Located two miles from The College of William and Mary’s main campus, the Dillard Complex is a group of buildings comprised of two vacant dormitories, four homes used as offices for the College, a collection of sports fields, and storage facilities. The land was originally owned by Eastern State Hospital, the oldest psychiatric facility in the United States, as it was moved from the historic district in downtown Williamsburg to the land at Dunbar Farm in a painstakingly long process between 1935 and 1970.[1] Dunbar Farm was originally purchased by the Hospital in 1919 for the purposes of growing and raising all of the food for the hospital facility downtown. The two dormitories (originally built circa 1955), initially intended for orderlies and nurses at the Hospital, are the focus of this photographic series.
In 1965, there was a severe housing shortage on campus. The President of the School Davis Young Paschall, in a letter to the Superintendent of Eastern State Hospital Dr. Howard H. Ashbury, regretfully proclaimed that he was “having to refuse admission to such an excessively large number of qualified students that it is beginning to reach a real crisis.”[2] Thankfully, the Hospital agreed to lease two “modern” dormitories (buildings #42 and #43), intended for Hospital staff, to the college. In the first year, 86 men resided on the first floor of building #42 at James Blair Terrace, as it was called at the time.[3] The other building was used for married couples (graduate students and law students mostly) and single and married members of the faculty.[4] Although some staff members and nurses of the Hospital were allowed to live in #42 until 1968, the ten-year lease included both dormitories, all the furniture therein, and there was no rental fee, only the agreement to pay for any maintenance fees, insurance, and utilities.[5] In 1975, the lease was renewed for three years, and in 1977 in anticipation of the end of the lease, it was renewed again for 6 years.
However, this last rental term was cut short because, in 1980, the College officially purchased the two dormitories, four homes, and 38 acres of land in which to develop to their liking. Until 1982, the collection of buildings on this land was dubbed “James Blair Terrace,” as Paschall stated in an Interdepartmental Communication that “it is much more preferable to refer to the location as James Blair Terrace than to refer to it as Dunbar—the reasons being obvious.”[6] The “obvious” reason was not that it was located next to James Blair High School, although that did give it the name, but instead that at this time in Williamsburg, the movement of Eastern State Hospital from the historic district to Dunbar Farm was a hot topic, and it would make the area undesirable to equate it with the Hospital. The College then changed the name to the Dillard Complex in honor of James Hardy Dillard (1856-1940), the rector of the College’s Board of Visitors from 1918-1940.[7] Dillard spent ten years in the Hampton Roads area, serving as principal at both the Rodman School of Norfolk and the Norfolk School.[8] Dillard’s legacy was education in the South, especially for African Americans, even though his parents were slave owners.[9] A 1940 obituary acknowledges his willingness to educate African Americans: “he secured the cooperation of the southern whites, of the northern philanthropists, and of the Negroes,” “was loved and respected by all,” and “rendered a service which cannot be properly evaluated at the present time.”[10] When two black colleges merged in New Orleans (New Orleans University and Straight University), they named the college Dillard University in his honor. Somehow, Dillard also had time to serve the College of William and Mary, which was, at that time, a white school, not admitting its first black student until 1953 (Hulon Willis) and remaining largely segregated well into the 1960s.[11]
The two dorms were also renamed “Munford Hall” and “Hughes Hall,” after two important members of the Board of Visitors from Dillard’s time as President: Mary Cooke Branch Munford (1920-1924), the first female member, and Robert Morton Hughes (1893-1918). They became vacant in 2006, when the buildings were about to fail inspection and be replaced by the Barksdale dorms on Jamestown Road, a $27.9 million building project intended to give modern conveniences on a green footprint to the student body.[12] Following the abandonment of the buildings, questions circulated regarding the future use of the spaces. In 2007, President Gene Nichol reported that “affordable housing” and “an additional child-care center” were possible options for Hughes and Munford’s future, alluding to the likelihood of a future use in his comment, “We are presently studying what the next purpose of the marvelous Dillard Complex will be.”[13] Though, in 2008, Anna Martin, Vice President for Administration, proclaimed that “Those buildings are not livable,” and that “it would be difficult to renovate the existing buildings to provide acceptable housing,”[14] even though around the same time, the College draws up plans for creating a small village of housing for young faculty members.[15]
However, in the 2015 Master Campus Plan, the College proclaims that the two dormitories and four houses at the Complex will be demolished. In place of these “marvelous” structures will be a new track and field center, with a large track, a throwing events space, home and visitor locker rooms, a landscaped terrace area to “improve the spectator and visiting team experience,” a soccer field, and parking lots.[16] Although the plan states from the start its non-commitment (“the Campus Master Plan is a living document”[17]) and although it marks the time period from 2014 to 2018 when a new strategic plan will possibly come out, it also does not state at any place when its plans are to make any of the drastic changes it desires to make.[A1]
[1] http://www.esh.dbhds.virginia.gov/History.html
[2] Letter from Davis Young Paschall to Dr. Howard H. Ashbury, February 17, 1965 (Special Collections, The College of William and Mary).
[3] Interdepartmental Communication from Dean Barnes to President Paschall et al., July 9, 1965 (Special Collections, The College of William and Mary).
[4] Interdepartmental Communication from Davis Y. Paschall to Dean Carson Barnes, Subject: Coordinator of Housing at James Blair Terrace, February 17, 1965.
[5] “Lease and Operational Agreement Between the Department of Mental Hygiene and Hospitals and the College of William and Mary in Virginia in Respect to Buildings 42 and 43 Located at Dunbar Site of Eastern State Hospital,” July 1965 (Special Collections, The College of William and Mary).
[6] Interdepartmental Communication from Davis Y. Paschall to Dean Carson Barnes, Subject: Coordinator of Housing at James Blair Terrace, February 17, 1965.
[7] http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/wiki/index.php/James_Hardy_Dillard
[8] Thomas William Herringshaw, ed. Herringshaw’s National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States (Chicago: American Publishers’ Association, 1909): 274.
[9] “James Hardy Dillard,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 1940): 585.
[10] “James Hardy Dillard,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 1940): 586.
[11] http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Desegregation_in_Higher_Education#start_entry
[12] https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2006/new-dormitory-provides-upscale-living.php
[13] Sharon Schiff, “Nichol hints on Dillard Complex: Child-care center, affordable student housing are possibilities,” The Virginia Gazette, May 12, 2007.
[14] Steve Vaughan, “Dillard Complex likely faces razing: College doesn’t see J-1 housing as feasible,” The Virginia Gazette, May 7, 2008.
[15] Bill O’Donovan, “Tail wags dog,” The Virginia Gazette, May 14, 2015.
[16] The College of William and Mary 2015 Campus Master Plan: 82.
[17] The College of William and Mary 2015 Campus Master Plan: 4.
In 1965, there was a severe housing shortage on campus. The President of the School Davis Young Paschall, in a letter to the Superintendent of Eastern State Hospital Dr. Howard H. Ashbury, regretfully proclaimed that he was “having to refuse admission to such an excessively large number of qualified students that it is beginning to reach a real crisis.”[2] Thankfully, the Hospital agreed to lease two “modern” dormitories (buildings #42 and #43), intended for Hospital staff, to the college. In the first year, 86 men resided on the first floor of building #42 at James Blair Terrace, as it was called at the time.[3] The other building was used for married couples (graduate students and law students mostly) and single and married members of the faculty.[4] Although some staff members and nurses of the Hospital were allowed to live in #42 until 1968, the ten-year lease included both dormitories, all the furniture therein, and there was no rental fee, only the agreement to pay for any maintenance fees, insurance, and utilities.[5] In 1975, the lease was renewed for three years, and in 1977 in anticipation of the end of the lease, it was renewed again for 6 years.
However, this last rental term was cut short because, in 1980, the College officially purchased the two dormitories, four homes, and 38 acres of land in which to develop to their liking. Until 1982, the collection of buildings on this land was dubbed “James Blair Terrace,” as Paschall stated in an Interdepartmental Communication that “it is much more preferable to refer to the location as James Blair Terrace than to refer to it as Dunbar—the reasons being obvious.”[6] The “obvious” reason was not that it was located next to James Blair High School, although that did give it the name, but instead that at this time in Williamsburg, the movement of Eastern State Hospital from the historic district to Dunbar Farm was a hot topic, and it would make the area undesirable to equate it with the Hospital. The College then changed the name to the Dillard Complex in honor of James Hardy Dillard (1856-1940), the rector of the College’s Board of Visitors from 1918-1940.[7] Dillard spent ten years in the Hampton Roads area, serving as principal at both the Rodman School of Norfolk and the Norfolk School.[8] Dillard’s legacy was education in the South, especially for African Americans, even though his parents were slave owners.[9] A 1940 obituary acknowledges his willingness to educate African Americans: “he secured the cooperation of the southern whites, of the northern philanthropists, and of the Negroes,” “was loved and respected by all,” and “rendered a service which cannot be properly evaluated at the present time.”[10] When two black colleges merged in New Orleans (New Orleans University and Straight University), they named the college Dillard University in his honor. Somehow, Dillard also had time to serve the College of William and Mary, which was, at that time, a white school, not admitting its first black student until 1953 (Hulon Willis) and remaining largely segregated well into the 1960s.[11]
The two dorms were also renamed “Munford Hall” and “Hughes Hall,” after two important members of the Board of Visitors from Dillard’s time as President: Mary Cooke Branch Munford (1920-1924), the first female member, and Robert Morton Hughes (1893-1918). They became vacant in 2006, when the buildings were about to fail inspection and be replaced by the Barksdale dorms on Jamestown Road, a $27.9 million building project intended to give modern conveniences on a green footprint to the student body.[12] Following the abandonment of the buildings, questions circulated regarding the future use of the spaces. In 2007, President Gene Nichol reported that “affordable housing” and “an additional child-care center” were possible options for Hughes and Munford’s future, alluding to the likelihood of a future use in his comment, “We are presently studying what the next purpose of the marvelous Dillard Complex will be.”[13] Though, in 2008, Anna Martin, Vice President for Administration, proclaimed that “Those buildings are not livable,” and that “it would be difficult to renovate the existing buildings to provide acceptable housing,”[14] even though around the same time, the College draws up plans for creating a small village of housing for young faculty members.[15]
However, in the 2015 Master Campus Plan, the College proclaims that the two dormitories and four houses at the Complex will be demolished. In place of these “marvelous” structures will be a new track and field center, with a large track, a throwing events space, home and visitor locker rooms, a landscaped terrace area to “improve the spectator and visiting team experience,” a soccer field, and parking lots.[16] Although the plan states from the start its non-commitment (“the Campus Master Plan is a living document”[17]) and although it marks the time period from 2014 to 2018 when a new strategic plan will possibly come out, it also does not state at any place when its plans are to make any of the drastic changes it desires to make.[A1]
[1] http://www.esh.dbhds.virginia.gov/History.html
[2] Letter from Davis Young Paschall to Dr. Howard H. Ashbury, February 17, 1965 (Special Collections, The College of William and Mary).
[3] Interdepartmental Communication from Dean Barnes to President Paschall et al., July 9, 1965 (Special Collections, The College of William and Mary).
[4] Interdepartmental Communication from Davis Y. Paschall to Dean Carson Barnes, Subject: Coordinator of Housing at James Blair Terrace, February 17, 1965.
[5] “Lease and Operational Agreement Between the Department of Mental Hygiene and Hospitals and the College of William and Mary in Virginia in Respect to Buildings 42 and 43 Located at Dunbar Site of Eastern State Hospital,” July 1965 (Special Collections, The College of William and Mary).
[6] Interdepartmental Communication from Davis Y. Paschall to Dean Carson Barnes, Subject: Coordinator of Housing at James Blair Terrace, February 17, 1965.
[7] http://scdb.swem.wm.edu/wiki/index.php/James_Hardy_Dillard
[8] Thomas William Herringshaw, ed. Herringshaw’s National Library of American Biography: Contains Thirty-five Thousand Biographies of the Acknowledged Leaders of Life and Thought of the United States (Chicago: American Publishers’ Association, 1909): 274.
[9] “James Hardy Dillard,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 1940): 585.
[10] “James Hardy Dillard,” The Journal of Negro History, Vol. 25, No. 4 (October 1940): 586.
[11] http://www.encyclopediavirginia.org/Desegregation_in_Higher_Education#start_entry
[12] https://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2006/new-dormitory-provides-upscale-living.php
[13] Sharon Schiff, “Nichol hints on Dillard Complex: Child-care center, affordable student housing are possibilities,” The Virginia Gazette, May 12, 2007.
[14] Steve Vaughan, “Dillard Complex likely faces razing: College doesn’t see J-1 housing as feasible,” The Virginia Gazette, May 7, 2008.
[15] Bill O’Donovan, “Tail wags dog,” The Virginia Gazette, May 14, 2015.
[16] The College of William and Mary 2015 Campus Master Plan: 82.
[17] The College of William and Mary 2015 Campus Master Plan: 4.