Yale University

Skull and Bones Tomb, New Haven, Connecticut

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The Skull and Bones Tomb, on High Street on the campus of Yale University, around 1903-1912. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The building in 2018:

There are plenty of secret societies on college campuses across the country, but perhaps none are as famous, or mysterious, as the Skull and Bones at Yale. The society was founded in 1832 by William Huntington Russell and Alphonso Taft – father of future president and Supreme Court chief justice William Howard Taft – and  at the time it consisted of 14 Yale seniors. Each year, a new group of seniors was initiated into the Skull and Bones, which over time came to include some of the nation’s most powerful political figures. Alphonso Taft himself went on to have a successful career as Attorney General and Secretary of War during the Grant administration, and his far more famous son was also a member. Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush were also members, as was John Kerry, and other members have included a wide range of congressmen, cabinet members, Supreme Court justices, business executives, and other prominent leaders. This impressive membership roll, along with the group’s secrecy, has undoubtedly played a major role in the various conspiracy theories and other rumors surrounding the society.

Many of these rumors concern the interior of its meeting hall, which is said to contain, among other artifacts, the skulls of Martin Van Buren, Geronimo, and Pancho Villa. Appropriately known as the Tomb, the original part of the building was completed in 1856, on the left side of this scene. It featured a windowless, sandstone exterior that resembled an ancient Egyptian tomb, and was evidently designed by architect Alexander Jackson Davis, although other sources have credited New Haven architect Henry Austin with the design. The Tomb was subsequently expanded over the years, starting with an addition to the rear in 1883. Then, in 1903, it was doubled in size with a new wing on the right side that matched the design of the original section. The old front entrance became two narrow windows, and a new entrance was built in the middle of the two wings, as seen in the first photo.

Today, the Tomb is still standing, and still serves as the meeting hall for the Skull and Bones. Not much has changed since the first photo was taken more than a century ago, although the surroundings have. Immediately to the right is Weir Hall of the Jonathan Edwards College, one of the residential colleges at Yale. Not much of the building is visible except for the crenelated towers, which had once adorned Alumni Hall. Completed in 1853, and likewise designed by Alexander Jackson Davis, this Gothic-style building stood near the northwest corner of the old campus until 1911, when it was demolished to build the present-day Wright Hall. However, the towers were preserved, and were incorporated into the new building. Otherwise, the only noticeable change to this scene has been the construction of the adjacent Yale Art Gallery. This building, which is visible on the far left, was completed in 1928, and includes a bridge over High Street, located immediately to the south of the Tomb.

Kent Chemical Laboratory, New Haven, Connecticut

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The Kent Chemical Laboratory, at the southwest corner of High Street and Library Walk on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, around 1894. Image from Yale University Views (1894).

The scene in 2018:

The Kent Chemical Laboratory was completed in 1888, and was a gift from Albert E. Kent, a Yale graduate from the class of 1853. Kent valued the importance of studying chemistry, and he provided a gift of $75,000 in order to construct this building. The first photo was taken only a few years later, around 1894, and it shows the building in its original appearance. However, the Kent family would subsequently make further donations to the school, and the facility was expanded several times. The first came in 1902, with another donation from Albert, and the second came in 1906, when his son William provided the funds to add a third story to the building.

The initial construction of the laboratory was overseen by Frank A. Gooch, a prominent chemist who had been hired as a professor in 1886. He would continue to serve as the director of the Kent Laboratory for most of its existence, until his retirement in 1918, and during this time he authored over eighty research papers, with many focusing on analytical chemistry. The Kent Laboratory operated for just a few years after his retirement, until the completion of the Sterling Chemical Laboratory in 1922. This building was then converted into a psychological laboratory.

The former Kent Laboratory was ultimately demolished in the early 1930s in order to construct Jonathan Edwards College, a residential college that consists of a series of Gothic-style buildings around central quadrangle. The college spans the width of the block between High and York Streets, and today there are no surviving traces landmarks from the first photo. However, the name of the Kent Laboratory lives on with Kent Hall, the building that now stands on this site at the corner of High Street and Library Way.

Dwight Hall, New Haven, Connecticut

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Dwight Hall on the campus of Yale University in New Haven, around 1905-1915. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2018:

During the first half of the 19th century, the most prominent feature on the Yale campus was the Old Brick Row, a group of seven buildings that ran parallel to College Street on what is now known as the Old Campus. Constructed in the 18th and early 19th centuries, these brick buildings included dormitories, along with academic buildings that housed recitation rooms, laboratories, chapels, and a library. The Old Brick Row served the school well for many years, but one of the first significant additions to the campus came in the 1840s, with the construction of a new library building. Located away from the Old Brick Row, on the High Street side of the block, the new library was both physically and architecturally set apart from the older buildings. It featured an ornate Gothic Revival-style design, which contrasted sharply with the older, more plain Federal-style buildings, and its style also foreshadowed the future development of a Gothic-style quadrangle that would eventually displace the Old Brick Row.

The library building, which was later named Dwight Hall after former presidents Timothy Dwight IV and Timothy Dwight V, was constructed between 1842 and 1846. It was the work of noted New Haven architect Henry Austin, and it was among the first major commissions of his career. Prior to its construction, the library had been located in several different Old Brick Row buildings, including the Atheneum from 1763 to 1804, the Lyceum from 1804 to 1824, and then in the Second Chapel starting in 1824. However, this building was the first on campus to be built specifically as a library, and its design was intended, at least in part, to protect the school’s rare books and archival materials from fire. Its location, far from the Old Brick Row, would have kept it safe in the event of a fire in the older buildings, and the library itself was built to be as fireproof as possible, with features such as a brownstone exterior, tin roof, and internal firewalls.

Within a few decades of the library’s completion, the Old Campus began to undergo a major transformation. The buildings of the Old Brick Row were steadily demolished, and the entire block was eventually encircled by late 19th and early 20th century Gothic-style buildings, creating an open quadrangle where the old buildings had once stood. The library was spared demolition, and was incorporated into this new campus plan, as was South Middle College, a part of the Old Brick Row that had been built in 1752. Later renamed Connecticut Hall, it is the oldest building on the Yale campus, and the library is now the second oldest.

This building served as the Yale library for many years, although it eventually became too small for the school’s growing collections. The library was expanded with the construction of Chittenden Hall in 1890 and Linsly Hall in 1906, and the latter is partially visible on the left side of both photos. However, even this arrangement proved inadequate over time, and in 1931 the library moved into the newly-completed Sterling Memorial Library. The old library was then converted into a chapel, and was renamed Dwight Hall. Over the years, the building has also served as the headquarters and namesake of Dwight Hall at Yale, a community service organization that is comprised of a wide variety of advocacy groups, charities, and related service-based campus groups.

Today, aside from changes in its use, Dwight Hall is not significantly different from its appearance in the first photo, taken more than a century ago. Linsly Hall, which is now combined with the adjacent Chittenden Hall, is still standing on the left side as well, and other features from both photos include the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, who became president of the college in 1846, the same year that Dwight Hall was completed. This statue has become somewhat of a Yale landmark, as rubbing Woolsey’s left foot is said to bring good luck. This has resulted in a foot that is significantly shinier than the rest of the statue, a phenomenon that has even been referenced on the television show Gilmore Girls.

Overall, the only major difference between these two photos is the Harkness Tower, which is visible in the distance on the right side of the 2018 photo. Completed in 1922, this 216-foot tower was named in honor of Yale graduate and prominent Standard Oil investor Charles William Harkness, and was donated by his family after his death in 1916. The 2018 photo also shows some of the work that has recently been done on Dwight Hall. The building temporarily closed in 2017, and underwent its first major renovation since its conversion from a library to a chapel. This work was still in progress when the first photo was taken in the spring of 2018, but it was completed several months later, and the building reopened in the fall of 2018.

Trinity Church on the Green, New Haven, Connecticut

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Looking west on the New Haven Green, toward Trinity Church on the Green, with the Old Campus of Yale University in the distance, around 1900-1915. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

The scene in 2018:

The New Haven Green is home to three historic churches on the west side of Temple Street, all of which were constructed between 1812 and 1816. The two oldest, Center Church (1814) and United Church (1815) both feature Federal-style architecture that was common for churches of this period, and Center Church is particularly notable for having been designed by prominent architects Asher Benjamin and Ithiel Town. Town subsequently designed the last of these three churches, Trinity Church, which was completed in 1816 on the corner of Temple and Chapel Streets. However, its design was a vast departure from his work on Center Church, and it is generally regarded as one of the first – if not the first – Gothic-style church building in the country, as Gothic Revival architecture would not gain widespread popularity for several more decades.

Trinity Church was established in 1723, and was a rare Anglican parish in a colony that was otherwise predominantly Congregationalist. The first permanent church building was completed in 1753, and stood a block away from here on the southeast corner of Chapel and Church Streets. As time went on, though, this building proved too small for the growing parish, and in 1814 construction began on a new church here on the Green. The exterior was built of locally-quarried trap rock from East Rock, giving the church its distinctive multicolor appearance. This, along with the Gothic architecture, provided a significant contrast to the more conventional brick churches just to the north of here. The new church was consecrated in 1816, an event that coincided with the installation of a new rector, the noted journalist, author, and clergyman Harry Croswell.

By the time the first photo was taken in the early 20th century, Trinity Church was already nearly 100 years old, and had undergone some changes since its completion. The top of the tower was originally constructed of wood, but this portion was rebuilt of stone in 1871. The church had also been built with crenelated wood balustrades along the roofline, although these rotted and were eventually removed as part of the 1871 renovations. Other 19th century changes included the installation of stained glass windows, and the addition of a pyramidal spire atop the tower, which can be seen in the first photo.

In more than a century since the first photo was taken, the interior of the church has undergone some changes, but this view of the exterior has remained largely unaltered, with the only noticeable difference being the removal of the pyramid on the tower. Trinity Church is still an active Episcopalian parish, and the church building is now part of the New Haven Green Historic District, which includes the other two early 19th century churches nearby. Aside from the church itself, there have not been many other changes to the scene from the first photo. The New Haven Green still functions as a park in the center of the city, and the Old Campus of Yale University still stands in the distance, on the other side of College Street. The only significant difference in this view of the campus is the loss of Osborn Hall. Visible just to the right of the church, it was demolished in 1926 and replaced by Bingham Hall, which now stands on the site.