Wilmington College - Wilmingtonian Yearbook (Wilmington, OH)

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Wilmington College The Society of Friends is noted for its emphasis on education, as no religious group has more colleges in proportion to the size of its member- ship. A group of far-sighted Friends under the leadership of John Doug-. las and Jonathan Bailey started a movement to raise the necessary funds for the purchase of the Franklin College building and grounds. Jonathan Bailey, grandfather of Laurenna Farbuhar, drove his white horse hitched to a phaeton over Miami, Center, and Fairfield Quarterly meetings to collect money for the purchase. The Board of Directors, with John Henry Douglas as president, appointed a committee consisting of R. E. Doan and Jesse Starbuck to look after immediate repairs. They furnished the building with two hundred and twenty seats, forty settees, four stoves and a college bell at a cost of $260. They had the building ready for the formal dedication on April 11, 1871. This was a great day for the newly organized Wilmington College. Lewis Estes First President, 1871-1874 The first president of Wilmington College was Lewis Estes, graduate of Bowdoin College and a member of the Earlham College faculty. He was a very scholarly man and laid a solid foundation upon which to build for the fu- ture. He had two sons, Ludovic and Row- land, who taught with him in the college. The first street east of the campus is named in honor of his elder son. Two nieces of Mrs. Estes, Emma Clark and Anna Hoag, the former a teacher, were with the Estes most of their time in Wilmington. President Estes and his family lived on an upper floor of the college building until they moved to the newly erected Twin Ash Hall in 1873. The college was heated with stoves in those days. Ellen Wright, a student of this period, told of liv- ing on an upper floor and of carrying coal and water to her room. President Estes was employed for a term of five years to run the school, largely as a private enterprise. He was given the use of College Hall for dwelling and class room purposes. He was permitted to collect the tuitions from students and in turn was held responsible for all expenses of teaching and maintenance. He was an elderly man and found the strain of run- ning a college too great for his strength, so after three years of service he resigned. There was a period of five months at the close of President Estes’ term in which no school was held. There are no catalogs on file in the college offices that tell of the course of study during the first administration, but, from the training Ellen Wright received then as a student, the courses must have been much the same as those in President Trueblood’s administration which followed, such as we find recorded in 1874-75. Twin Ash Hall was built during this period, 1872-73, and was run privately by individuals who Bs | es

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Diboll. Franklin College, while sponsored by the Christian Church, was non-sectarian as is shown in its constitution. Among the large contributors are found the names of prominent Friends. The Garvin brothers were young men of fire and zeal and succeeded in selling the idea of raising $20,000 for erecting a building to house Frank- lin College. The campaign was begun, and at a meeting in the old court house building on January 6, 1866, it was found that.$18,000 had been sub- scribed. The balance was pledged at this meeting and on February 17 fol- lowing, the fair grounds in east Wilmington was chosen as the site suit- able for the building. Seventeen and one-fourth acres were purchased at the price of $225 per acre. The fair was held as usual that year on the grounds. Later sixteen more acres adjoining the fair grounds were purchased from Thomas C. Morris. The building was begun in 1866, and on July 4 of that year an im- pressive ceremony was held at the laying of the corner stone, at which President J. W. Hall, of Miami University, was the principal speaker. Thomas Garvin, a recent graduate of Miami University, was selected as head of the new institution. For a time, the outlook of Franklin Col- lege was bright, but the work on the building moved so slowly that it was not until September 22, 1868, that it was opened for the reception of stu- dents. It has been reported, but not confirmed, that the students of Franklin College helped with the construction. It is confirmed, how- ever, that the bricks were molded and burned in a kiln on the site of the present athletic field where there is a depression in the ground and frag-° ments of brick still remain. There were no stairways to the second and third floors, so only the rooms on the lower floor which were only rough coated with plaster could be used. Franklin College had many modern ideas in instruction, and a touch of 1946 college era is noticeable in the fact that the college had its own GI Bill of Rights for veterans. The local paper carried a notice of the opening: “ . The year will be divided into three terms of twelve weeks each, and the curriculum into primary, preparatory, and collegiate depart- ments. Special attention will be given to those students interested in teaching in district schools. Disabled veterans of the Civil War and ladies of good moral character without sufficient means will be admitted free.” Following the Civil War, there was a period of depression which brought financial difficulties to the managers of the college, in that many of the subscribers who had made pledges to the building fund were not able to make payment. The final blow fell in July of 1869 when the brick masons, Darbyshire and McMillan, who had erected the building, were granted court judgment for their pay. To satisfy this judgment, Franklin College was offered for sale. For a time, there were no buyers as there seemed no demand for a building of this type except for college purposes. On August 11, 1870, Franklin College was put up for auction and sold to the Society of Friends for the sum of $11,334. In reviewing the history of Franklin College, we must give credit to the Garvin brothers and their faithful supporters of the Christian Church, for they are the people who crystallized the ideas of having a college in Wilmington and began work from which their followers greatly benefitted. —13—

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employed a matron to manage it on the club plan for the benefit of col: lege students. Boys who roomed elsewhere were permitted to board at the Twin Ash dining hall at club rates. Benjamin Trueblood Second President, 1874-1879 In 1874, Benjamin Trueblood, a graduate of Earlham College and professor of Latin and Greek at Penn College (1872-74), was chosen to succeed Lewis Estes. He was a very young man, being only twenty-seven years of age, probably the college’s youngest president. While at Earlham, he had met Sarah Terrell, a Clinton County girl, whom he later married and brought as a bride to Wilmington College, where she served both as teacher and matron. To meet the living needs for the young men of the college, South Hall dormitory was erected in 1875-76 for the sum of $5000. Both boarding halls ran on the club plan with a matron in charge. Meals were served for five to eight cents per meal in those days eo rooms cost only one dollar per week or ess. Wilmington College was incorporated in 1875 under the laws of Ohio to operate under a joint board of managers and trustees ap- pointed by the Center, Miami, and Fairfield Quarterly meetings, mem- bers of the Indiana Yearly Meeting. The course of study in President Trueblood’s administration was pat- terned strictly according to the classical ideas of that day. Extensive offerings of foreign language predominated the curriculum. So that the student of this day may know the nature of education which was given in that day, quotations will be made from the 1877-78 catalog: “In the selection and arrangement of the studies of the different courses, no undue preponderance has been given to any department. In the classical course, while those studies are retained which, by the test of time, have proved so productive of mental discipline, the practical studies, which the needs of modern times demand, receive a fair share of attention. The scientific course is designed to meet the wants of those who do not desire to devote their time to the ancient classics, but yet wish to enjoy the advantages of a liberal educa- tion. “Believing that the study of the Greek and Latin languages, as a vehicle of literature, manners and customs of the cultivated nations of the ancient world, is an essential part of a liberal education, we have taken care to select those works which experience has proved most fruitful in securing good mental discipline and which makes the student acquainted with the best expressions of Grecian and Roman eloquence, philosophy and poetry. It is believed that in this way only is the student enabled to proceed to the study of the laws which govern the development of human thought as evinced in language, and to the wonderful results of modern philosophy. Special time is devoted in the last year of the course to the study of language as a science and to the careful application of its analogies and deduction to the English tongue. The student is thus led to an intelligent appreciation of his own language, attainable, we believe, in no other way.”