History of Randolph-Macon College

Pace Hall and Old Chapel

In the mid-1870s, the academic program had outgrown the old frame main hotel facing the railroad. By mid-November 1876, a new classroom building, similar in size and style to Washington-Franklin Hall, was nearly complete. Named after James B. Pace a generous member of the board, Pace Hall faced the societies' building to its south and stood along the railroad track. The beautiful and convenient structure giving ample facilities for the accommodation of classes and teachers had six lecture rooms, one laboratory, and two faculty office rooms. By 1876, it had cost $7,144, and $3,200 were still needed to complete it.' It was completed the next year. Despite the noise, cinders, and soot, clustering the main buildings along the railroad track kept the college well before the traveling public's eye.

Facing the railroad and completing a loose open quadrangle formed with the other two brick buildings stood Duncan Memorial Chapel. This replaced the old chapel (in the converted, separate ballroom of the hotel) that had burned on March 12, 1879, during an interesting revival. By June of 1879, $6,000 had been raised to replace the burned building with a brick one named in honor of the late president of the college and preacher James A. Duncan. The school's records of the structure are incidental, since, strictly speaking, it was not a project of the board. The Chapel has been erected and paid for to the extent named [$6,200] by the united efforts of our Church in Ashland, the citizens of the town, and friends of the cause in other places. The building, a truncated and crude Gothic-style village church, had facilities on the first, or ground, story for the college chapel (compulsory morning services) and a church for the college and townspeople on the second. Completed by June 1882, the building is still used by the college-the upper floor being given over to lecture rooms and the lower to offices and intimate theater.

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