Foundation
In 1850, Chicago was only a 17 year-old city of 28,000 inhabitants that was increasingly becoming the center of trade for both steamships and railroads. The political and cultural environment of the mid-nineteenth century resulted in individual states granting charters to hundreds of small colleges rather than a few centralized national institutions as was typical in European countries. These colleges were highly sectarian and were motivated by the desire to both increase the quality of ministerial training as well as to discourage its young people from attending schools controlled by rival denominations. On May 31, 1850 John Evans, Grant Goodrich, Henry W. Clark, Andrew Brown, Orrington Lunt, Jabez Botsford, Richard Haney, Richard H. Blanchard, and Zodoc Hall met in a law office above a hardware store at 69 West Lake Street in Chicago and resolved that "the interests of sanctified learning require the immediate establishment of a university in the Northwest under the patronage of the Methodist Episcopal Church." While each of the founders had diverse educational, socioeconomic, and geographic backgrounds, they were all devout Methodists as well as successful and established businessmen, ministers, and lawyers within Chicago. Despite their evangelism, the founders were committed to the establishment of a non-sectarian institution reflecting both the worldly educational philosophy of the Methodist movement and the political realities of the Illinois state legislature adverse to chartering church-affiliated colleges.
Goodrich was adept in drafting the charter and lobbying legislators who shared his abolitionist views and the charter was passed during the first session of the General Assembly and signed by Governor Augustus French on January 28, 1851. Constituted as the "Trustees of the North Western University," the new institution was the first university in Illinois and consisted of the founders as well as representatives from the neighboring Methodist conferences. Evans and Lunt initially each donated $5,000 to endow the university which permitted them to purchase 16 lots on the northeast corner of Jackson Boulevard and LaSalle Street for $8,000 as a potential site for the campus.
In 1853, the trustees elected Clark T. Hinman as the first president of the university and committed to raising $200,000. Hinman insisted that a university, rather than a preparatory school, be constructed first and that it should be built outside of Chicago. Following Hinman's recommendation, Lunt began to survey for land that was both north of the city and abutting railways for a new university in the areas of Jefferson Park and Ridgeville. A 360-acre (150 ha) parcel of dry, wooded bluffs overlooking Lake Michigan belonging to a Dr. John Foster (unrelated to Randolph S. Foster) was purchased by Evans for $25,000 in August 1853 as a site for the new campus. In 1855, the university charter was amended to declare that university property "shall be forever free from taxation for any kind and all purposes." The trustees aggressively used the property-tax-exempt status to purchase more of the surrounding farms and Northwestern land holdings grew as large as 680 acres (280 ha). In 1854, Philo Judson, Northwestern's business manager charged with surveying and plotting this real estate nicknamed the land "Evanston" in honor of founder John Evans. In 1857, the Illinois legislature changed the name of the village from Ridgeville to Evanston and it became an incorporated city in 1863. The university undertook a major development effort to drain the swamps, clear and grade the land, and donated or sold land to permit the construction of streets, parks, schools, waterworks, and churches. Between 1860 and 1870, Evanston's population had grown from 831 to 3,062.
Hinman was also a fervent supporter of the nascent university and raised over $63,000 from the sale of the perpetual scholarships. These scholarships, purchased in four installments of $25, entitled the purchaser and his male heirs (after the university became coeducational, female heirs were also recognized) to free tuition in perpetuity and were sold until 1867. The University also sold less-expensive limited term "transferable" scholarships guaranteeing a certain number of years of free tuition. While Northwestern still recognizes the scholarship, only one family member per generation is entitled to the scholarship and it must be specifically bequeathed to a descendant. Hinman's untimely death in October 1854 resulted in the ad interim appointment of Professor Henry S. Noyes as president until the 1856 election of Daniel Bonright, a Professor of Latin, and 1857 election of Randolph S. Foster, a Professor of Theology. Noyes would also succeed Foster, and again serve as president between 1860 and 1869.
Read more about this topic: History Of Northwestern University
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