Built in 1850 in the Greek Revival architecture. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in
1973. 17 historic map sheets show this location, the earliest from 1904.
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From the record
“Eighty-seventh regiment, company A, private, served four months, mustered out Septem- Ijer, 1862 ; re-enlistment, volunteer. One Hundred and Forty-eighth regiment, company A. corporal, served four months, mustered out 1864, also member of the independent company in Marietta,”
History of Marietta and Washington County, Ohio, and Representative Citizens (1902). Machine-read text.
one of 39 National Register listings in Washington County · listed in 1973 · category: BUILDING · significant for ARCHITECTURE · built in 1850, Greek Revival architecture · one of 1 National Historic Landmarks in Washington County.
Also known as. Chapel Building; Middle Building; Science Hall; See Also:Mariet
Township. Marietta city
When was it built? 1850
Architectural style. Greek Revival architecture
National Register reference number.73001547- the number the National Park Service assigned this property when it was listed, and the key its nomination file is catalogued under at the National Archives.
Then and now
1904 to 1994
The ground this property stands on, surveyed
90 years apart. Drag the handle to wipe between them. Both sheets are
United States Geological Survey originals; neither has been altered.
Tenney, George Champion, age 20, volunteer. May. 1862, three months. Eighty-seventh regiment, company A, private, served four months, mustered out Septem- Ijer, 1862 ; re-enlistment, volunteer. May, 1864, one hundred days. One Hundred and Forty-eighth regiment, company A. corporal, served four months, mustered out 1864, also member of the independent company in Marietta,
Darrow, Allen R., age 38, volunteer. May, 1864, one hundred days. One Hundred and Forty-eighth regiment, first lieutenant and regimental quartermaster, served four months, mustered out in September, 1864, one of the original members of the National guards, organized in Marietta in 1863.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The
federal wildfire occurrence database
lists 14 fires within 5 miles of Erwin Hall, Marietta College between
1999 and 2019, burning about 5 acres in total. 2 started naturally. None was recorded as arson.
Distance is straight-line from the map coordinates, so a fire counted
here may appear on a neighbouring settlement's page as well.
Reported cause
Fires
Debris and open burning
8
Equipment and vehicle use
2
Natural
2
Missing data/not specified/undetermined
2
The most recent of
them, most recent first, with the day each was reported and the service
that recorded it.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. Museums hold 1,269 specimens
collected within 10 miles of Erwin Hall, Marietta College between 1853 and
1975: 1,182 Animalia, 54 Fungi, 31 Plantae, 1 Unrecorded, 1 Chromista. 12 distinct Species records are shown.
Collected by A. D. Selby, A. Drew, A. L. McElhose and others. Each is a
physical object with a catalogue
number, and each entry opens the museum's record. This is what was
collected and kept, not a survey of what lives here - nothing can be
concluded from a species being absent.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The federal mineral resources record lists
7 workings within 5 miles of Erwin Hall, Marietta College: 4 producers, 2 past producers, 1 plant.
5 still produce. What was taken out: Sand and Gravel, Construction, Stone, Crushed/Broken, Manganese, Chromium, Iron. Distance is straight-line from the
map coordinates, so a quarry counted here may appear on a neighbouring
settlement's page as well.
Regional context, not property-specific
evidence. The National Weather Service names
Marietta, the town this property stands in, in 68 storm reports between 1993 and 2026: 31 thunderstorm wind, 25 hail, 5 flood, 3 lightning.
The reports record 3 injuries. Each account below is quoted exactly as the forecast office
filed it, from the NOAA Storm Events Database, and each date
opens the federal record of that event.
A double wide mobile home was destroyed after its roof was blown off. The home was located on Warren Township Road 277. Seven people were in the home at the time, 3 were taken to the hospital with minor injuries and later released. The National Weather Service survey estimated winds of 60 to 70 mph from the microburst.
Numerous large trees were blown down by strong wind gusts. The wind was associated with a bow echo configuration to the thunderstorms. Wind gusts of around 70 mph likely occurred. Several homes and businesses were hit by fallen trees. Residents described the aftermath in the hardest hit portions of downtown Marietta as looking like a war zone.
Rains of 2.5 to 4.5 inches fell in less than 3 hours. The 24 hour rain amount from the cooperative observer at Newport was 4.7 inches. The Marietta cooperative observer had 2.94 inches. Streams such as Long Run and Newell Run flooded and forced a few evacuations. Many residents were stuck in their homes. The Newport fire chief said, We couldn't get to them because they couldn't see the bridges. Basically every direction we went there was rushing water, it looked like a whitewater river.||More urban streams such as Goose Run flooded basements around Marietta.
Thunderstorms moved from east to west crossing the Ohio River from West Virginia. The city of Marietta hauled 130 loads of fallen limbs away over a eight day cleanup period. At least two homes were damaged. A dairy barn was heavily damaged in Warren Township. A tree fell onto a car in Belpre.
Downpours associated with severe thunderstorms overwhelmed the city drainage system, causing brief street flooding. Water got into a few basements. The cooperative observer measured 2.6 inches for its 24 hour rain amount, most of which fell within about 2 hours.
Thunderstorms moved from east to west crossing the Ohio River from West Virginia. The city of Marietta hauled 130 loads of fallen limbs away over a eight day cleanup period. At least two homes were damaged. A dairy barn was heavily damaged in Warren Township. A tree fell onto a car in Belpre.
Thunderstorm winds blew a large section of roofing material off a rehabilitation center. Power lines were also blown down in town, causing power outages.
Thunderstorms moved from east to west crossing the Ohio River from West Virginia. The city of Marietta hauled 130 loads of fallen limbs away over a eight day cleanup period. At least two homes were damaged. A dairy barn was heavily damaged in Warren Township. A tree fell onto a car in Belpre.
A strong rise on the Little Muskingum River occurred. The crest was over 19 feet at the gauge near Bloomfield. Minor overflow along the usual low spots of Route 26 was the result. A few sections of the road were closed.
Trees fell in scattered locations about the town. Two large umbrellas, used to shelter kids from the sun, were ripped from their tables and blew away at the YMCA.
The stream gage on Duck Creek near Whipple showed the creek rose above its 12 foot flood stage late on the 25th. The creek crested at 12.4 feet just before sunrise on the 26th and had returned to its banks by mid morning. This flooded sections of State Routes 26, 145 and 821.
The stream gauge on Duck Creek at Whipple crested just over 12 feet late afternoon on the 18th. Bankfull is 11 feet. Minor flooding occurred along sections of State Routes 26, 146 and 821 in central Washington County.
1 paper published in this town,
digitised by the Library of Congress and free to read: 1,733 issues,
8,183 pages. Every page is searchable, so a name or a street can be
looked for directly in what the town printed about itself at the time.
United States Geological Survey topographic
sheets whose coverage includes this point. Matched by geocoding the centre of Marietta, because the National Register records a descriptive location rather than a street address, then
testing that coordinate against the published boundary of every sheet.
When this property was proposed for the
National Register, someone wrote the case for it: what the building is,
and why it matters. That document is a federal record in the public domain.
It is quoted below word for word, never summarised. The text was read off the scanned case file by machine, so the
occasional stray character is the recogniser's and the 1970s
typewriter's.
Description of the property
Erwin Hall, a three story Greek Revival brick building capped by a Two stage wooden clock and bell tower, was built from 1845-1850.f It and the Chapel at Amherst College in Massachusetts. The building is rectangular , without on all sides.
The pilasters are doubled at the facade.corners and wooden gears converted to electric and the old bell, which has hung in the floor housed the college president's lecture room, the mathematical room, of the second floor accommodated the college library in a room named to a gradual decline in interest in forensics, the literary societies At the turn of the century scientific laboratories made a somewhat large building now houses the classrooms, laboratories and offices of the JAN 1 8 1973 CONDITION Deteriorated Moved NATIONAL and added Oriental rugs, overstuffed chairs and hangings.
However, due of the building, was frescoed in the classical style, while the hall for portico but with brick pilasters of the Doric order running full height (Check One) tower since 1852,was augmented with a set of Westminster chimes and abandoned their halls in 1912.Over the years many alterations were made. continue above the roofline on both sides in the form of chimneys.The carillon in 1961.¿ In 1970 a new door, flanked by two hanging lamps, contained the Greek room, the rhetorical room and facilities for Psi Gamma, at the rear of the building, was stuccoed and embellished in the Gothic style.
Both societies put in French stained-glass windows 52.5'X 68.5' frieze and pediment are brick, and the frieze continues on the sides Externally the building has been little altered in its 122 years. In the tower, located behind the facade pediment, the old clock has had its Interior: Many changes have occurred inside Erwin. Originally the first a chemical lecture hall and a chemistry laboratory.
founded in 1835 in the oldest settlement of the state/ Located at the center of campus, Erwin Hall has been the chief symbol of the college its multipurpose function of housing the college chapel, recitation and philosophical lectures, and the college's two literary societies. addition, the college's Phi Beta Kappa chapter held some of its ter's life. After 1870, the building became the central element in Hall (then called the "Middle Building"), and the Old Dorm (1832). Rufus Erastus Harte, gentleman architect-superintendent of Erwin Hall, was born in 1812 at Middlebury, Ohio and attended Yale University. He was probably familiar with the architectural manuals of Asher attended the Western Reserve College, now Academy, in Hudson, Ohio Hudson chapel.
This conclusion - that Erwin Hall is an example of a JAN 1 8 1973 Commerce College. Conservation Communications REGISTER Engineering Military losophy Aboriginal Literature Education Music itarian NATIONAL Prehistoric Sculpture Invention Pre-Columbian New England Design coming south via the Western Reserve, is unique.This earliest meetings in Erwin's rooms during the first decades of the chap- Agriculture Industry is Johannesen's theory, and it is well-founded, giving Erwin Hall a Political Landscape Benjamin which were so influential in the Greek Revival vogue which Other (Specify) PERIOD (Check One or More as Appropriate) Erwin Hall is the second building to be erected and now the oldest the weekend of 30 July 1845.
When it was completed in 1850, it assumed "Monumental Row" which included Alumni Memorial Hall (1870), Erwin explanation of the design of Erwin Hall stems from the fact that Harte quite similar to Erwin's,may have so impressed him, that, upon his selection as supervisor of the new building's design, he immediately based it on the before enrolling at Yale.
Quoted from the National Register nomination
for reference 73001547, 15 pages, held by the National Archives in Record
Group 79. See the
catalogue record.
Listed places nearby
6 within 8 miles
Other National Register properties close
enough to walk or drive between, ordered by distance from this one. Both
positions come from the same geocoding pass that matched these properties
to their map sheets.
Listing record. National Park Service National Register of Historic Places, listed-properties dataset, current to 2026-05-22.
Map join. Address geocoded through the United States Census geocoder, then tested against the published boundary of every sheet in the USGS Historical Topographic Map Collection.
How this page is made. Listing fields come from federal records; map-sheet coverage is a labelled coordinate-to-boundary calculation, not a source-field claim.
Wildfire. Short, Karen C. 2022. Spatial wildfire occurrence data for the United States, 1992-2020 [FPA_FOD_20221014]. 6th Edition. Fort Collins, CO: Forest Service Research Data Archive. https://doi.org/10.2737/RDS-2013-0009.6 Collected with United States Government funding and usable without additional permissions or fees.
Specimens. Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), https://www.gbif.org/. Only records licensed CC0 or CC BY are used. Records licensed CC BY-NC are excluded because this site carries advertising. Images are checked individually and any whose licence is non-commercial, no-derivatives or unreadable is refused.
Mines and quarries. USGS Mineral Resources Data System (MRDS) https://mrdata.usgs.gov/mrds/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105.
Storms. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information, Storm Events Database https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/stormevents/ A work of the United States government, no copyright under 17 U.S.C. 105. Narratives are quoted verbatim from the National Weather Service report and are not edited or summarised.
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