Union, the Society voted to send its surplus treasury (about $200) to the Governor of the Commonwealth for the defense of the state. All student activities, including the Washington Society, were suspended from 1861 through 1865 for the duration of the Civil War, but the Washington Society was the first to reactivate, holding its first postbellum meeting on October 14, 1865. The Society cooperated with the Jefferson Society in raising money for the erection of a memorial to the University's Confederate casualties in the University Cemetery. In 1913, the Washington Society joined forces again with the Jefferson Society to sponsor a "speaking league" for public and private high school students throughout the state. However, the activity of the society subsequently fell off until it completely died out during the 1920s. Briefly reforming in 1939 as a society with the aim of "encouraging intellectual curiosity, gentlemanliness, congeniality and the idealization of the Virginia gentleman," it soon became extinct again until its modern refounding in 1979. In 1979, Three members of the Jefferson Society, J. Mitchell Aberman, Stephen L. Huntoon, and Josiah (Josh) Hensen, reestablished the Washington Society with the help of Richard Nichols Randolph, who was initiated into The Washington Society over the phone by R.E. Heischmen. Randolph then alters the constitution to allow members from the Jefferson Society to join; Randolph inducts the other three, who become the Second Refounders. A year later, in 1980, Leslie Eliason, the first female president and fifth member, established or reestablished most of the traditions that continue today, including Thursday meetings in Jeff Hall, and debates with the Jefferson Society. Washington Hall The Washington Society was without permanent meeting facilities from 1842 to 1849, when they were granted a room in Hotel B, where they remained through much of the 19th century. In 1852, the Society asked for permission to enlarge its room in Hotel B; University historian Philip Alexander Bruce notes that this was the origin of the use of the name Washington Hall to describe these chambers. In 1869, the reorganized society expanded the hall to its current dimensions. In the year 1896, following the burning of the Rotunda and the destruction of the Annex, law classes were held in Washington Hall. The University took possession of the Hall sometime after 1929 when there was no Society to maintain the building. Washington Hall now houses the University of Virginia's Office for Equal