The Building:The flagship and first building on campus, Converse was originally built as a multipurpose administration and classroom building with funding from John H. Converse, a wealthy Presbyterian businessman in Philadelphia and then-president of Baldwin Locomotive Works. The cornerstone was laid August 23, 1906 under the presidency of Rev. Robert M. Stevenson (1905 to 1912) and it was completed July 1907, though not actually occupied for another two years due to a lack of funding for a heating system, furniture or boarding facilities for students. Today, Converse Hall (
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-In 1905 John Converse, President of Baldwin Locomotive Works in Philadelphia, donated $20,000 toward the construction of the first building to be erected on the newly acquired land for Westminster College. Converse Hall was completed in 1907 for $27,000. It originally served as a boys' dorm, classroom, and office building. Later it was the administration building for campus, incorporating functions including the assembly hall, chemistry lab, lecture hall, and library. It also came to house the student paper, drama department (Courage Theater), and additional classrooms. - In March 1926 a fire gutted Converse Hall, destroying a library of 14,000 volumes. The building was upgraded and re-opened the following fall. In 1988 the building was completely refurbished, remaining in excellent condition today. Located at the primary entryway, it is currently the focal point of the campus, and is the only building fully visible from the main road paralleling the campus. In 2002 the carillon in the tower, Westminster Chimes, was replaced. It plays songs twice a day and chimes on the hour, quarter-hour and half-hour.
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The Man: Mr. John Converse was born in Burlington, Vermont in 1840, a son of the Rev. John Kendrick and Sarah (Allen) Converse.,He received his college training at the University of Vermont. Engineering was what he studied and work for a few years in the west. He accepted Christianity and became a loved elder in the Presbyterian Church. It is said, "his keen eye early saw that success depended on aspiration, industry, acquisition, distribution, conversation and consecration". He was head of the greatest locomotive manufacturing company in the world. His contributions helped get the Westminster College started.
** John H. Converse, was president of the Baldwin Locomotive Works,
and in all respects one of Philadelphia's foremost citizens. In the cause of reform and good government Mr. Converse was conspicuously a leader ;in philanthropic work he took a peculiarly active interest, being identified with all that made for a broader culture; and in religious enterprises he was especially earnest and influential.In the case of John H. Converse, the truth of the poet's words, "The child is father of the man," was strikingly illustrated.
Almost from his infancy he was interested in railroads. One of his first toys was a miniature wooden locomotive which he made himself and which ran on wooden rails in the backyard. About the same time he printed a small newspaper. As he grew older he sought the compan-
ionship of locomotive engineers and train- men, and spent his leisure hours about the railroad. In his "teens" he learned telegraphy, and at the age of fourteen took charge of the telegraph office at Essex
Junction for a month, during the vacation of the regular operator. It is a fact worthy of note that he was the first telegraph operator in Vermont to read by sound.
Meanwhile, the literary education of Mr. Converse went steadily forward. He was fitted for college at the Burlington High School, and in 1861 received from the University of Vermont the degree of
Bachelor of Arts. His rank in scholar-ship was high, and he was a member ofthe Phi Beta Kappa and the Lambda Iota fraternities. During the time spent at the university, Mr. Converse, assiduous as he was at his studies, found leisure to become proficient in stenography, at that time a comparatively rare accomplishment. He largely paid the expenses ofhis course by vacation work as telegrapher at Troy, New York, Burlington, andelsewhere, and as station agent at Water-
bury, Vermont.
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Additional informationToday Westminster exists as a fully independent, privately funded, nondenominational, comprehensive liberal arts institution of higher learning with selected graduate programs, meeting the West's educational needs as it has since 1875.