Castleton Medical Chapel

     Castleton Medical College Chapel was built in 1821 and still stands today on the campus of Castleton State College. Castleton Medical College, established in 1818, was one of the first nine medical colleges in the United States. In that year, Drs. Selah Gridley and Theodore Woodward, in addition to seeing to a busy practice in Castleton, established the "Castleton Medical Academy" along with Thomas Cazier, when they found that they had more apprentice applicants than they could teach. None of the three men who established the college held medical degrees. By the time the Castleton Medical College closed in 1862, about 1,400 men had earned medical degrees there, more than any of the other seven medical schools in New England.

     Drs. Gridley and Woodward bought the original Medical College building in 1818 when they opened the Academy. By 1821 there were enough students enrolled to warrant the building of a new structure. The first floor of the new building, the current Castleton Medical Chapel, originally housed a lecture room, laboratory, study, and library. The second floor held a dissecting room and an "anatomical theater" with a skylight and reached by way of a winding staircase.

     The building that is now called the Old Chapel has been moved around town several times, most recently onto the college campus. In 1968 it was completely renovated and is used by the college for a variety of educational and community purposes.