Vermillion Institute

The Vermillion Institute in Hayesville, Ohio was a co-educational school that during the mid to late nineteenth century was a preeminent center of higher education that trained people who became prominent in various professions. At one time it was a rival to "Oberlin, Kenyon or Denison".

At one time this academy/college had an enrollment of about 600 students who came from 13 states. Founded 1843 as one of the first institutions of higher in north central Ohio, it was chartered by Ohio Legislature March 4, 1845. Originally Baptist, by 1849 it became Presbyterian-affiliated. Its cornerstone was laid July 4, 1845. Future U. S. President Rutherford B. Hayes was said to have attended the dedication, music for which was provided by the Jeromesville, Ohio band. It was built by Edwin Hubbard and its design is credited to Ashland native Ozias S. Kinney (1811–69), who later was an architect in Chicago.

Longtime leader at the Vermillion Institute was Professor Saunders Diefendorf, a Yale-educated Presbyterian minister, who was the principal in 1851. Enrollment declined as students and faculty left to fight in the American Civil War and the institute went into a long slow decline. Diefendorf left Hayesville in 1866 after the Vermillion Institute was not accepted as the site for the new Presbyterian college, which instead went to Wooster.

After its rejection as the site of a new Church of God college, located later at Findlay, Ohio, the institute property was sold back to Hayesville and operated as a private academy. Diefendorf returned to head this reorganized school, which was a preparatory academy to the College of Wooster. It later became the Hayesville High School.

The 1929 opening of new combined elementary and high school at the opposite end of the village meant the end of public use of the Vermillion Institute. It was partially used for social organizations but was largely abandoned. A tall stone fountain with memorial plaques once stood in front of the building, until its removal in the 1950s to nearby Kendig Park.

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