1909 Rummell View of St. Lawrence University, Canton, New York

This is a c. 1913 Richard Rummell view of St. Lawrence University in Canton, New York. The view illustrates St. Lawrence from a fictional highpoint above the intersection of Park Street and University Avenue. A beautiful grove of trees occupies the immediate foreground and Herring-Cole Hall, one of the oldest buildings on campus, appears to the left. The oldest building on campus, Richardson Hall, is to the right of and behind Herring-Cole Hall, and students can be seen walking along the pathway leading from Richardson Hall. Piskar Hall and Payson Hall appear near the right border, and Carnegie Hall is the building to the left of these two buildings and behind them. Both Richardson Hall and Herring-Cole Hall are on the National Register of Historic Places, as is the Old Campus Historic District, which includes many of the buildings illustrated here. Some of the buildings seen here no longer stand.

Rummell University Views

Rummell was an American landscape artist known for his drawings of American universities. At the turn of the century, Littig and Company commissioned Rummell to prepare watercolors of some of the nation's most prestigious colleges. From these watercolors, copper-plates were engraved, and a limited number of engravings were issued. Most of Rummell's university views are strikingly similar in style, revealing the entire campus in panoramic splendor. The views are uniformly issued from an altitude of about 300 feet, suggesting the Rummell most likely worked form a balloon.

In more recent times, Arader Galleries acquired many of the original printing plates for Rummell's college views and issued restrikes, but the original printings, as here, have become extremely rare. This is the first time we have encountered Rummell's view of St. Lawrence University.