Mrs. Durant gave to Mt. Holyoke ten thousand dollars, which enabled
the seminary to build its first library building. We are told that
Mr. and Mrs. Durant used to say that there could not be too many
Mt. Holyokes. And in 1870, on March 17, the charter of Wellesley
Female Seminary was signed by Governor William Claflin.

On April 16, 1870, the first meeting of the Board of Trustees was
held, at Mr. Durant's Marlborough Street house in Boston, and the
Reverend Edward N. Kirk, pastor of the Mt. Vernon Church in Boston,
was elected president of the board. Mr. Durant arranged that both
men and women should constitute the Board of Trustees, but that
women should constitute the faculty; and by his choice the first
and second presidents of the college were women. The continuance
of this tradition by the trustees has in every respect justified
the ideal and the vision of the founder. The trustees were to be
members of Evangelical churches, but no denomination was to have
a majority upon the board. On March 7, 1873, the name of the
institution was changed by legislative act to Wellesley College.
Possibly visits to Vassar had had something to do with the change,
for Mr. and Mrs. Durant studied Vassar when they were making
their own plans.

And meanwhile, since the summer of 1871, the great house on the
hill above Lake Waban had been rising, story on story.

Miss Martha Hale Shackford, Wellesley, 1896, in her valuable
little pamphlet, "College Hall", written immediately after the fire,
to preserve for future generations of Wellesley women the traditions
of the vanished building, tells us with what intentness Mr. Durant
studied other colleges, and how, working with the architect,