Month: October 2025

From the moment you step on to Campus it’s obvious that trees hold a very special place in the heart of Kenyon College. But this fall the campus lacked some color. At the center of Campus stands a Church, and to the north of the church there is now a hole, a ghost of past shade. A few weeks ago, we lost the Wedding Tree.

The Norway maple known as the Wedding Tree was a staple for both the campus as a whole and our archaeological site. Norway Maples are native to Europe, brought over by colonizers for landscape and shade. In its native region, Norway maples have been known to live up to 250 years, but their lifespan is much shorter here in North America, sometimes only living 60 years. According to Professor Bruce Hardy, who has been working with the stump, it was likely planted “around the founding of the college, in the 1820s or 30s.” It will be difficult to ever determine the exact date, as the tree suffered rot damage to the center of the stump.

This makes it impossible to fully count its rings. Though the tree was not able to weather this last storm it has truly weathered the test of time living around 200 years old which surpasses its expected lifespan here. In 2002, it was even struck by lightning, and still survived for over 2 decades.

This tree had long been a landmark of the college. It was given the nickname “The Wedding Tree” for the many ceremonies happening in the church that took place beneath its branches.

The cultural and historical significance of this tree is prevalent. It stood as both a symbol of colonization, likely brought from Europe as most Norway maples were. Even after its fall, the stump revealed more hidden treasures.

Professor Petras salvaged around fifty objects from within the tree’s roots and surrounding soil. Among them were pieces of metal, likely nails, along with fragments of window glass similar to those found in nearby excavation plots. There were also brick and charcoal fragments, numerous pottery sherds dating to the early 1800s, and, most intriguingly, several pieces of bone, including an intact hog’s molar.

The trees’ loss leaves a physical and emotional hole on campus but its legacy lives on. From being a symbol of love, to witnessing the college’s growth, to a silent reminder of colonization. It tells a tale of change and resilience.

Similar to the artifacts we now unearth, the Wedding Tree connects us to those who came before. It was likely seen by the first students who attended Kenyon, perhaps even by Bishop Chase himself, gazing from the window of his cabin. Who knows? Maybe students once sat beneath its shade, dreaming of the future, just as we now sit and dream about the past.

References:

“Norway Maple – Borough of Glen Ridge, NJ – Official Website.” Borough of Glen Ridge, NJ – Official Website, 19 Aug. 2025, www.glenridgenj.org/shadetree/norwaymaple/. Accessed 24 Oct. 2025.

“Norway Maple | Minnesota Department of Agriculture.” Www.mda.state.mn.us, www.mda.state.mn.us/norway-maple.

Kenyon College has a long history–more than two hundred years at this point–and we can learn a lot about our school’s past because of the documentation they kept and the artifacts left behind. But this land didn’t always belong to Kenyon, and it wasn’t always documented in written records. The first European settlers in Knox county only arrived in the late 1760s–Native Americans had been living here for hundreds of years before Philander Chase ever arrived.

Evidence suggests people had been living in Ohio as far back as 15,000 years ago. They formed tribes such as the Shawnee, Delaware, Miami, Ottawa, Wyandotte, Erie, Seneca, and Mingo, and by the 1700s, they each had territories in the Ohio region.

To cover all these tribes’ history would be too great a task, so for now I will focus on the story of the Shawnee. The Shawnee were a mobile people who traveled all over the Midwest, living in states such as Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and Ohio. By the late eighteenth century, they had settled by the Ohio river and established territorial borders as far North as the great lakes.

Unfortunately, American settlers would not permit them their land. The United States government coveted the valuable land held by the Shawnee, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They attempted to take the land by force, beginning a 20 year conflict. The Shawnee had no hope of winning against the might of the American military. In 1795 they signed the treaty of Greenville, giving up their land bordering lake Erie.

Still, the government’s hunger for land was not sated. Troops traveled through what is now Canadian territory, pushing out even more Native Americans. Realizing violence would never succeed, the Shawnee sought a more peaceful resolution. In 1802 delegates from the Shawnee and Delaware tribes traveled to Washington to request President Jefferson officially grant them territory in Ohio and ensure they could not be disturbed. Of course, the government did not recognize this request, and American expansion continued. By the 1830s, the Shawnee had been entirely pushed out of their land, forced to Oklahoma, where they reside today.

Though Kenyon was not directly involved in the forced removal of Native Americans, the college still benefits–it is not our land that we stand on today. We are only able to get such an education, enjoy the scenery, and perform archaeological investigations because our ancestors took this land from its rightful owners. Though retribution is impossible right now, recognition is a step in the right direction.

References

Lakomaki, Sami. “”Our Line”: The Shawnees, the United States, and Competing Borders on the Great Lakes “Borderlands,” 1795–1832.” Journal of the Early Republic, vol. 34, no. 4, 2014, pp. 597-624.

Norton, A. Banning. A history of Knox County, Ohio, from 1779 to 1862 inclusive : comprising biographical sketches, anecdotes and incidents of men connected with the county from its first settlement ; together with complete lists of the senators, representatives, sheriffs and. Columbus, 1862. HathiTrust,https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=yale.39002053502739&seq=11. Accessed 16 10 2025.

PBS. One State Many Nations: Native Americans of Ohio. 2004. pbswesternpreserve.org, https://www.pbswesternreserve.org/education/one-state-many-nations-native-americans-of-ohio/. Accessed 23 10 2025.

Witthoft, John, and William A. Hunter. “The Seventeenth-Century Origins of the Shawnee.” Ethnohistory, vol. 2, no. 1, 1955, pp. 42-57.

The Rosse Hall, the Chase Avenue, the Old Kenyon…for the first time, these structures reveal themselves to me as more than mere physical remnants of the campus’s past. Their location, unique architectural style, and name have transcended the confirmed records on documents, and objective present on the map, with their silent yet steadfast and enduring presence actively narrating the tale and legend of the historical figures they embody.

As I stand before these old structures, once merely fleeting shadows in my hurried passage, I come to a profound realization: they are as much strangers to me as they are familiar companions. As a junior student, I can navigate the campus with ease, smoothly skating past different buildings to reach my destination. Yet, I remain a complete outsider, as it never crosses my mind to halt my hurried pace and truly engage in the narratives they share about the past.

Old Kenyon was the first permanent structure of the college, with construction beginning in 1827. Rosse Chapel, now known as Rosse Hall was Kenyon’s second permanent building. It was originally built in 1829, and named for Anglo-Irish benefactor Lady Jane King Parsons, Dowager Countess of Rosse. Old Kenyon and Rosse still stand today though both have since been reconstructed after the originals were destroyed in two different fires.

While these buildings stand as reminders of the past there are even older structures to Kenyon’s history that are no longer visible on the landscape today.

 In the year 1828, Bishop Philander Chase undertook the significant task of relocating his financially funded college from Worthington, Ohio, to the burgeoning city of Gambier. He deliberately chose this remote, natural hilltop as the inception of his endeavor to establish civilization and spread Christianity (Smythe 1924). The initial constructions from that era include a modest cabin intended to provide refuge for the Bishop and his family, the residence of Dr. Sparrow, a kitchen, and a dining hall that also functioned as a church for worship (figure 3). From these humble structures, which offered only the essential conditions and met the fundamental needs for survival, the renowned campus of Kenyon eventually emerged. However, in spite of the reality that these unrefined structures form the bedrock of the esteemed institution, their presence has faded into obscurity, nearly erased from memory after two centuries of evolution and renovation the campus has undergone.

I realized the great importance of a thorough exploration into Kenyon’s cultural and historical heritage that can shed light on the entire campus community. By examining these historical sites that once thrived, we as members of Kenyon will recall not only the myths and legends surrounding the Bishop, who was the primary sponsor and founder of the college. We will also be able to uncover the less formal, institutional, and thus often overlooked facets that reveal the Bishop’s intimate, personal life—elements that are equally vital and should be woven into the narrative of his dedicated efforts and renowned achievements.

Motivated by a commitment to uncover the past and enrich cultural understanding, the Kenyon Archeological Project (KAP) group of 2023 initiated an excavation at the front area of the current Church of the Holy Spirits. This site marks the location where the initial residential and living structures for the Bishop were established. Their endeavors proved to be both significant and fruitful, as the group unearthed a variety of artifacts and material remains that illuminate and offer a perspective on the understanding of the campus’s history from the 19^th century. Nonetheless, a wealth of enigmas and inquiries persist, awaiting deeper exploration.

As a continuation of their initiative, the KAP 2025 aims to persist in the exploration and discovery of insights related to the campus. As a participant in KAP 2025, I became involved not only because of the profound implications this excavation holds for reconstructing Kenyon’s cultural and historical narrative, but also the personal quest to deepen my understanding of my familiar yet strange companions. As the archaeological investigation goes, the once distant and mysterious history of Kenyon’s will be gradually recovered and reconstructed, whereas I also seek to interpret my familiar but strange friends as quiet, physical testimonies of the past, to recognize them as unique and vibrant entities that are destined to live on alongside the eternal legacy of the college.

References

 Stamp, Tom “This Will do: A look at the Kenyon campus and how it grew” Kenyon College Alumni Bulletin Archive 

 Smythe, George. 1924. “Kenyon College: Its First Century”

When an excavation plot is started the last thing you would think about is covering it back up, all of your hard work scraping dirt centimeter by centimeter for the privilege to connect with those of the past, yet that is the reality faced by minor excavation sites especially on a college campus.

In 2023 the first group of Kenyon campus archaeologists put tarps inside of their fully excavated plots and backfilled all of the sifted dirt into the hole so that Kenyon groundskeepers could then maintain the integrity of the lawn in front of the Church of the Holy Spirit. Thus, this fall when our class went to set up new plots we found that we could not easily identify where the old plots were to then base our new ones off of.

The difficulty was then amplified by the fact that the ground penetrating radar data that was used to identify where to put the initial plots could not be used to relocate the excavations as the metal stakes used to set the GPR grid had since been removed in the two years time between excavation seasons.

We utilized new methods such as GPS and probing the ground to successfully find the original plots. I will not be getting into the detail of those methods here, however I will discuss the method we have employed for further use to aid future Kenyon students which is tying in local landmarks.

Depending on the project and resources available, sophisticated systems like ground penetrating radar and gps coordinates may not be able to be accessed by future archaeologists and so using what already exists in the natural landscape is a simple yet effective method. It involves selecting a local landmark that will not degrade or break down rapidly if a storm or other event were to occur. For our purposes we chose the campus’s famous Gates of Hell and the stone pillar that is attached to the front stairs of the church. Both of these landmarks should be around a long time and are not made of a material like wood which can be destroyed much more easily.

We were then justified in our choice of landmarks when barely a week later the Wedding Tree, a two hundred year old maple in front of the church, came down on top of our dig site during a thunderstorm. What seems like it will last forever is not always guaranteed, archaeology is about finding and studying what is most likely to survive the annals of time, anything else that survives is thanks to the environment.

The next step was then to measure the distance with measurement tape and the angle with a compass between the southwest corner of our subop (unit) to the two landmarks, specifying which exact corners we were using. Often in archaeology we intentionally put the same information in several places so that if a mistake is made in the process we have other places to double check and so we write the distance down in several different journals so that if something unpredictable were to happen we have backup.

This strategy is not only employed in local archaeology but has a practical application to larger sites as well. As temperatures increase around the globe a very real threat of losing our heritage sites is looming on the horizon, with coastal lines growing and weather becoming more severe it is becoming increasingly necessary to protect and document what we already have.
Thus it is vital to record where our findings were made and so if something were to happen to the natural topography we would still need to know where everything was. This is where tying in comes in as it is a simple and effective tool to chart out a location without having to rely on technology that may not be available at a given time.

References

Hester, Thomas R., et al. Field Methods in Archaeology. Taylor and Francis, 2016.

Hollesen, Jørgen. “Climate Change and the Loss of Archaeological Sites and Landscapes: A Global Perspective.” Antiquity 96.390 (2022): 1382–1395. Web.

In an attempt to better understand the founding of the college, it is extremely helpful to look into all facets of life at Kenyon. In several of the articles from our archives we find students’ writings about their workload, living conditions and life at Kenyon as well as the values enforced here. Many of the values held by Kenyon in its founding days have changed over time for one reason or another. One of the best examples of this is the reason that Kenyon is even in Gambier.

Kenyon was originally founded in the city of Worthington. However, Philander Chase found the city to be too worldly for the young men’s college he envisioned. So, he moved the college to Gambier to, in his words, “take to the woods” (Smythe 46). Philander Chase was a Church bishop, who did his best to keep the students at Kenyon on the “right track.”

Interestingly however, in our excavations of Bishop’s Cabin we unearthed many smoking pipe stems and bowls. This is strong evidence that students were smoking on campus during the college’s developmental years. It is unclear what Philander Chase thought of this at the time.

In our modern day there is still a fairly strong smoking presence on our campus. However, as the times have changed, we are no longer allowed to smoke in any buildings due to several safety concerns. Furthermore, in our modern day there is more evidence of cannabis use than in our past. This isn’t to say that there was no cannabis use during the founding years of the college, just that we haven’t uncovered anything that would be evidence of such a claim. We can say for certain that both Philander Chase and our current rules and regulations are firmly against the use of cannabis.

In a similar vein, alcohol on campus was not always permitted. In fact, avoiding this vice was likely a leading factor that led Philander Chase to moving the school to the remote location of Gambier.

Most of the glass artifacts we have recovered to date are flat aqua colored window glass shards and not bottle glass. It is important to note that we are unlikely to find evidence of contraband items such as liquor bottles in both our archeological dig at the site and our scouring of our archives. Our current archeological dig, the structure we are investigating is thought to be a dining area/class room hybrid building. Because it’s a public setting that would be regularly used by both faculty and students, it is extremely unlikely to find any contraband in it. We are unlikely to find contraband in our archives because students are likely smart enough not to write down that they were breaking college policy, and are even less likely to submit that writing to be preserved in our official college archives. Furthermore, even if a student were to do all of that, the administration at the time is unlikely to accept such a submission.

That being said, it is very likely that the original students of Kenyon college did not give up worldly desires all together as Philander Chase likely hoped they would. It is more likely that the students would trek to the woods or the small city that was being built nearby named Mount Vernon to satisfy their desires. In our modern day, students over the age of twenty one are more than welcome to drink on campus so long as they follow state and federal legislation.

The founding class of Kenyon students wasn’t all partying and good times. In reality they faced many difficulties as the first class here at Kenyon.

In our modern day, most Kenyon students find themselves in spacious rooms with air conditioning and ready access to multiple different options of locally grown food every meal. Only two hundred years ago during our founding class students were living in the “thinwalled, unplastered houses” that were described as good at keeping the heat in in the summer and better at staying cold in the winter- Smythe 79-85. Even honored guests were forced to sleep in the thin walled cabins designed as dorms that had no furniture in them. In contrast, our modern dorms today come with a loftable bed, desk, closet, chair and a minifridge and microwave if you pay a little extra. All delivered to your room for you before the school year starts.

References

Smythe, George. 1924. “Kenyon College: Its First Century”