Vassar College was chartered with "An Act to Incorporate Vassar Female College", passed by the New York State Legislature. The charter listed the following trustees: Matthew Vassar, Ira Harris, William Kelly, James Harper, Martin B. Anderson, John Thompson, Edward Lathrop, Charles W. Swift, E.L. Magoon, S.M. Buckingham, Milo P. Jewett, Nathan Bishop, Matthew Vassar, Jr., Benson J. Lossing, E.G.Robinson, Samuel F.B. Morse, S.S. Constant, John Guy Vassar, William Hague, Rufus Babcock, Cornelius Dubois, John H. Raymond, Morgan L. Smith, Cyrus Swan, George W. Sterling, George T. Pierce, Smith Sheldon, Joseph C. Doughty and A.L. Allen.
Rochester trustees: Kelly, Anderson, Vassar, John Deare (early), Ira Harris (early) Smith Sheldon, John Raymond.
Abraham Lincoln made a brief speech to the citizens of Poughkeepsie as his train passed through the city. He had addressed the New York State Legislature the previous day.
Matthew Vassar formed the Board of Trustees of Vassar Female College.
The first meeting of the Board of Trustees of Vassar College was held at the Hotel Gregory in Poughkeepsie. Milo P. Jewett was elected president. Dr. Jewett, a graduate of Dartmouth and Andover Theological Seminary, was Professor at Marietta Collegiate Institute, 1833-38. In 1838 he established Judson Female Institute at Marion, Ala. He came to Poughkeepsie in 1855 to reopen the school founded by Lydia Booth. At this meeting, Matthew Vassar presented to the newly organized Board of Trustees of Vassar College a small tin box containing the funds appropriated for the founding of the college, in the form of securities amounting to $408,000, and a deed of conveyance for two hundred acres for the college site and farm. "It occurred to me, that woman, having received from her Creator the same intellectual constitution as man, has the same right as man to intellectual culture and development." Matthew Vassar's Communication to the Trustees, Feb. 26, 1861.
Fort Sumter was fired upon. In his Communication to the Trustees of April 13, 1865, Matthew Vassar noted, "Just four years ago tomorrow, we staked out the ground for the foundation of our College, a day which was made singularly memorable by the fall of Fort Sumter." Failure of William Harloe, contractors, Matthew Vassar gave $150,000 more to college.
1861, June 4
Matthew Vassar dug the first spadeful of dirt for Main Building on the site of a former racetrack. Mr. Vassar had purchased the land in 1860. James Renwick, Jr. was the architect and William Harloe the contractor.
C.L. Elliott, artist, was paid $1404 for commissioned full length portrait of Matthew Vassar, now in Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center. The $1404 included $1200 for portrait, $200 to Thomas A. Willmunt for a walnut frame, and $4 to J.W. Dean for insurance.
Milo P. Jewett sailed for Europe to study curricula of educational institutions. He was absent eight months visiting schools, libraries and museums in Great Britain, France, Switzerland, Germany and Italy.
Abraham Lincoln delivered his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, freeing as of January 1863 all slaves in areas still in rebellion against the United States.
"The College edifice has been enclosed." The Founder formulated his ideas for beautifying the grounds, indicating botanical gardens east of the college. The Circle was part of the original plan of the grounds and appears on the first campus map.
Peter Cooper, founder of Cooper Union, and his wife were guests of Augustus L. Allen of Poughkeepsie and called on Matthew Vassar. They also visited the college site to see Main Building under construction. Mr. Allen was a charter trustee of the college.
Matthew Vassar's wife died. "In this city...after a lingering illness, which she bore with great meekness and fortitude, Catharine, wife of M. Vassar, aged 73 years." Poughkeepsie Daily Eagle, Feb. 3, 1863. Poughkeepsie rural cemetery plot monument says she died of "neuragia."
The Observatory was completed, Charles S. Farrar, architect. Dimensions were 80' x 50'. Rests on rock. Telescope by Fitz, 17' focal length, object glass 12 and 1/2 inches. Comet-seeker on roof. Beautiful transit made by James. (Dall).
The Sanitary Fair was held at Poughkeepsie in an unoccupied coach factory loaned by Matthew Vassar. Mr. Vassar was among those exhibiting plants and cut flowers.
Milo P. Jewett resigned as President of Vassar following a difference of opinion with the Founder. A letter written by Jewett to a member of the Board of Trustees, in which he described the Founder as "vacillating and growing daily more childish and fickle" was brought to Matthew Vassar's attention. He declined to have any further dealings with Jewett and demanded his resignation.
Rev. John H. Raymond, a charter trustee, who had taught at the Hamilton Theological Institute and the University of Rochester before his appointment as President of the Brooklyn Collegiate and Polytechnic Institute, accepted the Presidency of Vassar Female College at a salary of $4,000 per annum.
Matthew Vassar purchased the Magoon art collection as the nucleus for Vassar College Art Gallery. This collection was comprised of over 400 pictures in oil and water-color of best known contemporary artists, American and English, including four original water-colors by Turner. The pictures were accompanied by a library of nearly one thousand volumes. E.L. Magoon, who had made the collection in England, was one of the charter trustees.
Matthew Vassar, Chm, Exec Comm, signed order banning visitors to Vassar College building and grounds "in consequence of frequent interruptions to the workmen."
The Main Building and Gate Lodge were completed, James Renwick, Jr., architect.
Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, prohibiting slavery.
General Lee surrendered his army at Appomattox Court House.
Matthew Vassar recorded in his diary: "Awful intellingence this Morning, Lincoln & Seward Assasinated Both dead, other members of Sewards family Injured by the AssassinsÑThe whole Country in Sadness and Mourning_ our City draped in Mourning_Such is the sensibility & feeling but few persons are seen in the Streets ... Wednesday, April 19, 1865, A Memorial Day_ A day never to be forgotten, people sad, stores all closed, the whole City draped in Deep Mourning. Largest Procession of Citizens ever seen in Po. at 2 Ock P M. Church services held in the Morning . Immense Attendance . . ."
"Cut magnolia to Decorate Prest. Lincoln Coffin at R.R. Depo this Evening." Matthew Vassar's Diary.
Matthew Vassar noted in diary: Chemical department fitted up_ Unfinished Masonry Halls &c. Steps front Entrance Building for Gynestic or Riding School." Riding Academy 100' x 60'; 30 horses kept. Gynestic hall 30' x 70'.
The Main Building was ready. "At a distance of 400 feet from the Main Building was the Boiler and Gas House which furnished all buildings on campus with both heat and light, Vassar College being the first institution in the world to be heated by a central plant in a separate buildings." Life at Vassar. "20 miles of water-pipes up and down corridors to supply culinary and domestic needs." (p. 410 Dall)
Vassar Female College opened with 353 students, including a Civil War widow. The annual fee for tuition and residence was $350. The faculty numbered thirty including twenty two women. John H. Raymond was President and Hannah W. Lyman, Lady Principal. The Professors were: William I. Knapp, Ancient and Modern Languages; Charles S. Farrar, Mathematics, Natural Philosophy and Chemistry; Sanborn Tenney, Natural History including Geology and Mineralogy, Botany, Zoology, and Physical Geography; Maria Mitchell, Astronomy; Alida C. Avery, Physiology and Hygiene, also Resident Physician; Henry B. Buckham, Rhetoric, Belles Lettres, and the English Language; Edward Wiebe, Vocal and Instrumental Music; Henry Van Ingen, Painting and Drawing. The extracollegiate departments included the School of Vocal and Instrumental Music and the School of Design. Preparatory courses were offered in addition to the regular curriculum. The college buildings consisted of the Main Building, the Observatory, the Gate House and the Boiler and Gas House.
The Library, located on the third floor of Main Building, directly opposite the chapel, was thirty by thirty-five feet in area. Reports vary, but collection contained as many as 2,400 volumes.
The students visited Springside, Matthew Vassar's country estate. John Guy Vassar, nephew of the Founder, conducted the tour of the grounds.
Philaletheis, a literary society, was founded. This was the first student society. Its activities included providing lecturers for the college until the Lecture Fund was established by the will of the Founder. In the early seventies dramatic activities predominated; from 1908 until its dissolution in 1958 the sole interest was dramatics.
The Riding School and Calisthenium was completed, J.A. Wood, architect. This building, now called Avery Hall, in 1960 houses the departments of English and Classics and the Experimental Theatre. In a letter to Rufus Babcock, Oct. 31, 1861, Matthew Vassar wrote: "...I do go for mental stimulus of some sort and for daily exposure to the pure air in joyous unrestrained activity..." Delia Woods was the first instructor of PE (1865), had to give up; Elizabeth Powell offered job.
The first Vassar College catalogue of courses, for 1865/1866, was published.
The Faculty voted that April 29, Matthew Vassar's birthday, be "entered on the calendar as a holiday to be annually observed by appropriate commemoration exercises and that it be known as Founder's Day." It was further voted that the celebration be on April 30, that year.
Escorted by President Raymond, Matthew Vassar drove under a triumphal archway of evergreens designed by Henry Van Ingen, Professor of Art. The Founder was greeted by lines of students on either side of the driveway. The literary program which followed included an original song, "Our Father and Our Friend", music by Edward Wiebe, and words by Julia S. Tutwiler, special student, 1865-66. The celebration was a complete surprise to Matthew Vassar, who is reported to have said to Dr. Raymond "This one event has repaid me for every cent I have spent for the college."
The Vassariana, the first students' magazine, was published. The clubs listed were the Floral Society, the Laurel Base Ball Club, the Abenakis Base Ball Club and the Light Croquet Club.
Instruction in riding was given by Baron Leopold von Seldeneck, who had been a cavalry officer in the Prussian army and had served in the same capacity in the Civil War. The riding academy proved too expensive and was closed in 1872.
The yearly fee for tuition and residence was raised to $400. "My maxim or motto is now the same as at the beginning of our enterprise - Do all things Interlectural and Material the best, and make your prices accordingly... I go for the best means, cost what they may, & corresponding prices for tuition in return." Letter of Matthew Vassar to J.H. Raymond, 10 June 1868.
I. Dall visited. "Already outrun bounds (p. 410-11). Talk of another dormitory. 400 pupils, age 17-22. $400 fees + $600 to feel happy and at ease. College paid every bill this year, but nothing left. **** in groups of 20 in dining hall, "saying silent grace" (a suggestion from Maria Mitchell's father, William Mitchell.) Chapel for evening prayer (no men present) and talk. Raymond's *** source."
In a letter to President Raymond, the Founder wrote: "...Please to give my best regards to our dear young Ladies and Teachers, and say to them, that, I deeply regret that my health will not permit my joining them today, that I wanted to say to them, that the 'Vassar College' is now thiers, thiers to elevate, thiers to beautify, thiers to honor, and thiers to adorn, by its fruits, and I trust God in his Providence will bless, prosper and sustain it to the glory of his name, and to the praise and admiration of the world, and I hope therefore that all voices and hearts will arise and join in one glorious anthem and Sing the DOXOLOGY, today..."
Alaska purchased from Russia for $7.2 million.
The Missionary Society of Vassar College was founded. In June 1867 the name was changed to the Society for Religious Inquiry. It was reorganized in 1885 as the Young Women's Christian Association of Vassar College and for many years was popularly known as "Christians".
Following an act of the New York State Legislature, by which the word "female" was removed from the name of the college, the trustees voted to remove from the front of Main the marble slab engraved with this word. Sarah J. Hale, Editor of Godey's Lady's Book, had carried on a one-man campaign against the use of "female". In June 1866, after the Board of Trustees had finally approved the change in name, Matthew Vassar had written to her: "I hasten to inform you that the great agony is over your long cherished wishes reilised Woman stands redeemed, at least so far as 'Vassar College is concerned from the degrading vulgarism in the associated name of 'female', that has long and extensively grown up in our society..."
Office of Superintendent abolished. Standing committee of trustees superintended affairs.
Professor Charles Farrar and his class successfully repeated Foucault's demonstration of the rotary motion of the earth. The pendulum used, a sphere of lead weighing forty-six pounds, was suspended from the roof of Main by a wire sixty-four feet long, over the open space within the north central stairway. More science at Vassar than at Yale or Harvard (Dall).
Ralph Waldo Emerson lectured at Vassar College, at the request of the students, on "The Man of the World". "There was considerable indignation, after the lecture, on the part of the students, that Emerson had thought us incapable, to paraphrase his own language, of 'aiming our arrows at a star. 'Today how glad I am that I witnessed a manifestation of his characteristic independence of action, and that I even am able to compare his pictures with my recollection of his appearance." Golden Age of Vassar, by Mary H. Norris.
Vassariana, the student magazine, changed its name to The Transcript. The issues for 1869 and 1870 were called The Vassar Transcript.
The first graduation exercises were held in the Chapel. There were four members of the Class of 1867, one of whom, Harriet Warner Bishop, was present at the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary of Vassar in 1940. The other members were Maria Dickinson McGraw, Elizabeth Geiger McMahon and Helen D. Woodward.
Matthew Vassar told Dall he was still thinking about a culinary and household college for proper training of housewives, which he still wishes to erect.
College colors chosen - Sunrise (pink) breaking through grey of intellectual life. Misc (1875-1915, p. 11)
Wendell Phillips, President of the Anti-Slavery Society, lectured under the auspices of the Philalethean Society.
The first Musical Soiree was given by the pupils of Vassar College under the direction of Professor Frederick L. Ritter.
The students presented a petition to the faculty asking for permission to organize a "Student Association". The constitution was approved February 3rd. Informal meetings had been held previously.
Anna Elizabeth Dickinson, famous Quaker lecturer, spoke at Vassar on "Idiots and Women". Commenting on the lecture, Matthew Vassar wrote Elizabeth Powell, Instructor in Physical Training, "The subject of 'Woman's Suffrage' or 'Idiots and Women' was correctly quoted from the Laws granting the right of them to the ballot Box, and when I first read the Law some years ago I was equaly supprised to find our Fair Sex placed in so shamefull a category as Criminals, paupers, Idiots &c,' which if the Law was right by this classification I think it is full time my 300 daughters at 'Vassar' knew it, and applied the remidy." Letter of April 28, 1868.
The Class of 1868 planted a swamp white oak as their Class Tree, on the south side of the driveway west of Main. This was the first class tree. The Class of 1867, in the first Class Day exercises, had planted ivy on the Main Building.
Matthew Vassar died as he addressed the Board of Trustees. "At 11 A.M. the Board convened, and, immediately after the organization of the meeting, Mr. Vassar proceeded to read his customary address. As his tone was somewhat feeble, and he read sitting, the members of the Board gathered closer around him and listened in profound silence. Suddenly, when he had almost finished, his voice faltered and ceased, the paper dropped from his hand upon the table by which he sat, his head fell back upon the chair and so he was gone! Without a struggle or sign of pain, his spirit had passed away; and after the lapse of a few moments, during which the machinery of life seemed gently running down, his body rested in its last repose.
When, an hour later, the trustees reassembled to listen to the closing paragraph of the address, it was found to have an almost prophetic interest:
'And now, gentlemen, on closing these remarks, I would humbly and solemnly implore the Divine Goodness to continue His smiles and favor on your institution, and to bestow on all hearts connected therewith His love and blessing, having peculiarly protected us by His providence through all our college trials for three consecutive years, without a single death in our Board, or serious illness or death of one of the pupils within the college walls. Wishing you, gentlemen, a continuance of health and happiness, I bid you a cordial and final farewell. Thanking you kindly for your official attentions and services, and not expecting, from my advanced years and increasing infirmities, to meet with you officially again, I implore the Divine Goodness to guide and direct you aright in all your councils'." Life and Letters of John Howard Raymond.
Matthew Vassar's last gift to Vassar College was a "magnificent cabinet of stones and rocks." Matthew Vassar's will was probated. He provided for a Lecture Fund of $50,000, an Auxiliary Fund, for aiding students of superior promise, $50,000, a Library, Art and Cabinet Fund, $50,000, and a Repair Fund, the residue of the estate, amounting to more than $100,000.
Ellen Swallow, '70, wrote to her mother: "I send you a bit of our college colors, rose and silver gray... One and one half yards each we have and wear in some form on public occasions." The colors signified the dawn of women's education, "the rose of sunlight breaking through the gray of women's intellectual life."
U.S. continental railroad completed with the driving of the golden spike at Promontory Point, Utah; National Woman Suffrage Association founded by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.
"We had quite an interesting lecture last week by Prof. Silliman of Yale. His subject was the Yosemite valley. He gave us a great many representations of the scenery, upon canvas, by the aid of the magic lantern..." From a letter written by a member of the Class of 1872.
Louise Parsons, '68, received the first Master of Arts degree given by the college.
A total eclipse of the sun was observed at Burlington, Iowa, by Professor Maria Mitchell and seven of her students, one an undergraduate of the Class of 1870, the others alumnae of the Class of 1868. Their observations were later printed in the official report of Professor J.H.C. Coffin, Superintendent of the American Ephemeris and Nautical Almanac, who directed the various observers of the eclipse. "Some half dozen of the graduates of our college had offered their services as assistants - one of them with a telescope - all with sharp eyes and quick perceptions." Maria Mitchell in Hours at Home, Oct. 1869.
James Orton teaching science (1869-77d.)
A Vassar student wrote home: "Have I told you that I am eating in French now? or in other words that I am at the French table. I am and have real fun..."
Charles Sumner, American statesman, lectured at the Opera House in Poughkeepsie on "Caste". The seniors attended in a body. The college lecture program was broadened by taking advantage of the Poughkeepsie Lyceum series of lectures.
Heavy use of library required change in library rules: books could be checked in afternoon and evening daily, rather than only twice weekly.
Miss Lyman's health dwindling. D Feb. 24/70.
George William Curtis, American author and orator, spoke on Founder's Day on "Woman's Sphere Is Wherever She Can Find Anything to Do". Ellen Swallow, '70, wrote in her diary: "It was the best women's rights speech I ever heard. Suffrage, the ballot or rights, were not mentioned."
"Dr. Eliot, President of Harvard, is here. He has been visiting Antioch and Oberlin in the west and other colleges where women are admitted with men. He has been in at most of the recitations and told Prof. Farrar that the boys at Harvard could not recite nearly as well in German, French, or Latin, or even in mathematics, as the girls did here. He probed the Calculus class and not one failed in reply - and with credit to herself. There is talk of admitting women to Harvard if girls can keep up with boys; he seems to think Vassar girls more than do it. There is one thing people generally seem rather skeptical about till they come here and see for themselves: they don't believe that more than half of what the catalogue says is true either as to curriculum, scholarship or serious endeavor. But Vassar speaks for herself when the audience gets within reach, in more ways than one!" Letters from Old-Time Vassar.
Will of Jacob P. Gerard left $30,000 to found A Museum of Natural History as Vassar College's first bequest after Matthew Vassar's. With this James Orton (Professor of Natural History and Geology) created Museum and made a collection of S. American birds.
The Cecilia Society, a student musical club, gave a concert celebrating the centennial anniversary of the birth of Beethoven, Dec. 16, 1770.
Last updated: 10 November, 1999, by Jeremy R. Linden, '00.