University of Vermont - Ariel Yearbook (Burlington, VT)

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SS2ISSSS5 - - -t ' - . ' oarb of trustees: ii Createb TIN his History of ' Vermont, Ira cAllen, writing of the founding of this insti- tution, said: The Legislature endowed the University with a right of land in each township granted by them, the total amount of which is about 50,000 acres. President Wheeler says about J0,000 acres. He also mentioned the fact that the first trustees chosen were gentlemen of different religious sen- timents, to prevent any kind of preference being given to religious or political parties. ' By the terms of the charter the Qovernor of this State and the Speak- er of the tyissembly were ex officio members of the corporation, and Thomas Chittenden and Qideon Olin head the first list of trustees. Other members chosen at this time were ' ■Rev. C leb ' Blood of Shaftsbury (a ' baptist), %ev. ' ethuel Cf ' t ' enden of Shelburne (an Episcopalian) , ' T eu. cAsa ' Burton of Thetford (a C ngregationalist ) , Qeorge ' Bowne of S ew York (a Quaker), Ira cAllen of Colchester, Charles Tlatt, afterward S dge ' Piatt of Tlattsburg, S . Y., Jonathan iArnold of Lyndon, Enoch Woodbridge of ' Vergennes, Sam- uel Hitchcock of ' Burlington and Jonathan Hunt of IJernon. The board of trustees met at Windsor on S ovember 3, 1791, the day following the granting of the charter, and effected a temporary organization by electing Qovernor Cf ' t enden president and Samuel Hitchcock secretary. resient B itt Haib O ut in 1792 t OUT the middle of June, 1792, the trustees spent several days at ' Burling- ton, and under date of June 16, the following entry was made in the records: liesolved and voted. That, whereas the corporation have for several days past been believing in the town of ' Burlington for the most con- venient and eligible place for erecting a college and for laying out a square suit- able for a green and other accommodations for the University of ' Vermont and after having duly considered the several advantages and disadvantages attending the several places proposed, the following tract be established as the Square on which the College and public buildings of the University of IJermont will be erected, at such place or places on said square as shall be hereafter directed, (viz). ' Beginning at a stake and stones standing four chains and ninety-three links south 71° 24 ' east of the southeast corner of the tract of land now owned and pos- sessed by r. ' Phineas Loomis, thence south 86° east 47 chains and seventy links to a stake and stones, thence south 4° west ten chains and 50 links to a stake and stones thence north 86° west 47 chains and 70 links to a stake and stones thence north 4° east ten chains and fifty links to the first men- tioned bounds containing fifty acres and twelve rods of grounds. aZ

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T A ' A A i7 ' ' r A ' i7A i. ' legislative committee reported in 1787 that it was considered inexpedient, owing to the sparseness of population, to fix upon any particular town or county in which to erect a college or university. The first Legislature to assemble after ' Vermont was admitted to the Union as a State, granted a charter to the University of Vermont on November 2, 1791. T his document is said to have been written and its adoption urged, by Samuel Hitchcock, Vermont ' s first oAttorney-Qeneral , who married a daughter of 6than cAllen. By a vote of 89 to 37 for all other locations suggested, ' Tur- lington was chosen as the site of the University. The ballot resulted as follows: ' Turlington, 89 ; ' Jutland, 24; Manchester, 5; Williamstown, 5; ' Berlin, 1; C stleton, 1; ' Danville, 1. (Bm Jictjt to 3ra Uen IIF It were possible now, after the lapse of more than a century and a third, ' ' to choose the founder, few of the alumni and friends would desire to sub- stitute another name for that of Ira oAllen. To him more than to any other individual is due the organization of the State of Vermont, and its successful guidance through manifold perils to membership in the a4merican Union. He was a man of remarkable force and ability, possessed of unusual tact and sagac- ity, a natural leader of men, with a gift for statesmanship. He could see farther into the future than his fellows. That he did not do all that he hoped for the University was due to a series of misfortunes, culminating in his loss of fortune and his practical banishment from the State which he, more truly than any other man, had founded. His last years constitute one of the tragedies of his- tory. His conception of a system of education is shown in a letter to the T)uke of Tortland, in which he says: The greatest legislators from Lycurgus down to ohn Locke have laid down a moral and scientific system of education as the very foundation and cement of a State. cAnd he added: Our maxim is rather to make good men than great scholars. Tresident Wheeler says of Ira cAllen whom he calls the principal founder of the University, and the most far-reaching mind in the early history of Ver- mont: With very slight literary culture and almost no literary acquisitions whatever, he possessed a most comprehensive mind and a highly creative and philosophical spirit. He furnished much of the material for Williams ' History of Vermont, and he held not infrequent conferences with that scholarly man, respecting the University which he proposed to bring into being, years before his plans were matured for the public eye. The idea of a State, in its completeness, was present to his mind, to realize which he earnestly struggled for independent political organization, that its shield might protect and secure the higher inter- ests of humanity, which are found in its literary, philosophical and religious culture. While the public saw little or nothing but a most active and busy man in out-of-door matters, his correspondence reveals, here and there, glimpses of the mind of a statesman that saw clearly and saw warily what were the pur- poses of a commonwealth and what the means of obtaining them. With him the University was no scheme of sectional, sectarian, or village interest, but one which entered necessarily into the idea of the growth and culture of the State of Vermont. cAnd no alumnus can look back upon the fontal existence of his alma mater with any other feelings towards general oAllen than those of respect- ful admiration and reverent gratitude. Ten r-

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4 (jleneral Uen (§ibes Jf iftp I crejS for Campu£{ COMMITTEE was directed as soon as conveniently may be, to cause to be cleared up a part of the College square, not exceeding ten acres, begin- ning on the westerly line and extending easterly the whole width of the lot. It is said that President Sanders helped to fell some of the great pines that stood on this lot. I eferences are made in earlier historical articles to the deeding of this land by Ira cAllen as a site for the University. Thompson, the Vermont Historian, relates that when Ira aAllen was in his early twenties he selected the present location of ' Turlington as a proper site for a city. The same judgment that saw in a forest-clad hillside a beautiful site for a city may well have per- ' ceived the advantages of the hilltop overlooking ' Turlington as a superb location for a University. Although the ' Turlington records do not show the transfer of the fifty-acre college lot, there seems no reason to doubt that it was part of Ira cAllen ' s gift. In his petition to the Legislature in 1789 he had offered as a part of his proposed gift of £4,000 to pay a part of the subscription in a proper square of lands sufficient to form a handsome green and convenient gar- dens for the officers of the college. Trof. Qeorge W. ' Benedict, who entered the service of the University in 1825, wrote in 1841 : Fifty acres were set off for this purpose (a college square) by metes and bounds on lands owned by Qeneral cAllen. cA similar statement was made by ' President Wheeler in his semi- centennial address. In a footnote in the printed records he added: It was part of lot 112 in the town plan. On the west it included the houses now (1854) on the west side of the College Qreen, and part of the gardens, as far as the north boundary, which was the plot on which stood the President ' s house. This line was north of the centre of the present College Qreen. The south boundary was S ' dain Street. The lot extended east, in the form of a parallelo- gram. Jf irsit iBuilbins isi resJitient ' iS l ouat (?i TTENTION was given first to leasing the College lands that revenue might be provided. cAt a meeting of the board held at Windsor, October 17, 1793 (such meetings being held, usually, in connection with the convening of the Legislature) , it was voted that the following summer a house should be built on the College Square for the use of the University, of the following dimensions, (viz). — 48 feet in length, 37 feet in breadth, to contain four rooms on a floor, two stories high and a hiped (hipped) roof with two chimnies the lower story to be 10 feet between joints and the upper story 9 feet between joints and that the same be completed with a good kitchen annexed to it. Joshua Stanton of liurlington, who had been elected a member of the corporation, was appointed an agent to clear the land in the college lot and contract and build the house, governor Chittenden and Messrs. Hitchcock, oAllen, Woodbridge and Stanton were chosen a committee to lay out the grounds. cAn article on the University of ' Vermont, written by T ' rof. S . Q. Clark and published in Hemenway ' s ' Vermont gazetteer, states that the Presi- dent ' s house was begun in 1794 and was nearly finished the following year. It was completed and occupied in the fall of 1799. The ' President ' s barn was built the following summer. Trofessor Clcfk also stated that Qen. Ira cAllen had been actively engaged in completing this structure and in preparing for the construction of a college edifice. His financial reverses interrupted this work. The President ' s house, later known as the Old Yellow House, was burned in Twelve Vr.- ' .- V