Transylvania University - History

History

Transylvania was the first college west of the Allegheny Mountains. Thomas Jefferson was governor of Virginia when the Virginia Assembly chartered Transylvania Seminary. He later looked to Transylvania as an educational model, writing to a friend in 1820 that "If…we are to go a begging anywhere for education, I would rather it should be to Kentucky than any other state, because she has more flavor of the old cask than any other Transylvania University was initially sponsored by the Christ Episcopal Church's rector, the Reverend Moore, and later became affiliated with the Presbyterian Church. Originally in a log cabin in Boyle County, Kentucky, the school moved to Lexington in 1789. The first site in Lexington was a single building in the historic Gratz Park.

By 1818, a new main building was constructed for students' classes. Later, in 1829, that building burned, and the school was moved to its present location north of Third Street. Old Morrison, the only campus building at the time, was constructed 1830–34, under the supervision of Henry Clay, who both taught law and was a member of Transylvania's Board. After 1818, the university included a medical school, a law school, a divinity school, and a college of arts and sciences.

An institution that aided in the creation of Transylvania University at this time was Bacon College, named after Sir Francis Bacon, which would later be known as Kentucky University. Bacon College existed from 1837–1851, founded by the Christian churches in Kentucky. Bacon College was a new entity separated from Georgetown College, a Baptist supported institution, but Bacon College inevitably closed due to lack of funding. Seven years later, in 1858, Bacon College's charter was amended to establish Kentucky University, and moved to donated land in Harrodsburg, Kentucky. Following the American Civil War, Kentucky University was devastated by fire and both it and Transylvania University were in dire financial straits. In 1865, both institutions secured permission to merge. The new institution utilized Transylvania's campus in Lexington while perpetuating the Kentucky University name. The university was reorganized around several new colleges, including the Agricultural and Mechanical College (A&M) of Kentucky, publicly chartered as a department of Kentucky University as a land-grant institution under the Morrill Act. However, due to questions regarding the appropriateness of a federally funded land-grant college controlled by a religious body, the A&M college was spun off in 1878 as an independent, state-run institution. The A&M of Kentucky soon developed into one of the state's flagship public universities, the University of Kentucky. Kentucky University's College of the Bible, which traced its roots to Bacon College's Department of Hebrew Literature, also received its own charter in 1878.

Transylvania's seminary eventually became a separate institution, but remained housed on the Kentucky University campus until 1950, later changing its name to the Lexington Theological Seminary. In 1903, Hamilton College, a Lexington-based women's college founded in 1869, merged into Kentucky University. Due to confusion between Kentucky University and its daughter institution, the University of Kentucky, the institution was renamed "Transylvania University," in 1908. In 1988, Transylvania University experienced an infringement on the institution's trademark when Hallmark Cards began selling Transylvania University T-shirts. The product, developed for the 1988 Halloween season, was intended to be a novelty item purporting to be college wear from the fictional Count Dracula's alma mater. When contacted by the actual Transylvania University, Hallmark apologetically admitted that they were not aware of the Kentucky-based institution and recalled all unsold product immediately. The university is now affiliated with the Disciples of Christ (which was organized after Transylvania).

Transylvania University is the setting for part of the novel All the King's Men by Robert Penn Warren. The university was included in Robert Lowell's sonnet "The Graduate (Elizabeth)." The poem states glibly that 'Transylvania's Greek Revival Chapel/ is one of the best Greek Revival things in the South.'