Thompson Memorial Chapel was built through the generosity of Mrs. Frederick F. Thompson of New York. Once completed, the chapel replaced the College's former Stone Chapel (now Goodrich Hall). Mrs. Thompson's gift was announced May 8, 1902 and the groundbreaking ceremony for the building occurring June 23, 1903. It was at this ceremony where President Henry Hopkins spoke the following words which to this day remain inscribed in the vestibule of the Chapel:
"Brethren, alumni, fellow students, fellow citizens, we are here gathered to lay the corner stone of an edifice that is to be sacred to the worship of Almighty God, to the teaching of Christian truth, and to the joyful meeting of man with man as sons of the common Father of us all. It is to be reared and is to stand as a majestic and enduring symbol of the democratic, catholic faith of Williams College.
In accepting this gift, we declare anew our belief that an education in which the religious nature is ignored cannot produce the noblest type of man. We thus reassert that the citizen whom the republic needs, and the leader whom the republic must have, is the man who fears and loves God and keeps his commandments.
We here record, in imperishable stone, our unalterable conviction that the highest education must always be carried on in the light and warmth of those great truths which make our holy religion immortal."
--President Henry Hopkins, June 23, 1903
At the groundbreaking of Thompson Memorial Chapel