University of Delaware - Blue Hen Yearbook (Newark, DE)

Page 31 text:

found them in a trunk. Cathering them up, they took them into another room, where they proceeded to put them into the stove. While in this act the other students rushed in and a very lively scrimmage ensued. Roach had seized the hands of one of the students to prevent him from gathering up the seattered programimes. At this moment Isaac H. Weaver was seen through the smoke advancing toward the two, and Roach received a stab in the neck. Immediately Weaver rushed from the room. Roach, bleeding profusely, came out after him, Hestag- gered to the door opening on the porch and sat down on the step, but he soon grew weaker and weaker and sank back, his body inside and his limbs upon the porch. Dr, Couper, who had been in a meeting of the Board in the building, immediately came to his side, but he could do nothing for him, and in a few minutes Roach expired without regaining sufficient consciousness to make his last words trustworthy testimony at the trial. Weaver and one or two other students were arrested, but all were acquitted. A few weeks after the trial Weaver was mortally wounded by an explosion near Baltimore, and like Roach died from the severing of the carotid artery. It was the popular opinion that the death of Roach cansed the closing of the college, but this was not the case. 'The college was already on the brink of ruin a consequence of lack of funds, which condition had ham- pered the institution throughout its whole history. The college was suspended for a period of about 11 vears, during which time the trustees held several meet- 25 ings to discuss plans for re-organizing the institution, but nothing was done until February 1y, 1867, when the board sent a petition to the Legislature to re-organize the college with an Agricultural Department in order that the state might make use of the benefits of the Land Grant of Con- gress of 1862, The Legislature finally passed an act in compliance with this petition. The trustees now saw that the college would be on a sound basis if it could be made a State College. The board therefore proposed to convey to the state a joint and equal interest in the grounds, building, libraries, apparatus and invested funds on condition that the state should vest that income to be derived from the sale of land in a Board of Trustees, not more than half of whom should be representatives of the state to be appointed by the Ciovernor, and the other half to be representatives of the original corporation. The Legislature accepted the proposition of the trustees and the college was re-incor- porated by the Legislature in 1869 under a new chatter, Acts from time to time since then have been passed in favor of the college. The college opened in 1370 with William H. Parnell as president. Under his administration the college pros- pered. It was during his term as president and mainly through his influence that the admission of women to the college was provided for. In June, 1885, after a period of fifteen years of succesful administration, Dr. Purnell resigned as president of the College. Dr. Purnell was succeeded by John H. Caldwell, D, D., a member of the Wilmington Conference of the