From the Archives – Summer 2025

Excerpts from And You Shall Remember: A Pictorial History of Houghton College, written and edited by Frieda A. Gillette and Katherine W. Lindley

The Houghton University we know and love is a four-year, residential liberal arts college offering undergraduate and graduate degrees. The idea of a high school student taking Houghton courses might be a foreign one to some of us. At Houghton’s founding, however, in 1883, there were no collegiate courses at all. Houghton Seminary’s purpose was not college degrees, but rather accessible, affordable, Christ-centered education. Students as young as 11 enrolled at Houghton, and the first accredited college diplomas weren’t awarded until 1925. The high school division remained, however, and eventually became Houghton Academy. 

When [Old Sem] was dedicated in August 1884, no one knew how many students would enroll in September, who would teach them, or how much of the building would be completed. Although the building was only partially finished on September 15, 1884, school opened with “70-80 scholars” under Principal-Preacher William Henry Kennedy and his assistant, Luther Grange. Miss Alice Boardman taught the high school courses and Miss Eva Davis taught the English Course for students not prepared for high school. “Sister Mary DePew to take oversight of the lady students and to give them weekly lectures,” wrote Willard Houghton in his ledger. James S. Luckey, who enrolled in the second of the three terms of that first year, later wrote, “Equipment, to say the least, was scarce. I think one globe was to be found and perhaps one or two maps, but nothing else in the line of apparatus. I was told there were no blackboards, but they had come at the beginning of the second term” (The Houghton Star, April 1911).

Although the curriculum included only the upper elementary grades and the first year of secondary school in that first year, one year of high school was added annually until a four-year diploma was issued. Melvin E. Warburton received the first diploma in 1887 and James S. Luckey the second in 1889.

As faculty became available, new programs could be added. When Gussie C. Dodd, an accomplished artist and wife of the new principal, A.R. Dodd, moved to Houghton, the Seminary added “a complete course in drawing, crayoning and oil painting.” Luther Grange started a commercial and business course in 1885 for “young men and ladies too, if they desire;” in 1890 Miss Effie Crow initiated a music department; in 1893 a two-year elementary teacher course was introduced. In 1895 the church approved an Advanced Department, i.e. “college equivalent work,” and in 1901 John Willett of Levant, New York, completed that course, the first graduate of the Advanced Department.