McMurran Hall

At the corner of German and King streets, McMurran Hall stands with tall columns, a triangular pediment and a clock tower rising above its entrance. Its formal appearance reflects its original purpose as a public building, although its history would carry it from town government into education.

Rezin Davis Shepherd, a local benefactor who made his fortune in New Orleans, had the Greek Revival building erected in 1859 as a town hall. The tower’s clock was older than the building itself. Shepherd had donated it to the town in 1842, and it was moved from the old Episcopal church to the new tower in 1860. After the Civil War, the building served as Jefferson County’s courthouse, with wings added to accommodate its expanded role.

When the county seat returned to Charles Town in 1871, the building offered Shepherdstown an opportunity to establish a different kind of institution. Shepherd College opened there that September with 42 students and Joseph McMurran as its first principal. The following year, it became part of West Virginia’s system of normal schools, which prepared teachers for the state’s classrooms. From these beginnings grew today’s Shepherd University.

The building received McMurran’s name in 1927. Beyond its classrooms, the stone wall bordering the grounds became a gathering place for generations of young people. An 1896 ordinance threatened a one-dollar fine for lingering on or near it, but the wall’s popularity endured. That small detail adds a familiar human chapter to the history of a dignified landmark.

McMurran Hall brings together several stages of Shepherdstown’s development. Built for civic life, adapted for county government and then put to work educating students, it remains a visible link between the town’s nineteenth-century ambitions and its lasting identity as a college community.