Connecticut Hall
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Connecticut Hall
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Connecticut Hall
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| Location | 1017 Chapel Street New Haven, Connecticut, United States |
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| Coordinates | 41°18′29.25″N 72°55′46.13″W / 41.3081250°N 72.9294806°WCoordinates: 41°18′29.25″N 72°55′46.13″W / 41.3081250°N 72.9294806°W |
| Built | 1750 |
| Architect | Francis Letort, Thomas Bills |
| Architectural style | Georgian |
| Restored | 1952 |
| Restored by | Douglas Orr |
| NRHP Reference # | 66000806 |
| Significant dates | |
| Added to NRHP | October 15, 1966 |
| Designated NHL | December 21, 1965 |
Connecticut Hall (formerly South Middle College) is a Georgian building on the Old Campus of Yale University. Completed in 1752, it was originally a student dormitory, a function it retained for 200 years. Part of the first floor became home to the Yale College Dean's Office after 1905, and the full building was converted to departmental offices in the mid-twentieth century. It is currently used by the Department of Philosophy, and its third story contains a room for meetings of the Yale Faculty of Arts & Sciences, the academic faculty of Yale College and the Graduate School.
Connecticut Hall is the third-oldest of only seven surviving American colonial-era college buildings, and the second-oldest structure built for Yale College in New Haven. The first building in a campus plan known as Old Brick Row that stood from 1750 to 1870, it is the only survivor of a demolition campaign that created the modern Old Campus quadrangle. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
When Yale College moved to New Haven in 1718, the town had constructed a wooden building known as the College House for its occupancy at the corner of College and Chapel Streets. By 1747, the College House held less than half of the college's enrolled students, and college president Thomas Clap announced that funds would be raised from the Colony of Connecticut for a "new College House" of three stories. The money used to fund the project came from the sale of a French ship captured by a privateer, a lottery, and a grant from the Connecticut Assembly. Construction, completed by 1752, was headed by Francis Letort and Thomas Bills, who also designed the college's next building, the First Chapel. The new dormitory was built 100 feet (30 m) long, 40 feet (12 m) wide, three stories tall, and, because President Clap instructed the builders to follow plans he received from Harvard University, appeared nearly a duplicate of the latter's Massachusetts Hall, completed in 1720. In its original incarnation, just under one hundred rooms were fit under its gambrel roof.
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