Near this spot stood the frame dwelling of David Frederick Bittle, pastor of Mt. Tabor Lutheran Church, where in the fall of 1842, with the assistance of Christopher C. Baughman, also a Lutheran minister, he began a school for young men called Virginia Institute. The following summer, two log buildings were erected a short distance north of this site, and the school was chartered as Virginia Collegiate Institute on January 30, 1845. It remained here until the spring of 1847, when it was relocated to Salem, Va., and it was rechartered on March 14, 1853, as Roanoke College.