Ladycliff College

The place came first. On January 1, 1900, the Franciscan Sisters of Peekskill bought Cranston's Hotel, a summer retreat on the cliffs along the west bank of the Hudson River, on land next to the United States Military Academy at West Point. They named the parcel Lady Cliff and moved their school there from Peekskill, renaming it Ladycliff Academy. A chapel went up in 1904, Lady Hall in 1913, and Rosary Hall in 1933. The site sits in Highland Falls, New York, about 50 miles north of New York City and a few hundred yards south of the Academy's Thayer Gate. For eight decades the Sisters ran schools on that hill, first for girls in the grammar and high school grades, and later for women in college.

Ladycliff College opened in 1933 under a charter from the Board of Regents, graduating about 16 women a year in its first decade. A permanent charter in 1940 let it grant both Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, and accreditation by the Middle States Association followed in 1960. Mary Hall was built in 1951, Spellman Hall in 1967, the Library in 1969. Men were admitted as matriculated students at the end of the 1960s. The classes of 1977 and 1979, with 131 graduates each, were the largest in the college's history. Then, in 1980, a commitment to affordability that could not be sustained financially closed the college. The class of 1980 was the last to graduate on campus, and 44 members of the class of 1981 received Ladycliff diplomas under a charter kept for one more year.

The campus passed to West Point. Rosary Hall became Olmsted Hall, home of the West Point Museum, and Mary Hall became the Five Star Inn, a military guesthouse. The alumnae kept going. Annual reunions resumed a few years after the closing, started by graduates living at West Point and in Highland Falls, and the Ladycliff College Alumnae Association, led by a Board of Directors drawn from several classes, took on three jobs: keep a current list of graduates, run an annual luncheon, and stay in touch with the Franciscan Sisters. In October 2004 Linda Buzzeo Best, class of 1972, who was writing a book about the college, opened an online journal for alumnae stories and news, part of a website that also carried a guestbook. It stayed online until about 2022.

This site is a reading copy of that website, rebuilt from Wayback Machine captures. Start with the history, Linda Best's account of the college from the hotel purchase in 1900 through the last diplomas in 1981, with a list of its four presidents. Our Journal holds the longer pieces alumnae sent in: a cat named Cliffe, a tandem bike and a skirt, a teacher who said no speech at commencement. The Guestbook is the long, unsorted conversation that gathered over the years, with writers from many classes. News and Events keeps the luncheon notices, class reunion plans, the Ladycliff Park plaque and gazebo, and the obituaries. Each page here opens with a short reader's note on who wrote it and what it covers.