Old Chapel was originally constructed in Richardson Romanesque-style between 1884 and 1887 at a cost of $25,000 (equivalent to $847,778 in today's dollars),[1] to serve as a library, museum, and assembly hall.

[2] The building was designed by Worcester architect Stephen C. Earle, and is a roughly square stone structure with a tower at its southeast corner.

The tower features an open belfry with rounded arches, above which are gabled peaks with clock faces, and a diagonally set four-sided steeple at the top.

[3] According to the school, John F. Kennedy supposedly spoke at the Chapel during his 1952 U.S. Senate campaign,[4] although this has never been confirmed.

Although the tower underwent a $1.65 million renovation in 1999, Old Chapel has been uninhabited since 1996, when the University of Massachusetts Minuteman Marching Band moved out due to unsafe conditions within the structure.