Qualla: Manasseh Cutler Hall

Manasseh Cutler Hall: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gkuriger, CC BY 4.0. Every February 18, the chimes of Cutler Hall play 'Alma Mater Ohio' at the precise minute that corresponds to the university's age. For the 217th Founder's Day in 2021, the bells rang at 2:17 p.m. For the 220th in 2024, they rang at 2:20. The tradition - one chime for each year since Ohio University's chartering on February 18, 1804 - is the kind of small ritual a campus develops only when it has been at the same task for a very long time. Cutler Hall, the building those chimes ring from, has stood on the College Green since 1819. It is the oldest academic building anywhere in what used to be the Northwest Territory - the original old Northwest, the country between the Ohio River and the Great Lakes, the country the Northwest Ordinance was written to govern.

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Image: Gkuriger | CC BY 4.0

Manasseh Cutler Hall: Built by Two Generations of Founders

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Unknown author, Public domain. Manasseh Cutler was a New England minister, physician, and botanist who, in 1787, helped negotiate the Northwest Ordinance and personally drafted the Ohio University charter in 1804. He never lived in Ohio. The building bearing his name was designed by Rufus Putnam - the Revoluti...

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Image: Unknown author | Public domain

Manasseh Cutler Hall: A Bell from London or Boston

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Gkuriger, CC BY 4.0. The building was completed in 1819 at a final cost of $17,806 - a substantial sum for the time, but modest compared to the half-century earlier construction of any comparable East Coast college building. The cupola housed a large cast-iron bell, rung for the first time that year,...

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Image: Gkuriger | CC BY 4.0

Manasseh Cutler Hall: What Survives, What Was Changed

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wolfgang8741, CC BY-SA 4.0. The roof was raised about three feet in 1882, giving the building a slightly different silhouette for sixty-seven years. In 1937 the interior was thoroughly modernized, with metal staircases and an elevator added to allow continued administrative use. In 1949 the roof was restore...

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Image: Wolfgang8741 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Manasseh Cutler Hall: The Westminster Quarters Across the Green

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Peters, William E. (William Edwards), 1857-1952, Public domain. Cutler Hall's chimes ring the Westminster Quarters every fifteen minutes - the same tune that comes from Big Ben in London, the most familiar campanile pattern in the English-speaking world. The chimes are heard across the College Green and the surrounding streets of uptown Athen...

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Image: Peters, William E. (William Edwards), 1857-1952 | Public domain

Manasseh Cutler Hall: Flying Over the College Green

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Wolfgang8741, CC BY-SA 4.0. From the air, Cutler Hall reads as the visual anchor of the College Green: a three-story red-brick building with a white cupola and a flagpole, set among large oaks and elms on the green's western edge. Wilson Hall stands to its left, McGuffey Hall to its right, the three buildin...

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Image: Wolfgang8741 | CC BY-SA 4.0