President’s Residence (1892)

When President Bennett Hutchinson arrived as the first president of the new school, there was no place on the campus for him to live. He agreed to build a house on the grounds of the school with his own funds provided that the Trustees agreed to buy it from him when the time came for him to leave.  They did. 

 For two years, 1890-1892, President Hutchinson and his family lived in rooms or an apartment in a home on Kanawha Street. In 1892 his residence on campus was ready, and he lived there until he left the school in 1898. Presidents Boyers, Wier, Doney, and Fleming lived in it as well.

In 1923 the college purchased 68 College Avenue (the present-day Upshur Parish House), and it became the President’s Residence. Presidents Cutshall, Wark, McCuskey, and Broyles lived there.

When the Aircrew came in 1943, President Broyles vacated the house as part of his plan to house students. He lived in rental property, first at 22 Meade Street, then at 66 S. Kanawha Street until the purchase of the house at 126 Pocahontas Street.  Presidents Broyles, Scarborough, Martin, Rockefeller, Sleeth, Harris, Latimer, Courtice, Haden, and Balch lived in the house at 126 Pocahontas Street.

In 2017, a house was purchased on Phillips Dairy Road for President Thierstein and was sold at the end of his tenure as president.

For Further Reading

Books

Haught, T.W. (1940) West Virginia Wesleyan College: First Fifty Years: 1890-1940. West Virginia Wesleyan College: Buckhannon, WV. 

Plummer, K.M. (1965) A history of West Virginia Wesleyan College 1890-1965.  West Virginia Wesleyan College: Buckhannon, WV. Page 29.

Miller, B.T. (2014) Our Home Among the Hills: West Virginia Wesleyan College’s First 125 Years. Virginia Beach, VA: The Donning Company Publishers. Page 15.