grove on the southeastern portion of the campus. In 1893, a 390-yard track with banked curves replaced a shorter track that had been laid out there some seven years earlier. From 1893 to 1905, during the period of Mrs. Perkins’ letters, Union typically participated in two intercollegiate meets per year – usually doing poorly. An exception was the performance of Charles Kilpatrick, Union’s best runner, who broke a world record for the half mile while wearing the College’s colors in September of 1895. Controversy surrounded Kilpatrick’s achievements, however, and Mrs. Perkins wrote at length about his time at Union. (Kilpatrick would eventually move on to Princeton, where additional controversies about his running career arose.) At the time Kilpatrick broke the world record, Union was already in trouble with its intercollegiate athletics league, which claimed that the College allowed athletes who were not bona-fide students to participate in competitions. Union itself was banned from competing in intercollegiate sports for three months once it was determined that it had previously allowed Kilpatrick to represent the College before he was eligible to do so. Union in turn banned Kilpatrick and three other runners from competing because of too many failing grades. After unsuccessfully trying to force the faculty committee to change their minds, the student athletic body went on strike and canceled the Union Track and Field program entirely. Mrs. Perkins wrote with some amusement that “the putting an end to athletics was to punish and terrify the faculty, and now they awake to see that the faculty though sorry for the boys, are not horrified, and even suspect that it may be a good thing” (May 11, 1896). The students soon realized the folly of their plan, and athletics resumed, but the Kilpatrick controversies resulted in the passing of new eligibility rules for college athletes nationwide. The old running track no longer exists, although it would eventually be replaced by upgraded facilities on Alexander and Bailey fields.
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  Jackson's Garden

  The garden on the northern side of campus was begun in the 1830s by Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy Isaac Jackson at the encouragement of Eliphalet Nott, who suggested its cultivation as a means of improving Jackson’s health. The placement of a garden in this area had also been suggested by Joseph Jacques Ramée in his original designs for the College. Moving an existing vegetable patch, Jackson set up graveled paths, lilac hedges, shrubs, and geometric beds of lilies and roses in the area where Yulman Theater now stands. In the lower region (the area still occupied by the garden today), he planted seeds from around the world, although Mrs. Perkins once noted that it was hard to keep anything valuable down there. His garden was admired by John James Audubon among many others and was the site of the College’s Class Day exercises. After Jackson’s death, his daughter Julia Jackson Benedict faithfully maintained the garden for forty-eight years. Considering it her personal property, she often chased students out, once even firing a shotgun from the balcony of her house overlooking the garden. In 1900, her own gardener shot his “mean” wife and, interestingly, Mrs. Perkins sympathized with him. She also sympathized with Julia Benedict on gardening matters, although they frequently disagreed about other matters. Mrs. Perkins also found the garden somewhat wild and wrote that she was concerned about her grandson going through the garden alone: “The bridges are high and shaky and the garden lonely and full of ambushes!” (May 16, 1899). Pollution was often a problem in the garden, with the sewer on Nott Street overflowing and running into its brook. When Mrs. Benedict grew too old, the College took over responsibility for the garden, with help from students, faculty, and community members. Jackson’s Garden remains a popular campus attraction today.
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  College Brook

  The College brook flows from about a mile east of the present-day Union campus into the Mohawk River. Much of its visible length in Mrs. Perkins' day is now buried; the section between Terrace Lane and Seward Place, for example, was re-routed into an underground culvert in 1966. Still visible within Jackson's Garden and celebrated in the Union College Alma Mater, the brook has mostly been an aesthetic feature of the campus, although it was sometimes used as a swimming hole and a water source. Pollution and flooding have often been a problem, however. Mrs. Perkins wrote about one instance when a break in a nearby drain caused sewage to flow into the brook. "As Rose is not there to watch, nobody saw it for ten days. It is horrible with nastiness and the sides covered with slime. [Assistant College Treasurer Charles B.] Pond had it stopped immediately, and it is better now, but the slime is still thick on the sides, and you can imagine the smell. Of course it ran into the pasture for the cows to drink, so they were taken out and there has been a great fuss" (May 20, 1902). The brook is also known as Hans Groot's Kill, "kill" being derived from a Dutch word for "body of water" and "Hans Groot" being derived from a combination of the names of several early settlers in the area.
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  Kappa Alpha

  The oldest continuously active social fraternity in the country, the Kappa Alpha Society was founded at Union on November 26, 1825. For many decades, the members had meeting rooms in Schenectady, building their first campus house only in 1901. Originally, the house was planned to be near Psi Upsilon, across Library Lane from Mrs. Perkin's Garden, but it was decided that there were already too many houses in that area. Eventually the house was constructed in part of the College Grove along what was then called North or Laboratory Lane. Mrs. Perkins showed a keen interest in the Kappa Alpha Society and frequently mentioned it in her letters, keeping her son Roger (a member) up to date on what was going on with pledges, current members, and alumni and giving news of events such as dances, teas, and dinners. "Rose chaperoned a dance at the Kaps last night, and had a very nice time. She says the girls were ever so much nicer than the Alpha Delts, and she danced all she wanted to" (February 22, 1903). Mrs. Perkins was particularly interested in the building of the chapter's house and was happy with the decision to build it on the corner along Laboratory Lane because it would give her beloved "Kaps" a lovely view of winter sunsets. As "one of the best looking Kap ladies here," Mrs. Perkins was pressured to attend, but ended up very much enjoying, Kappa Alpha's 75th anniversary celebration, which included a reception, a "very pretty" dance held in the Nott Memorial, and a sermon delivered by one Dr. Darling (November 27, 1900). In addition to encouraging other people to make donations to the society, Mrs. Perkins also gave Kappa Alpha some furniture for their house. Two academic buildings were later built on either side of the fraternity house. As a celebration of their 100 year anniversary in 1925, the society essentially reconstructed it, keeping much of the interior structure but completely changing the exterior. During the World Wars the house was used as a YMCA center and then as a Navy sick bay. It was razed in 1967 to make room for the Science and Engineering Center.
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  Philosophical Hall

  Philosophical Hall was constructed on the end of North Colonnade in 1852, in accordance with Joseph Jacques Ramée's plans for the campus. Constituting what is now part of the Arts Building, Philosophical Hall provided space for the departments of Natural Philosophy (Physics and Chemistry). The top floor was occupied by the Physics Department, which included a large lecture-demonstration room, while the first floor contained the Chemistry Department and an analytical chemistry laboratory. As a Chemistry professor, Maurice Perkins spent a lot of time in Philosophical Hall, and after her husband's death in 1901, Mrs. Perkins noted that the sight of the laboratory door became very painful for her. She also mentioned it being very cold there one winter. The equipment in the laboratory did sometimes provide a useful measure of temperature control; in 1898, after some of her daughter Rose's chickens died, Mrs. Perkins wrote that "Papa and Louis are now going to try some eggs in the Incubator in the Laboratory." After the Chemistry Department moved elsewhere in 1918, the Physics Department took over both floors and the hall was renamed the Physics Building. The building was greatly expanded in the 1920s and 1940s, and when the Physics Department finally moved out after 119 years, the building was renovated again and given over to the College's previously scattered arts departments. It now currently houses Visual Arts and Dance.
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  North Colonnade

  The North and South Colonnades were built in 1815, following Joseph Jacques Ramée’s plans for the campus. Until the construction of Philosophical and Geological Halls in the 1850s, they contained most of the College’s recitation rooms and laboratories. Around the middle of the nineteenth century, North Colonnade held recitation, drafting, engineering model, instrument, and coal rooms, as well as a kitchen for the south faculty house of North College. At the time Mrs. Perkins was writing her letters, the Civil Engineering department occupied almost the entire first floor, and an electrical engineering laboratory was added shortly thereafter. North Colonnade also had some unusual uses, sometimes serving as a storehouse for packed-up library and geological collections. In 1882, Professor Maurice Perkins added his own stamp by briefly setting up rooms for sick students on the second floor. For decades, the chapel bell also rang from the roof of this building. After the period of the Perkins letters, a variety of academic departments occupied the building, which also sometimes included dormitory and student activity rooms. A major renovation project completed in 2007 transformed North Colonnade into the Taylor Music Building.
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  Wells

  From 1866 until 1907 the south faculty apartment of North College was occupied by William Wells, beloved Professor of Modern Languages and Literature, and his family. Mrs. Perkins rather wished that her own daughter’s family could live there, as it was in a more convenient location, but noted that “I should not grudge the old Professor his life, or his house” (November 13, 1900). “Uncle Billy,” as Professor Wells was affectionately nicknamed, was indeed rather old at the time Mrs. Perkins was writing. In 1895, Mrs. Perkins noted that a reception was being held in honor of his 75th birthday and that the ladies of the faculty were sending him seventy-five roses. “He looks very decrepid; Mrs Raymond thinks that as long as Whitehorne [longtime Professor of Greek Language and Literature Henry Whitehorne, who was then 84] holds out he will not leave” (July 11, 1899). Mrs. Perkins was on good terms with Professor Wells’ wife Alice, who enjoyed photography and took pictures of Mrs. Perkins’s garden among other campus sites. In 1899, Mrs. Perkins reported that a group of Cuban students who were on campus learning English were housed in Professor Wells’s section, to his and his wife’s displeasure. Professor Wells died in 1907, and after his daughter left the apartment in 1909, it was occupied by various professors, staff members, and administrative offices. It is now part of the Messa Minerva House.
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  North College

  One of the first buildings to be erected on the present campus in keeping with the plan ultimately devised by Eliphalet Nott and Joseph Jacques Ramée, North College opened its doors in 1814. It provided dormitory space, class and recitation rooms, and faculty apartments. Several fraternities got their start in this building, and the College library and several student literary societies were also once housed there. But the main part of North College was its three separate dormitory sections. Although conditions in these dormitories eventually became deplorable, the College did not renovate them significantly until 1902-1903, when electric lighting, steam heat, and improved bathrooms were installed. Mrs. Perkins sometimes judged the weather based on her ability to see North College from her windows, writing for example, “The fog is so thick that I cannot see the pasture, and North College is a wraith, and this makes the rooms rather dark” (December 2, 1895). Since her time, North College has been renovated numerous times; it is now the home of two of the College’s Minerva Houses, Messa and Wold.
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  Truax

  During the period covered by Mrs. Perkins’ letters, the faculty apartment at the north end of North College was occupied by James Truax, then Professor of English Language and Literature. Professor Truax’s professional rivalry with the Perkins’ son-in-law Edward Everett Hale (Jack), Professor of Rhetoric and Logic and later of English, caused considerable tension between their families. Additionally, shortly after Maurice Perkins died in 1901, the Perkins/Hale family became anxious about its future at Union; due to the College’s immediate financial troubles, it seemed impossible to keep both professors at a decent salary. The Board of Trustees appeared to prefer Hale, and President Raymond fought to keep him, but “Jimmy” Truax was a Union alumnus who had served on the faculty for eighteen years. In the end, although the Board decided to keep both professors, Truax suddenly decided to give up the fight. “Jack is in very good spirits as Professor Truax has resigned and his work comes to Jack,” Mrs. Perkins wrote. “Jack will have more work and no more pay, but his position will be settled, and it will be a sort of compensation for many unpleasant things” (July 6, 1903). Various other faculty members lived in the apartment until 1966. It then served as a dormitory, offices, and meeting rooms. It is now part of the Wold Minerva House.
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  Benedict

  Completed in 1873, this house overlooking Jackson's Garden was built for Samuel Benedict, a law lecturer at the College, and his wife Julia. Designed by William Appleton Potter (Union College Class of 1864), the house was a large and beautiful structure with Victorian and mock Tudor elements, although neither electric lighting nor modern plumbing were ever installed. Julia Benedict, daughter of Union College Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy Isaac Jackson, maintained her father's garden after his death and indeed considered it her personal property. As fellow gardeners, Mrs. Perkins and Julia Benedict had a lot in common. However, Mrs. Perkins' letters show she was often quite irritated by Mrs. Benedict, even though she admitted that she was also a hardworking woman, interesting and pleasant to talk to on occasion. One of their frequent disputes was about religion, Mrs. Benedict being a convert to Catholicism and Mrs. Perkins a devout Presbyterian. Mrs. Perkins called their conversations "very polemical and tiresome" and Mrs. Benedict herself "a person who is entirely without consistency or reasonableness" (May 23, 1904). "Her incessant talking, demanding, repeating, made me so dizzy that when she went away I nearly fainted" (December 6, 1903). The Benedicts held the house under the terms of a lifetime lease. Julia died in 1925, and after the death of Samuel in 1933 the house was razed. Yulman Theater now occupies the place where it stood.
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  Landreth

  At the beginning of the period covered by the letters, this building, originally called North Hall, belonged to Professor of Natural Philosophy John Foster. One night in 1896, a devastating fire broke out. Mrs. Perkins saw the house “burning fiercely and all the hydrants covered high with snow, and choked with mud, and being the evening of St Patricks, all the firemen tipsy and some of them shamefully drunk…In less than two hours the house was a heap of stone and brick!” (March 19, 1896). Although the house was indeed gutted, it was rebuilt in 1896-1897 using the surviving external walls. Professor Foster died soon after, and Olin Landreth, Professor of Civil Engineering, moved into the house in 1899. Professor Landreth and his wife had six children, giving the Perkins’ grandson Maurice Hale some playmates. Mrs. Perkins did not always appreciate Landreth himself, however, scoffing when he gave a lecture on art, “I think I shall give a paper on the Beauties of Mathematics!” (December 5, 1896). After Professor Landreth left the College in 1919, the house was given to other faculty members and later served as the headquarters of the Air Force ROTC, the Beta Theta Pi chapter house, and a social and office space. It is currently named Fero House after Franklin Fero (Union College Class of 1917), whose bequest funded renovations in 1990.
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  Charles B. Pond

  During the time of Mrs. Perkins' letters, this house was the residence of Charles B. Pond, Assistant Treasurer and ferocious debt enforcer under Frank Bailey (Union College Class of 1885 and College Treasurer at the time). Referred to by Charles Waldron (Union College Class of 1906) as the "blunt and rigorous instrument" Bailey used to handle the College's financial difficulties, Pond earned a rather unpleasant reputation at the College. Although students were often amused by "Ducky's" vulgar speaking style and even by the unconventional methods he used to get them to pay their debts, the faculty generally had a strained relationship with him. Mrs. Perkins' letters suggest her own negative and even hostile attitude towards Pond. She describes him as "a disagreeable man to have words with" (September 14, 1902) and complains about what she regards as his insensitivity and bad taste. In one letter Mrs. Perkins actually mentions shaking her fist at Pond's window while he was away and being relieved to be rid of his "hateful presence" (July 6, 1904). In 1906, Pond began to build a new house for himself at 17 South Lane, just east of the Psi Upsilon house, and he moved there the following year. He did not get to enjoy it for long, however; he resigned and left the College a year later. His original house on Nott Street was sold, then repurchased by the College in 1936 and had a variety of occupants until it was razed some time around 1963/64.
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  Orchard Hale Residence

  From 1895 to 1901, the house at 762 Nott Street was occupied by Mrs. Perkins' daughter Rose, her husband Jack, and their children. It was given to Edward Everett Hale Jr. (Jack) as incentive to come to Union, where he became Professor of Rhetoric and Logic and, later, Professor of English. Mrs. Perkins wrote of the renovations that were promised upon their arrival: "The Palmer house will be put in order for them; the roof raised and a room added, and a chimney put in place, and water put in" (March 26, 1895). The family was generally very pleased with "The Orchard", as the Hale home was known. "The house will be very charming, and the light in the dining room, with the sunlight lying in broad bars under the apple trees, was strangely beautiful" (Oct 3, 1895). Rose had a garden there with lilac hedges, and she kept a cow and chickens. Although the students were generally helpful to Rose, Mrs. Perkins wrote of one occasion when two of them walked around in Rose's absence and awakened her baby. She also reported that someone, perhaps more amusingly, held phonograph concerts on The Orchard's piazza in 1900. After the death of Professor Perkins, the Hales moved in with Mrs. Perkins. A few unmarried instructors, among others, occupied their former home for a while, but the building was razed at an unknown date sometime in the twentieth century.
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  College Grove

  The term College Grove formerly referred to several wooded areas on campus, including Jackson's Garden and the area east of where Schaffer Library now stands. A variety of other sites important to campus life in the nineteenth century were also located in the Grove, including the running track and Lover's Lane (the name once given to a tree-lined portion of South Lane). In 1899, the College, ever in need of money, sold much of the land (a total of 75 acres) that was once extended from the eastern end of campus to the Schenectady Realty Company, a subsidiary of the recently formed General Electric Company. Mrs. Perkins, who was fond of the woods, was saddened by the sale, but she understood its necessity. "We are beginning to sell off our dear land; the Electrics are going to buy all above Union Avenue and make a place like Lewellen or Orange park, with their own nice houses and the ground kept pretty and Park like. If we must sell (and we must) that would be the most agreeable plan [sic]" (March 28, 1899). Union received $57,000 for the land, which included a quarry as well as the woods, and the transaction cleared its immediate debts. The residential GE Realty Plot to the east of campus retains much of its park-like character and is now on the National Register of Historic Places. Over time, the remainder of the College Grove on Union's campus was filled with academic buildings and athletic facilities and fields.
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  Maurice Perkins
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  Mrs. Perkins Garden