CHAPTER TWO 



PRINCETON IN THE 'SIXTIES 



IN the decade 1860-1870, Princeton changed hardly at all; it was 

 already a stately and beautiful place, though it had little enough to 

 boast of in the way of architectural merit. The college was very hard 

 hit by the Civil War, for a large proportion of its students were South- 

 erners and of these it lost two hundred or more in 1861. Dr. John de 

 Witt, so long a trustee of the University, has given me a very interest- 

 ing account of the way in which the Southern students gradually left, 

 as their various states seceded from the Union and of the friendly man- 

 ner in which they parted from their Northern comrades. Materially, 

 the college was a small place. Nassau Hall was, externally, precisely 

 as it is today, but was very different internally, being in use as a dormi- 

 tory and what is now the Faculty room was then the library. Stanhope 

 Hall, which now houses the treasurer's and comptroller's offices, then 

 contained classrooms and disgraceful affairs they were — small, dark 

 and ill-swept. An exactly similar building, known as Philosophical Hall, 

 occupied the corresponding site at the east end of Nassau and contained 

 the zoological museum and the departments of physics and chemistry. 

 The Chancellor Green Library now stands on the site. South of Philo- 

 sophical Hall was the "Old Chapel," a pretty little building, which a 

 Princeton novel of that period described as "a beautiful smile on a 

 plain face." East College, which, with the Old Chapel, was torn down 

 in 1896 to make room for the library stack, was the counterpart of 

 West; both of them more severely simple than West is now. 



The quadrangle was completed on the south side by Whig and Clio 

 Halls, which were of Ionic style, like their successors, but smaller and 

 built of stuccoed brick and with wooden columns. The President's house 

 was the one originally built for that purpose in 1756 and now assigned 

 to the Dean of the Faculty. The addition of the front veranda and the 

 two bay windows are the only outward changes which the charming 

 old house has undergone. A house quite like that of the President was 



