Michigan State University - Red Cedar Log Yearbook (East Lansing, MI)

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This two-story brick horse barn, shown after its conversion to a carpentry shop, was one of the three original 118571 buildings at Michigan State. AMONG its first students were the three Gun- nison boys who lived near DeWitt, eight miles from the college. Early the morning of May 31, 1857, they hitched a team of oxen to their farm Wagon and set out over the dirt and plank roads to attend the dedication and opening of the College. On level stretches, the boys-James, Alfred and Warren-rode, goading the ani- mals with a sharpened stick. Up steep hills they walked. On both sides of the road they saw land cleared by axe and fire. New vlalyf Simple livin and bi b tlzinking Historic College Hall, from an 1857 photograph. Its roof leaked. S Z V we 3 , ima 10

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1855.' Mzkbzlgan uila' az college with IN 1855, the State of Michigan bought a farm and started a College on its back forty. The College flourished, and as more and more students arrived, the fences were torn down and the farm grew into a great university for the advanced study of Agriculture, Science and Art. When the first students-there were 61 of them-arrived for the oflicial dedication in the spring of 1857, the college was only a crude clearing in the wilderness of nature and the minds of men. Today, one hundred years after being established by the Michigan Legis- lature on February 12, 1855, Michigan State College is a multi-million dollar institution on a 5,000-acre campus, attended by more than 15,000 students. Michigan State College is a product of the mid-19th century, the time of the American romantic, of exploration, expansion and the development of a new sensitive United States. Its founders saw the College as further intel- lectual glory for the state, others saw it merely as competition for the University of Michigan, still others-the majority-saw it as an oppor- tunity for Michiganis youth to enjoy the dream of the 1800's, 'fsimple living and high think- ing. The idea of the College's founders appealed to the young people of Michigan and to their fathers, pioneers of the wilderness that was Michigan. 'in joseph Rickelson Williams, son of a New Bedford shipmaster, Harvard graduate and joumalist-he helped found and edited the Toledo fOhioJ Blade-was a vigorous pro- ponent of the idea that farmers should educate themselves and their children. He was presi- dent of Michigan State in its first two years, but resigned in 1859. He was president pro tem of the Michigan senate when he died in 1861 at the age of 53. 9

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Tx' 'flT.'Z V w 1 ff 14,1 , Maw-mvvf 'D 3 1' ' . , , ., , l f nb ' 'ff' ' Q5-fl L' .1 Q? 2 ' it mfg if K If Workers rushed to complete the boarding hall, Saint's Rest, for the college opening in the spring of 1857. Stumps were left for the students. They turned off the road near the present site of the Home Economics building, and crossed a broken tract, with hardly an acre cleared. They faced a desolate prospect. Three buildings, College Hall, Saintis Rest and a red brick barn, known as The College, the boarding house and the barn, had been set up in a clearing. They were not finished. Around them were building rubbish, mudholes and blueberry bushes. Trees had been felled and underbrush cut away. The slashing had been piled and burned, but charred trunks and stumps lay about in black disarray. But the Gunnisons, like others, saw prom- ise in this beginning. They met all the require- ments Cat least 14 years of age, with good primary educationj , and were enrolled in the first class by the president, Joseph R. Williams. v I 2 Lewis Ransom Fisk, A.B., A.M., LL.D., D.D., was teaching chemistry when the faculty chose him to represent them as acting president after Williams' resignation.