William Rees was born in Castletown, Marshfield Parish, England, to Welsh parents and in his youth spent several years as an apprentice stonemason in Liverpool, England. He came to America in 1870 and to Tehuacana in 1872. A year later he received the contract to construct the wings of this stone building. At a time when Trinity University, under the auspices of the Presbyterian Church, was short of funds, Rees's love for higher education and for Trinity led him, as a skilled craftsman, to do much of the stonecutting himself, work usually left to laborers. Deeply interested in education, he served on the local board of education and later became its president. He remained a staunch supporter of Trinity University and later of Westminster College. On Jan. 3, 1875, Dr. Beeson, the first president of Trinity, performed the ceremony when Rees married Georgia Ann Sanders. They had six children. Rees was remembered as honest and humble, with a keen appreciation for the finer things of life, and he is buried in the Tehuacana Cemetery.