The History of Kirkpatrick Chapel
Kirkpatrick Chapel (1873), paid for by Sophia Astley Kirkpatrick, was originally a multipurpose building that housed the chapel, classrooms, offices, and the college library. Architect Henry Janeway Hardenbergh designed the Gothic Revival style structure in the same brownstone as Geology Hall. The tall interior of the chapel filled the nave and side aisles at the front, or southern, end of the building, and the library was housed at the northern end. After the library outgrew this space, the college relocated the books to Voorhees Hall and William Hardenbergh funded renovations to Kirkpatrick Chapel (carried out by the architect Hardenbergh) thus reconfiguring the space so that the chapel occupied the entire interior. Descendants of the Frelinghuysen family funded the installation of the Charter Window in 1941; it depicts the signing of the Queen’s College charter in 1766. Portraits, memorials, and busts of officers and benefactors of the college adorn the chapel walls. Many of the ornamental stained glass windows are gifts of graduating classes from between 1890 and 1901. As an annual tradition, graduating classes continue to carve their year on the exterior brownstone walls. Today the chapel, a popular site for weddings, serves as a non-denominational event space. Kirkpatrick Chapel is a contributing building to the Queen’s Campus Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places.
