"Otey Hall stood in front of where Walsh Hall stands today. This was the first University building, built originally for a Diocesan Theological Training School. It was given to the University in April, 1867, as Bishop Green sent a letter to notify the other dioceses that the Bishop of Tennessee had transferred it to the University Trustees.
It was a simple frame building of one and one-half stories, containing seven rooms and a kitchen.
Various families seem to have occupied Otey while their houses were being constructed. It was occupied by Major Fairbanks and his family in June and July of 1866; Bishop Green and his family the winter of 1867; Colonel T. Frank Sevier in 1869, and the John McCradys were living here when it burned down in 1881.
Mrs. S. E. Cotten came to Otey as Matron in the spring of 1867. Thus, it had served as an academic building, dormitory, and finally as a residence."
Gailor, C. (1970). Old Sewanee Houses; The First Fifty-Years, 1860-1910. Unpublished manuscript, Sewanee: The University of the South, Sewanee.