Tara Wink
When the College of Medicine of Maryland was founded in 1807, its founders, John Beale Davidge, James Cocke, James Shaw, Thomas E. Bond, William Donaldson, and Nathaniel Potter, taught students in their homes and rented spaces throughout the city of Baltimore. As years went by, the need for a permanent home for the school was acutely felt, but there were no acceptable buildings available to the faculty, so they had to finance and build one.
Col. John Eager Howard sold a lot on the rolling hills on the western outskirts of Baltimore to the faculty for $10,000. The faculty hired local carpenter-turned-architect Robert Carey Long Sr. to design the building. Long used the Pantheon in Rome as inspiration and designed the building specifically for the medical needs of the school, including secluded entrances for deliveries of cadavers. Public opinion was against the use of human bodies for anatomical study; early on, Dr. Davidge’s own property was destroyed by angry Baltimoreans because he was teaching dissection. The medical faculty believed dissection was necessary and the building design had to make it possible to bring cadavers into the building and protect all involved in the teaching of dissection.
With plans in place, the cornerstone was laid April 7, 1811. By October 1812, use of some rooms in the building began, but construction continued until October 1813. The final cost was between $35,000 and $40,000. The building, known as the Medical Building or College, was large for its day, measuring 64 feet by 90 feet. When it opened, it had an unimpeded view of the Patapsco River.
The building was impressive but not without its idiosyncrasies; there was no electricity, no central heating or cooling, and no plumbing. It was common for the building to smell from oil burning lamps, smoke from wood-burning stoves, chemicals from chemistry experiments, and embalming or decay from cadavers and dissection. Anatomical Hall, the main lecture space, had acoustic problems requiring professors to stand dead center because any movement caused students to not hear the lecture. Additionally, students in Anatomical Hall could stand on opposite sides at the top of the amphitheater and hold conversations without others hearing.
In 1812, the College of Medicine of Maryland was rechartered as the University of Maryland by the legislature in Annapolis. In 1815, the library opened on the first floor of the Medical Building, housing books purchased from the estate of Dr. John Crawford. On Oct. 9, 1824, the faculty of the school bestowed an honorary degree of LLD on the Marquis de Lafayette.
As the University grew and added new schools, the building remained a functioning space and central piece of the school. By the 1950s, the building was showing its age and the University’s Board of Regents thought the best course of action was to demolish it. The Medical Alumni Association (MAA) rallied to raise enough money to save the building, and, in 1956, MAA became the steward of the building. On April 16, 1958, to honor the work and leadership of Dr. John B. Davidge, the Board of Regents passed a motion to rename the building Davidge Hall.
In 1970, Davidge Hall was designated a historical site by the Maryland Historical Trust and four years later was entered onto the National Register of Historic Places. Yet the hall remained in desperate need of repair.
Finally, by the late 1970s, enough money was raised and restoration began. The restoration, which was completed in 1982, added steel beams to reinforce the large wooden beams holding up Anatomical Hall and installed new electrical, HVAC, and fire prevention systems as well as a new sound and projection system. The major goals of MAA were to establish Davidge Hall as a living artifact and a gathering place for medical alumni, while continuing its use for medical education.
In 1997, Davidge Hall was designated as a National Historic Landmark by the Department of Interior. In 2006, another restoration began to stabilize the exterior of the building.
Today, Davidge Hall is undergoing the third restoration project in its 200-year history. This project began a couple years ago with the relocation of restrooms and an upgrade to the building’s mechanical systems. The roof was replaced in 2024, and in the next two years the focus will move to the interior to restore its museum space and add technology so Davidge Hall can continue to serve its educational purposes.
Davidge Hall is the oldest building in the Western Hemisphere that has been continuously used for medical instruction. As such, it is truly a historical treasure at the University of Maryland, Baltimore.
