For the Preservation and Adaptation of Mount de Chantal

In 1848, Wheeling Female Academy was founded in downtown Wheeling with a mission to educate young women in the area. Seventeen years later, the academy moved to a hilltop location overlooking Wheeling Creek and adopted a more familiar name: Mount de Chantal Visitation Academy, affectionately called "the Mount" by her students and others in the area. On this hilltop, the Mount has overlooked the city of Wheeling for 145 years; she watched the city through its days as the capital and oversaw the construction of I-70. The Mount's building is not just a part of Wheeling: the bricks were handmade on site, and the tin walls and ceilings are as much a testament to Wheeling's historic industry as the Hobbs, Brockunier & Co. chandelier is to Wheeling's historic culture. The building houses two grand pianos sequentially manufactured by Steinway and Sons, an interior stained glass dome that is a testament to nineteenth century engineering, as well as other stained glass windows of note.

Any consideration of razing this building would do violence to the history of Wheeling, to West Virginia, and to women's history. Please help to preserve this historic jewel of the city, of the Upper Ohio Valley, and of the state of West Virginia.