Wesleyan University - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Middletown, CT)

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W'KWLJl 'l M New Haven District, combining with his piety an eagerness for a business deal worthy of the ancient Hebrew whose name he bore. He was one of that eager group of Methodist ministers who were dreaming of a new Methodist college to be located somewhere in the northeastern states. They had strangled the superstition long rife, that the burning of Cokesbury College in 1795 was an act of divine wrath to teach Methodists not to blend educational with evan- gelistic enterprises. Now they were looking for a place wherein to establish the proposed college, which Willbur Fisk, president of the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Stephen Olin, president of Randolph-Macon College, and Nathan Bangs, Methodist factotum in New York, had been strongly advocat- ing in the General Conference and elsewhere. College grounds and buildings they wanted. Middletown possessed both, but wanted a college. Laban Clark was the astute broker who brought them together and consummated the deal. His commission he took in the opportunity for thirty-seven years of fine service which he rendered the college as president of the Board of Trustees. At First it was suggested that the Academy trustees might sell for $5,000 all of the property of the Academy. The proposition crystallized the sentiment for a new college. In May, 1829, the New York Methodist Conference, and a few days later the New England Conference, created a joint committee to meet the Academy trustees. It was a strange coincidence that brought Stephen Olin, jogging into Middletown, in the midst of a 600amile carriage trip with his Uncle Walker, on the very night in the summer of 1829 when this joint com- mittee met there to discuss Middletownls hnancial proposals. Mr. Walker, member of the legislature, introduced him to Willbur Fisk,-the first meeting of Wesleyanls First two presidents. Later, Olin was offered a chair on the First Wesleyan faculty, but. he refused. After this committee had set up competi- tive bidding from other places toffers came from Troy, New York, VVilbra- ham, Massachusetts, :1 n d Bridgeportl, Middletown 0 f - fered the buildings, equipment and grounds of Fifteen acres tin all worth $30,000L providing the proposed col- XVesleyun in 1x37 Xinctn'n

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FROM ORIGINAL PLAN. THE AMERICAN LITERARY. SCIENTIFIC AND MILITARY ACADEMY The building on the left of Snuth College was nexer construrtcd. The one in the left of the picture was used as u Commons until it nuns turn down in 1x47. Note the guard houses at the from gate. Sound; and the iiChief Justice Marshall, that began plying the Connecticut River in 1832, was lost in a storm the following spring. Though seemingly sequestered far from the metropolis, Middletown had a touch of the cosmopolitan spirit. Did not the ships from her wharves sail the Seven Seas tsome of them built across the river in Chathami P Did not her captains bring home the produce and the ideas of other lands? Did not her aristocracy prize for their town the advantages of a higher education? Hart- ford boasted of her Washington College Outer Trinitw and New Haven proudly cherished Yale. Since 1825 Middletown had fed her pride by fostering Captain Alden Partridgeis American Literary, Scientihc and Military Aca- demy. But the Hery Captain, :1 West Point six-footer CiOld Pewt was his nicknameh, who had sometimes marched most of his 500 cadets and their officers to the White Mountains or Northern New York and back again, had early in 1829 led them all to Norwich, Vermont, never to return; and the stately brownstone buildings, that later became Wesleyan Universityis North and South College, were left vacant, except for a little school conducted by Professor E. F. Johnson and Col. Ransom. O for :1 college to hll the aching void! Along came Laban Clark, D.D., the Methodist Presiding Elder of the Eighla'n

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OLLA PODRIDA T; IIFW MTV Will Wow me m-MJ-nmmwmm lege would raise $40,000 $10,000 of which the town of Middletown subscribed as a grants. It was good management, rather than coincidence, that brought the New York Conference to Middletown for its annual session in the brand-new church, in May, 1830; for they fell in love with the quaint, old town, voted to establish uThe Wesleyan University there on the proposed terms, and elected permanent trustees. These trustees met, August 24-26, elected Willbur Fisk president tsalary $51000 per annumL and authorized the Prudential Committee to set up a preparatory school, which was conducted by one Larrahee for the months preceding the opening of the college. On May 21, 1831, the General Assembly of Connecticut granted the Charter, which the Wesleyan trustees adopted on September 20 of that year. Meanwhile President Fisk was busied with raising funds for the college, helping to prepare students for college entrance in the temporary school in the old Academy build- ings, the preparation of those buildings for college students, and the final selection of a faculty. The Wesleyan University opened on Sep- tember 21, 1831, with forty-eight students tone coming from Columbia. four from Hamilton Colleges, and a faculty consisting of President Fisk who taught Moral Science and Belle-Lettres, Augustus William Smith, professor of Mathematics, Iohn Mott Smith, professor of Ancient Languages; and W. Magoun, tutor. The exercises of that opening day were advertised as the First Annual Commence- Mlmumm m .uruw M- WWW 1N; ment,u and they were held in the new Methodist Church. Osman C. Baker, First student to Inatriculate, delivered a Latin oration and salutatory. S. S. Stocking twho later was graduated, 23$ read a poem; and O. L. Shafter twho didnit graduatQ gave an oration 0n the somewhat expansive theme of Universal Benevolence. Maybe he did not feel so benevolent. when he was dropped from college. Then President Fisk delivered his memorable Inaugural Address, proving his mastery of educational problems and his sympathy with the elective system, the new scientific education and the much-debated classiW fication of students according to prohciency, rather than time spent in college. In some respects, Fisk was in advance of his times, a true progressive; and yet his theories were in practice tempered by his prudence It was not long 'Iilawly