(click to enlarge photos)
Published in The Seattle Times online on May 29, 2025
and in PacificNW Magazine of the printed Times on June 1, 2025
Enduring from 1861, columns bring ‘LIFE’ to UW’s Sylvan Theater
By Jean Sherrard
This idyllic grove with four tall columns contains elements that might seem contradictory: youthful expectation and ambition framed by academic tradition and a whiff of mortality — in short, the stuff that educators’ dreams are made on.
The quartet is among Seattle’s oldest extant architectural artifacts. Originally old-growth cedar trees, toppled near Hood Canal and floated to Henry Yesler’s waterfront sawmill, the 24-foot-tall columns
adorned the portico of the 1861 Territorial University building downtown.
Carved by early postmaster O.J. Carr and cabinet makers A.P. De Lin and O.C. Shorey, the sturdy, fluted columns, topped with scroll-shaped “volutes” in accordance with Ionic style, offered potent symbols of classical education. (Shorey and De Lin later applied their carpentry skills to casket-making in pioneer Seattle, founding the funeral home that became Bonney-Watson.)
Some called it hubris when a town with fewer than 200 mostly male inhabitants built a two-story white academy on an overlooking bluff. But it also indicated exuberant faith in the region’s future. For Arthur Denny, donor of much of the academic institution’s land, and Daniel Bagley, an influential Methodist preacher, a university was the tail that was to wag the dog of civic life.
As Seattle boomed and 1889 statehood loomed, the homegrown University of Washington abandoned the then-crowded business district for largely undeveloped holdings then-north of the city in 1895. The original building, though a sentimental favorite, was left to molder before being torn down in 1910.
Its four columns were salvaged and added to the expanding campus in 1911.
Edmond S. Meany, head of the History Department, supplied each column with a name: Loyalty, Industry, Faith and Efficiency, adding up to “LIFE.”
After a decade of being stranded outside Savery Hall on the Quad, the university held a contest to determine their final placement.
The winner: 19-year-old Marshall Gill, architecture student and son of the late Mayor Hiram Gill, who had died a year earlier during the influenza pandemic. His design for an outdoor “Sylvan theatre setting” southeast of Drumheller Fountain was acclaimed as “an appropriate and fitting tribute to the … impressive solemnity” of the columns.
Young Gill, however, witnessed only the first fruits of his labor. Within weeks of the grove’s creation, he died of a brain embolism following a tonsillectomy at age 20.
Two years later, School of Architecture alumni installed a stone bench and commemorative plaque at one end of the grassy stage.
In this tranquil spot, treasured by generations of UW students, Marshall Gill created a lasting monument — his only surviving design — to youth, artistry and history.
WEB EXTRAS
For our narrated 360-degree video, captured on location, click right here.
Also, in a separate video, our MFA actors introduce themselves, reflecting on their hopes, dreams, and aspirations. Click on the photo below to see it.
In late-breaking news, here’s a pertinent photo and email just sent in by reader Roseanne Kimlinger:
I had kind of a “Wow!” moment of recognition reading Now and Then in today’s Pacific NW magazine. The Gill memorial bench in your photo looks an awful lot like the one these three UW students are sitting on in the photo I’ve attached! They are my aunt and two of her friends, the year was 1928.
I may have to head over to campus to check it out. Amazing that bench is still there.
Thank you for an unexpected Sunday morning delight!
Thank you, Roseanne!