depression such as that on a cold January day in 1827 when he wrote to his friend and counsellor, Nathaniel Kendrick, then at Hartford, Connecticut, on an “agency.” Hascall reported that he had returned from a fundraising trip with little to show for his efforts. Though the building was progressing, he had difficulty in keeping the workmen in materials since the sawmills were shut down. Beset by family worries and in doubt as to whether he should continue as pastor, he continued, “I find myself in a strait place and no one to advise me in your absence. I shall not abandon the work of building until it is finished; unless Special Providence requires it.” This letter, one of the most human in the University’s archives, lights up with a warm glow the intimate relationship between these two men to whose herculean labors the Institution owed so much.*
Hascall’s experience in putting up the “building on the plain” must have been helpful when he came to erect West Hall. According to tradition, he had the gray limestone for the walls quarried from the hill above the old golf course. Construction progressed so well that on May 28, 1827, a year before the contract stipulated, he turned over the completed building to the Executive Committee.
Formal dedication of the structure came on June 5th as part of the exercises of the week of “public examinations,” Commencement, and
* Daniel Hascall, to Nathaniel Kendrick, Hartford, Conn., Jan. 15, 1827.