that the war was ended than the churchmen of Connecticut sent the Rev. Dr. Seabury across the ocean to seek consecration as a bishop; and it was not long after his return that the diocese, now fully organized, set on foot a plan for the establishment of an institution of sound learning, and in 1795 the Episcopal Academy of Connecticut was founded at Cheshire. It was sometimes called Seabury College, and, under its learned principals, it fitted many young men for entrance upon their theological studies, and gave them part at least of their professional training. But its charter, which was granted by the General Assembly of the State in 1801, did not give it the power of conferring degrees, and the frequent petitions for an extension of charter rights, so as to make of the academy a collegiate institution, were refused. For a time, owing to determined opposition in the State, to the vacancy in the episcopate, and to other causes, the project was postponed. But a combination of events, social, political, and religious, led at length to the great revolution in Connecticut, in which all dissenters from the standing order united in opposition to it, and secured in 1818, though it was by a small majority, the adoption of a State Constitution containing a clause which admitted of “secession” from any ecclesiastical society and secured perfect religious equality before the law.

statue of bishop brownell,
on the campus.

In the following year, while the enthusiasm of the victory was still felt, the vacant episcopate was filled by the election of the Rev. Dr. Thomas Church Brownell, who had been for ten years tutor and professor in Union College, a man of learning, profoundly interested in education, and qualified for the varied duties which lay upon him as Bishop of Connecticut. He soon availed himself of this favorable opportunity for renewing the plans for the establishment of a college. There was much strong opposition to be encountered, and the student of the pamphlet literature of the day finds much to excite his interest and his wonder in the attacks upon the proposed “Second College in Connecticut”—“Seabury College,” as it was sometimes called. The whole matter was curiously complicated with discussions as to political and financial matters, the many questions between the recently disestablished order and its opponents not having been fully settled as yet. At last, on the 13th day of May, 1823, a petition for a college charter was presented to the General Assembly, and the act of incorporation of Washington College passed the lower house three days later, and soon received the assent of the senate and the approval of the governor. The name selected for the institution was not that which its friends would have preferred; but the honored name of Washington was adopted partly, as it would appear, because others than Episcopalians united in the establishment of the college, and partly that there could be no ground of opposition to it on account of its name. Among the corporators associated with Bishop Brownell were some of the prominent clergy and laity of the diocese, such as the Rev. Drs. Harry Croswell and N. S. Wheaton, Gov. John S. Peters, the Hon. Nathan Smith, the Hon. Elijah Boardman, the Hon. Asa Chapman, Com. McDonough, and Mr. Charles Sigourney; and there were added to them representatives of the other opponents of the old establishment, among them the Rev. Samuel Merwin and the Rev. Elisha Cushman. It was expressly provided in the charter that no religious test whatever should be required of any president, professor, or other officer, and that the religious tenets of no person should be made a condition of admission to any privilege in the college. Even before the charter containing this clause was granted, it produced a most important effect; for, on the 12th day of May, 1823,—it was believed, as a last effort of opposition,—the corporation of Yale College met in Hartford, and repealed the test act which required of all its officers, even of professors in the medical school, a subscription to the Saybrook Platform.

proposed new college buildings.

The trustees of the new college were authorized to locate it in any town in the State as soon as $30,000 should be secured for its support; and when it was found that more than three-fourths of the sum of $50,000, which was soon subscribed, was the gift of citizens of Hartford, who thus manifested in a substantial way the interest which they had previously expressed, it was decided to establish Washington College in that city. A site of fourteen acres on an elevation, then described as about half a mile from the city, was secured for the buildings, and in June, 1824, Seabury Hall and Jarvis Hall (as they were afterwards called) were begun. They were of brown stone, following the Ionic order of architecture, well proportioned, and well adapted to the purposes for which they were designed. The former, containing rooms for the chapel, the library, the cabinet, and for recitations, was designed by Prof. S. F. B. Morse, and the latter, having lodging-rooms for nearly a hundred students, was designed by Mr. Solomon Millard, the architect of Bunker Hill Monument. The buildings were not completed when, on the 23d of September, 1824, one senior, one sophomore, six freshmen, and one partial student were admitted members of the college; and work was begun in rooms in the city. The faculty had been organized by the election of Bishop Brownell as president, the Rev. George W. Doane (afterwards Bishop of New Jersey), as professor of belles-lettres and oratory, Mr. Frederick Hall as professor of chemistry and mineralogy, Mr. Horatio Hickok as professor of agriculture and political economy (he was, by the way, the first professor of this latter science in this country), and Dr. Charles Sumner as professor of botany. The instruction in the ancient languages was intrusted to the Rev. Hector Humphreys, who was soon elected professor, and who left the college in 1830 to become President of St. John’s College, Maryland. The chair of mathematics and natural philosophy was filled in 1828 by the election of the Rev. Horatio Potter, now the venerable Bishop of New York. The learned Rev. Dr. S. F. Jarvis soon began his work in and for the college, under the title of Professor of Oriental Literature; and the Hon. W. W. Ellsworth was chosen professor of law. The provision which was announced in the first statement published by the trustees, that students would be allowed to enter in partial courses without becoming candidates for a degree, was a new feature in collegiate education, and a considerable number of young men were found who were glad to avail themselves of it. It is believed, also, that practical instruction in the natural sciences was given here to a larger extent than in most other colleges.