Lake Forest College - Forester Yearbook (Lake Forest, IL)

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Y 'IIE FOA'l:'.S' TEH. 9 history of the Universiig. HE plan for an institution of higher education in or near Chicago under the control of the A' New School Presbyterians originated about 1854. The Presbyterians and Congregationalists were then working in union under a plan by which the tivo denominations had a single congregation and pastor in many places, and supported a common educational system. Dr. R. VV. Patterson was then pastor at the Second Presbyterian Church in Chicago, and Dr. Harvey Curtis was in the First Church. Determining to have a Col- lege of their own, these men applied to the business men of Chicago, and in 1856 a land company was formed to buy grounds for the site and for an endowment. The land company bought 1,300 acres, now covered by Lake Forest, and set off, forever, the present College, Seminary and Institute parks. The remaining acres were divided half and half, between the 'University and the land company. The town was platted and laid out by a landscape gardener that summer, and in October the Synod of the New School Presbyterian Church came out to Lake Forest, and sitting Hunder the shade of a wide- spreading oak, adopted the infant yet unborn. In '57 the Old Hotel was built. In February, i57, the Legislature chartered the Institution as Lind University, for Mr. Sylvester Lind had promised a land endowment to the value of SIO0,000, in Chicago lots. The panic of 1857 for a time blocked all progress. Mr. Lind could not make good his endowment, and the friends who had expected to raise a money endowment of SIO0,000 were penniless. But in 1858 Dr. Quinlan started a subscription paper and raised 54,000 With this, in the winter of '58 and '59, an Academy building was erected where the Art Institute build- ing now stands, and the school opened January gd, with one teacher, Samuel F. Miller, and three students. The Academy began its third year in the fall of 1860, with forty-nine students, and three teachers, Rev. W. C. Dickinson having come the previous year to teach the classics, and lVIr. C. E. Dickinson in December, 1860, to teach the sciences. A Medical Department was organized in 1859 and began work in Sep- tember in the Lind Block in Chicago fstill standing by Randolph Street

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, 1 f 1' f T ' F 'Em E5'5 !!r Q I REM l !i f 7 3 COLLEGE HALL

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,O THE FURESTER. Bridgej, with thirty-three students and a Faculty of fourteen. From 1859 to 1864 this College had three hundred and hfteen students and seventy-six graduates. In 1864 the Medical College seceded, because not satisned with the hnancial support given by the Lake Forest Trustees, and is to-day the Chicago Medical College and a branch of the University at Evanston. By an act of the Legislature, approved February 16, 1865, certain alter- ations were made in the original charter. The name was changed to Lake Forest University, the number of Trustees was fixed above fifteen and be- low twenty-six, all restriction as to occupation of members of the Board was removed, and it was provided that theological, medical or law schools might be located at or near Chicago, by a two-thirds vote. In the winter of 1868f69 the Trustees erected, at a cost of fB45,000, a handsome building of Milwaukee brick, of four stories and basement, which was thoroughly equipped for school purposes. In September of 1869, this Ferry Hall Seminary opened, under a lease to Principal Edward P. Weston, with eleven teachers and sixty-six students. In 1872 Mr. Vlfeston purchased of Dr. Dickinson, the present Mitchell Hall, and opened a preparatory school for girls as an adjunct to Ferry Fall. In November of 1870, the Lake Forest Hotel and Manufacturing Com- pany bought, for SSo,ooo, nearly all the remaining endowment lands that were alienable, and built on the lake shore, just south of Ferry Hall, a grand hotel six stories high. After conducting this hotel at a continual loss for Five years, with 540,000 of purchase money still unpaid, the company agreed to turn over the whole property to tl1e College for their indebtedness. This gave to the University a building oi sixty rooms for students and many spa- cious halls for recitation purposes. The long deferred College was at length organized, and the Rev. Robert VV. Patterson, D. D., was elected President, August 10, 1875. The collegiate department was opened September 7, 1876, with a Fresh- man class of twelve, eight young men and four young women, and in Septem- ber of the following year a second Freshman class of twelve was entered. In the night of December 19, 1877, the College building was destroyed by hre, and the hopeful prospects of the young Institution seemed thoroughly blighted. But although President Patterson was called elsewhere, the pluck shown by the little band of students in standing by the homeless College aroused the energy of friends, and under the wise direction of Prof. John H. Hewitt as acting President, the endowment was brought up to 5100, 000. In June, 1878,