The Old Campus is the oldest area of the
Yale University
Yale University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701, Yale is the List of Colonial Colleges, third-oldest institution of higher education in the United Stat ...
campus in
New Haven, Connecticut
New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 United States census, 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is List ...
. It is the principal residence of
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
freshmen and also contains offices for the academic departments of Classics, English, History, Comparative Literature, and Philosophy. Fourteen buildings—including eight dormitories and two chapels—surround a courtyard with a main entrance from the
New Haven Green
The New Haven Green is a privately owned park and recreation area located in the downtown New Haven, downtown district of the city of New Haven, Connecticut, United States. It comprises the central square of the nine-square settlement plan of t ...
known as Phelps Gate.
The Old Campus comprised most of Yale College's grounds between its arrival in New Haven in 1718 and its 20th-century expansion. Yale's first building in New Haven, the College House, was erected in 1718 on the Old Campus' southeast corner, fulfilling the city founders' wish to have a college near New Haven's
Congregational church
Congregationalism (also Congregational Churches or Congregationalist Churches) is a Reformed Christian (Calvinist) tradition of Protestant Christianity in which churches practice congregational government. Each congregation independently a ...
. It was joined by
Connecticut Hall in 1750, a student dormitory and Yale's only surviving building from the colonial era. A linear building plan established in 1792, known as Old Brick Row, was the first campus plan in the United States and became a template for many American college campuses built in the 19th century. After 1870, the original plan gave way to the current quadrangle of dormitories, academic buildings, and chapels.
In addition to Connecticut Hall, the current buildings of Old Campus include most of the freshman dormitories of
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
,
Street Hall of the
Yale University Art Gallery, and two buildings used for religious purpose:
Battell Chapel, third in a succession of college chapels, and
Dwight Hall, formerly the College Library. Although the current buildings have been renovated and their uses changed during the twentieth century, all were completed before 1928.
History
First building: Yale College House
When
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
moved to New Haven in 1718, the town constructed its first building, the "College House," at the corner of College and Chapel Streets, where Bingham Hall now stands. The wood-framed structure contained all the functions of the college: student rooms, a library, and a combined chapel and dining hall.
Falling into disrepair, this building was torn down in stages from 1775 to 1782.
Old Brick Row construction

Beginning in 1750 with the state-financed construction of
Connecticut Hall, a student dormitory, the buildings of Old Brick Row were built over the next one hundred years. A chapel, later known as the Atheneum, joined the dormitory in 1761. During a 1792 disagreement over whether the next building should follow a linear pattern, preferred by Yale President
Ezra Stiles
Ezra Stiles ( – May 12, 1795) was an American educator, academic, Congregationalist minister, theologian, and author. He is noted as the seventh president of Yale College (1778–1795) and one of the founders of Brown University. According ...
, or right-angular pattern, preferred by the
Yale Corporation and the town, Stiles commissioned
James Hillhouse and
John Trumbull
John Trumbull (June 6, 1756 – November 10, 1843) was an American painter and military officer best known for his historical paintings of the American Revolutionary War, of which he was a veteran. He has been called the "Painter of the Revolut ...
to draft first college campus plan in the United States. Trumbull's drawings chose Stiles' linear pattern, interleaving narrow, steepled buildings between long student dormitories. By 1824, Old Brick Row included four student dormitories, then known as "colleges," and between them the Atheneum (First Chapel), Connecticut Lyceum, and Second Chapel.
Around the Brick Row at this time were a chemical laboratory, a mineralogical building (the Cabinet), and the Second President's House, replacing one north of Elm Street.

The college gradually purchased parcels of land until it controlled the whole block by 1857. Properties owned by
Amos Doolittle and
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...
were consolidated and demolished, as were the town jail and poorhouse. On newly acquired land surrounding Old Brick Row, administrators built the Trumbull Gallery (1832), Divinity College (1835), the College Library (1849), and Alumni Hall (1850). Of the fourteen Yale buildings completed by 1850, only two, Connecticut Hall and the College Library (now Dwight Hall), would stand fifty years later, and both survive today.
Quadrangle plan
In 1870, Yale President
Noah Porter
Noah Thomas Porter III (December 14, 1811 – March 4, 1892)''Obituary Record of Graduates of Yale University'', Yale University, 1891-2, New Haven, pp. 82-83. was an American Congregational minister, academic, philosopher, author, lexicographer ...
announced the "gradual abandonment and removal of the present buildings of the Brick Row," beginning with the construction of Farnam Hall. From 1870 to 1928, the college undertook a wholesale reconfiguration of its campus, tearing down the Old Brick Row and its satellites and erecting a perimeter of
Victorian Gothic
Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic or neo-Gothic) is an Architectural style, architectural movement that after a gradual build-up beginning in the second half of the 17th century became a widespread movement in the first half ...
student dormitories around a central enclosure. Where before it had been most prestigious to live off campus, the new dormitories became fashionable as the preserve of seniors. When
Yale's residential colleges were opened in 1933, the Old Campus transitioned to a home for the common Freshman Year, with upperclassmen living in the colleges.
Yale Fence

In 1833, a
picket fence encircling the campus was replaced with a rail fence, causing a major shift in the social patterns of the Old Campus.
The Yale Fence, a wood fence with square posts and round rails that ran three sides of Old Brick Row, was the college's primary gathering place thereafter. Students would claim sections by class year, with seniors taking choice seats along Chapel Street. However, as the modern quadrangle took form, the fence was gradually uprooted. In 1888, the displacement of its last section for Osborn Hall caused 2,100 alumni to write in protest.
The Yale Fence Club, an undergraduate fraternal organization, was named in its memory. The fence currently lining the Old Campus' interior courtyard is modeled after the old fence, and pieces of the original are held in
Sterling Memorial Library
Sterling Memorial Library (SML) is the main library, library building of the Yale University Library system in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Opened in 1931, the library was designed by James Gamble Rogers as the centerpiece of Yale's Go ...
.
Student life

Old Campus houses freshmen from ten of
Yale College
Yale College is the undergraduate college of Yale University. Founded in 1701, it is the original school of the university. Although other Yale schools were founded as early as 1810, all of Yale was officially known as Yale College until 1887, ...
's fourteen residential colleges. These students are assigned a residential college before starting their studies at Yale, live in Old Campus dormitories during their freshman year, and move into their colleges at the beginning of sophomore year. Students assigned to
Silliman,
Timothy Dwight,
Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin (April 17, 1790) was an American polymath: a writer, scientist, inventor, statesman, diplomat, printer, publisher and Political philosophy, political philosopher.#britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, Wood, 2021 Among the m ...
, and
Pauli Murray live in their colleges for all four years.
Since the 18th century, Yale's Commencement ceremony has been held on the grounds of the Old Campus. Every May, approximately 10,000 chairs are set up for the event and college's Class Day, held the day before and featuring a distinguished speaker.
During the late 19th century, the Old Campus hosted an annual Tap Night for the upperclassmen on the Old Campus, where juniors were inducted into secret societies. An echo of the event occurs with the annual fall ''a cappella'' rush, where singing groups race to freshman dorms to choose new members. Old Campus hosts several curricular activities, including Freshman Olympics, a competition among the residential colleges, and Spring Fling, an outdoor concert.
Statues
There are bronze statues on Old Campus of
Nathan Hale
Nathan Hale (June 6, 1755 – September 22, 1776) was an American Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot, soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War. He volunteered for an Military intelligence, intelligence ...
(1913,
Bela Pratt),
Theodore Dwight Woolsey (1896,
John Ferguson Weir), and
Abraham Pierson (1874,
Launt Thompson
Launt Thompson (February 8, 1833 – September 26, 1894) was an American sculptor.
Biography
He was born in Abbeyleix, Ireland. Due to the Great Famine occurring in Ireland at the time, he emigrated to the United States in 1847 with his widowe ...
). There are also statues of lions at the entrance to Lanman-Wright Hall. Before it was moved to
Science Hill, a statue of
Benjamin Silliman stood in front of Dwight Hall.
Copies of the Nathan Hale statue were cast for the
Central Intelligence Agency
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...
, the
U.S. Department of Justice
The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...
(''see
Statue of Nathan Hale (New York City)
''Nathan Hale'' is a bronze sculpture of Nathan Hale, an American Patriot (American Revolution), Patriot, soldier and spy for the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War, unveiled by the Sons of the Revolution in the State of New Yo ...
''), the
Tribune Tower in Chicago (''see
Statue of Nathan Hale (Chicago)''), and
Fort Nathan Hale.
Current buildings
Former buildings
References
Works cited
Bibliography
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{{Yale
Yale University buildings
University and college campuses in Connecticut
Urban planning in the United States