In the course of his first series of visitations throughout his immense Diocese, in March 1866, Bishop Quintard arrived in Winchester, and there met the Rev. Dr. Merrick, the Rev. Thomas A. Morris, rector of the church in Winchester, and Major George R. Fairbanks. Accompanied by these gentlemen he ascended the mountain, visited "University Place," (Sewanee,) and found shelter and a most cordial hospitality in a log cabin occupied by Mr. William Tomlinson. He selected locations for buildings for the Diocesan Training School and a site for a chapel. In the evening he erected a rustic cross about twelve feet in height, upon the latter site, which is the exact spot whereon now stands the oratory of St. Luke's Hall. Gathered around the cross with the Bishop and his companions, were members of Mr. Tomlinson's household, a few mountaineers and some negro workmen. The Nicene Creed was recited and the Bishop knelt down and prayed God to give to those who were then engaging in a great enterprise, "grace both to perceive and know what things they ought to do, and strength faithfully to fulfill the same." The woods rang with the strains of "Gloria in Excelsis." It was a scene worthy of association with those of the sixteenth century, where discoverers and Conquistadores preempted new lands by planting a cross and claiming the territory for their king and for the Church. Thus was the domain at Sewanee reclaimed for the King of Kings and for the cause of Christian education.
The site selected for the University in ante-bellum times was ideal for the purpose to which it was consecrated. Sewanee is on a spur of the Cumberland Mountains,—a plateau some two thousand feet above the level of the sea and about one thousand feet above the surrounding valleys. The scenery is of unparalleled grandeur with many points of picturesque beauty,—primeval forests, cliffs, ravines and caves,—immediately at hand. The climate is of such a character as to exempt the residents from malarial or pulmonary troubles. It is especially adapted to the requirements of a school whose terms were to be held in the summer months and with mid-winter vacations, to suit the convenience of a southern population whose home life was more or less likely to be broken up in the summer.
The conception of a grand landed domain as an important feature in the planning and planting of an institution of learning, was at that time quite unusual in America. Colleges and universities had previously looked to populous centers and environment to build them up and sustain them. The University of the South deliberately chose to go out into the wilderness and create therein its own environment. The site had been carefully studied by Bishop Hopkins, who was an accomplished architect and landscape gardener, and who had it mapped, and had a tentative scheme of buildings designed for it upon the models of the English Universities.
In furtherance of the enterprise, Bishop Quintard accepted the tender of a lease, for educational purposes, of a school property in Winchester, twelve miles from Sewanee, at the foot of the mountains; and there established "Sewanee College," with Major Fairbanks as President of the Board of Trustees, and with Rev. F. L. Knight, D. D., and a competent faculty in charge. Although this Collegiate Institute was formally opened and remained in operation for a time, the Bishop found it too expensive for him to maintain; and so, as the University developed, he gave up the lease of the Winchester property and concentrated his efforts upon the work at Sewanee.
He made immediate efforts to collect funds to advance the work of building up the Diocesan Training School. He recorded with deep gratitude the gift of $1000 and of a handsome communion service from Mrs. Barnum of Baltimore. The following May, out of funds thus early collected, a building was erected and called "Otey Hall." That summer the Bishop and Major Fairbanks erected residences near Otey Hall and removed their families to Sewanee.
The Episcopal residence at Sewanee was at first a log dwelling-house. This was improved and added to until it assumed the character of what the Bishop was wont to call "the cucumber-vine style of architecture," and acquired the name of Fulford Hall, in commemoration of the Canadian Metropolitan who had participated in the Bishop's consecration. Memphis had been made the residence of Bishop Otey in the latter part of his Episcopate, and as the work at Sewanee increased and that place became widely known and its importance recognized, the Memphians regarded it with some jealousy and sought to secure the person of the Bishop by providing a residence for him in that city on the western borders of the Diocese. The Bishop accordingly adopted Memphis as his winter residence. But his work at Sewanee was too dear to his heart to permit his abandoning his home there,—as much as a Bishop could be said to have a home anywhere. And so while Memphis became officially the ecclesiastical capital of his Diocese, he strove earnestly to make Sewanee the scholastic, and, to some extent, the ecclesiastical capital of all the Southern Dioceses, and in great measure he succeeded.
It would be impossible to estimate the value of the Bishop's thus fixing his residence at Sewanee, not only to the work of building up the University, but in its influence upon the cause of Christian education. For The University of the South "has been built up upon men, not upon things." The faith, the enthusiasm and the personal magnetism of Bishop Quintard drew around him at Sewanee a band of high-minded and consecrated clergymen and laymen of fine scholarship and noble aims. Thus was realized the idea of Bishop Polk, who, when on one occasion he was asked in reference to the apparently isolated location of the University, "Where will you get your society?" replied, "We will make it; and not only so, but we will surround our University with such a society as is nowhere else possible in this land."
The tone, the temper, the social and religious atmosphere of Sewanee came from Bishop Quintard more than from anyone else. For the first twenty years of the University's existence at least, it could almost be said that Bishop Quintard was Sewanee and that Sewanee was Bishop Quintard; and throughout that period Fulford Hall was the visible center of Sewanee life. Into it the Bishop gathered the spolia of his travels, rich art treasures, rare and valuable books and autographs, and made it a most interesting place to visit. When the building was destroyed by fire in June, 1889, most of its interior attractions were saved from the flames through the energetic efforts of the students of the University, and the elegant building which replaced it, retains the name of Fulford Hall. Therein the Bishop passed the last years of his life. It is still the residence of the Vice-Chancellor of the University.
Bishop Elliott of Georgia, the senior Bishop of the Southern Dioceses, was likewise deeply interested in the University and was ex-officio Chancellor. At the suggestion of Bishop Quintard, he called a meeting of the Board of Trustees to be held at "University Place" in October, 1866. It was attended by the Bishops of Georgia, Mississippi, Arkansas and Tennessee, respectively, together with several clerical and lay members of the Board who unanimously resolved that the work of establishing the University be prosecuted. Bishop Quintard was appointed a Commissioner to solicit funds for the erection of plain but substantial buildings, in order that the University might begin its work at the earliest possible date. He accordingly made a trip to New Orleans where he held services in all the churches and made an earnest appeal at every service to the church people of that city to carry on the work in which the first Bishop of Louisiana had been so deeply interested.
He was able to report the results of his visit to New Orleans, at a meeting of the Board of Trustees held at a private residence in Montgomery, Alabama, in February, 1867. Bishop Elliott had died in December, 1866, and Bishop Green, of Mississippi, had succeeded him in the Chancellorship of the University. Bishop Quintard's report to the Board was of such a character that the Board proceeded to the reorganization of the University forthwith. The Bishop offered Otey Hall, at Sewanee, which was capable of accommodating a goodly number of students, as part of the property of the University, on condition that the Board adopt the Diocesan Training School (for which the building had been intended,) as the Theological Department of the University, and the offer was accepted. The actual establishment of the Theological Department was delayed, however, for nearly ten years and until more favorable opportunities offered.