Benjamin Stoddert Ewell - Post-war: Restoration of The College of William and Mary

Post-war: Restoration of The College of William and Mary

After the War, the College and its building lay in ruins, and the Virginia economy was destitute. Ewell had opposed Virginia's secession from the Union in 1861. He went to Washington, DC, and unsuccessfully sought reparations from the U.S. Congress, speaking there several times in an attempt to gain appropriations for the College for the damages done during the War. Some payment was finally made by the U.S. Government, but not until 1893.

In 1869, Ewell finally re-opened with school with his own personal funds and became president of the College of William and Mary again. He mortgaged his family farm, purchased nearby in 1858, and it was lost to a foreclosure and auction sale. Despite Ewell's efforts, the College was forced to close again for financial reasons in 1881 did not reopen until 1888.

It has become legendary at the College and in the Williamsburg community that, every single morning of that long seven-year period, Benjamin Stoddert Ewell would arise and ring the bell calling students to class, so it could never be said that William and Mary had abandoned its mission to educate the young men of Virginia.

In 1888, William & Mary resumed operations under a substitute charter when the Virginia General Assembly passed a bill appropriating $10,000 to support the College as a state teacher-training institution. Once he had ensured that the College he had cherished and protected would survive, the 71-year-old Ewell relinquished the presidency and went into retirement. Lyon Gardiner Tyler (son of US President and alumnus John Tyler) became the 17th president of the College following President Ewell's retirement.

Benjamin Ewell remained in Williamsburg as President Emeritus of the College until his death on June 19, 1894. He was interred in the College of William and Mary Cemetery in Williamsburg. Both his personal papers and papers relating to his service as president of the College of William and Mary can be found at the Special Collections Research Center at the College of William and Mary.