The Baptists of Virginia raised the endowment money and Richmond College designated a new dormitory as Memorial Hall, giving a room to the Virginia Baptist Historical Sociey as a repository for its growing collection. The feature of the room was a stained-glass window in memory of the Baptists who endured whipping posts, public ridicule and jail for their faith.

Memorial hall and the old campus were soon to become a part of history. As the new century dawned, the school was planning a bold move to a large acreage on the outskirts of the city. The Baptist educators would build from scratch an entire campus at the end of the streetcar line. The architects chose a handsome English Gothic design and the college's president envisioned a series of schools in the Oxford and Cambridge tradition.

In 1914, Richmond College moved to the present site and an entirely new women's college, Westhampton, also was created on the new campus. The contents of Memorial Hall were boxed and moved wherever space could be given...in a tower of the new administration and classroom building, in the new library and finally in the basement of the chemistry building where Garnett Ryland was in charge of the Baptist historical collection as treasurer and secretary of the Society.

The college library occupied a handsome room which was modeled after the great halls in the English universities. But it was soon overcrowded. By the 1940s a great movement was under way to build a new library building. It was to be named for the long-time president of the school, Frederic W. Boatwright, a prominent Baptist layman.

The new library was to be the gift of the school's founders -- the Baptists of Virginia. And it was characteristic of the best of Virginia Baptists to give a library which by its very nature represents man's quest for all manner of knowledge.

The General Association endorsed the project and authorized direct access to the churches for fund raising. Reuben E. Alley, editor of the Religious Herald and a loyal son of alma mater, led the campaign committee. He tirelessly visited district associations, enlisted others and widely promoted the effort.

Several faculty members were released from other duties to visit the churches and seek the help of Virginia Baptists. At least two pastors, Ryland Reamy and Clayton Pitts, were sent with the blessings of their churches to assist in the campaign.

Woman's Missionary Union of Virginia got into the effort premarily because the Baptist women appreciated their school and admired their leader, Blanche Sydnor White. She had encouraged a better understanding and appreciation of Baptist history and heritage and she impressed upon the women the need for preserving the tangible records of the past.

Blanche Sydnor White had an idea. She wanted the Virginia Baptist Historical Society to come out of the basement where dampness had destroyed some materials. She knew that the collection was "crammed, bundled, crushed into one room." She wanted the collection to be placed in a prominent and visible location.

She envisioned the Society occupying the old library after the new building was erected. she offered to lead the women to raise $100,000 which would go toward the overall Baptist goal of $500,000 for the library, provided the space of the old library was released for the Baptist historical collection.

The administrators thought over the matter and offered another proposal: the Virginia Baptist Historical Society would be given a separate wing of the new library building. Miss White and Virginia WMU agreed that they would raise the money for the new wing.

Someone remembered the old pledge from teh 1870s that a memorial be erected to the Baptists who secured religious liberty. Garnett Ryland had saved the old stained-glass window and it could be placed in the newbuilding. And so from the first, the building was seen as a fulfillment of that old pledge and, even better, a living memorial where people could come and learn about the price paid for religious liberty as well as other heroic stories of the Baptists.

The enthusiasm to memorialize grew upon itself. The school's chief administrator, President George Modlin, and two professors, Rush Loving and Garnett Ryland, descended upon Miss White one day and presented architectural plans which prompted her to declare that even more memorials were in order. Now the windows of the building, the bookshelves, the research tables, the rooms were to memorialize specific Baptists of the past and present.

Offering envelopes were printed carrying the likeness of Robert Baylor Semple, the first historian of Virginia Baptists. Each missionary society was challenged with goals. A brochure pleaded: "Each society will want to have a part in this undertaking which will memorialize for all time the glorious accomplishments of Virginia Baptists." The school's promotional brochure called it "a monument to every Baptist."

Not only would the new library carry the name of President Boatwright. Not only would the new historical wing be a memorial to the religious liberty saga. Now it would be "a fitting monument to every Baptist whose much or mite made possible its construction." Yes, there's yet more to the story, so watch this space next week.

This is the third part of a three-part article written by Fred Anderson, Executive Director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society, in his regular column titled Heritage. This article was reproduced with the permission of the author.