Leading the two-hour walk is William Averyt, 64, a retired UVM business professor with a passion for local history. He tells us that in 1780, Allen, who suffered legal and financial troubles for much of his life, offered to cough up 4,000 pounds and 50 acres from his real estate company if the Legislature would charter the school. His generosity was accepted in 1791, the year Vermont joined the Union as the 14th state.
It took another decade for the university to get started. "It was a heathen wilderness," Averyt said. When classes did commence, he said, "It was a one-man affair." The Rev. Daniel Clarke Sanders served as president, faculty, librarian, and dorm supervisor; the students - all four of them - lived in his two-story home. Until the early 20th century, it was customary for ministers to serve as college presidents, and chapel was compulsory.
While Sanders's home has disappeared, 12 structures in the central campus area are on the National Register of Historic Places. Among them is Billings Library, an 1888 Romanesque jewel that architect Henry Hobson Richardson considered his best work. A few of Richardson's students, who went on to form the noted firm McKim, Mead, and White, drew up the plans for the Greek-columned Waterman building along with the towering Ira Allen Chapel. Hidden within the Old Mill, a flat building reminiscent of a textile plant, is yet another historic place of worship, a dazzling second-floor chapel lined with Tiffany glass. The students gave the Old Mill that name for a reason, Averyt said: "This is where faculty grinds us down into pieces every day." Most stunning of all is the palatial Grasse Mount, an 1804 masterpiece positioned for watching sunsets color Lake Champlain.
But even more remarkable than its structures are the intellectual giants who passed through them. James Marsh, university president from 1826 to 1833, made it the first in the country with a varied curriculum offering elective courses and individual departments. It was the first to form an English department that taught Shakespeare, rather than the usual diet of Latin and Greek.
