Vermillion Institute

The Vermillion Institute in Hayesville, Ohio was a co-educational school that during the mid- to late 19th century was a preeminent center of higher education that trained people who became prominent in various professions.

Future U. S. President Rutherford B. Hayes was said to have attended the dedication, music for which was provided by the Jeromesville, Ohio band.

Longtime leader at the Vermillion Institute was Professor Saunders Diefendorf, a Yale-educated Presbyterian minister, who was the principal in 1851.

After its rejection as the site of a new Church of God college, located later at Findlay, Ohio, the institute property was sold back to Hayesville and operated as a private academy.

A tall stone fountain with memorial plaques once stood in front of the building, until its removal in the 1950s to nearby Kendig Park.

The thick brick walls with flat-arched lintels over its numerous windows enabled the building to stand through years of neglect.