History of Gano Chapel

In the mid 1920s, William Jewell College announced that a chapel was needed on campus. Mrs. Elizabeth Price Johnson, a Kansas City resident, heard about the construction plans and offered the college funds if they would meet three requests. She asked that the new chapel be named after her great grandfather, Rev. John Gano, and that a painting of him baptizing George Washington be permanently placed in the chapel. The third request was that William Jewell would maintain a family cemetery located between Liberty and Excelsior Springs.

Construction on the classical building was completed in 1926. Built on a solid foundation of blue limestone, there is a basement and two floors. In 1999, an assembly room and the Walter Pope & Blanche Binns steeple were added on the east side. The original stained class windows in the Thomas and Virginia Fields Convocation Center were designed by long time professor J.E. Davis. Bearing the college seal and motto, Deo Fisus Labora, they depict the life of Christ.

The namesake of the chapel, Rev. John Gano, was born in New Jersey in 1727. He served as a Baptist minister in New Jersey and New York and worked his way down the east coast as an evangelist. He was George Washington’s chaplain during the Revolutionary War when he earned the title "the Fighting Chaplain". It was during this time with Washington that some believe John Gano baptized George Washington by immersion. There are an equal number of historians who do not believe it happened, but this issue sparked a national debate in the 1930s after an article appeared in TIME Magazine discussing this question.

The painting depicting the baptism still brings visitors to the campus from around the country.

In 1996, another descendent of Gano donated a sword to the college that had been passed down through the family. The sword had been given to George Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette. Washington in return gave it to Gano. Both the painting and the sword are on display in the chapel.