Colby College

History

19th century

On February 27, 1813, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, led by Baptists, adopted a petition to establish the Maine Literary and Theological Institution. It was moved to Waterville, Maine, and used 179 acres of land donated by citizens. In 1818, trustees assigned the institution to Jeremiah Chaplin and classes began in a vacant Waterville home. After Maine separated from Massachusetts in 1820, the first Maine legislature affirmed the Massachusetts charter for the institution, but made significant changes. Students could no longer be denied admission based on religion, the institution was prohibited from applying a religious test when selecting board members, and the trustees now had the authority to grant degrees. The Maine Literary and Theological Institution was renamed Waterville College on February 5, 1821, and four years later, the theological department was discontinued. In 1828 the trustees decided to turn the somewhat informal preparatory department of the college into a separate school named Waterville Academy (most recently called the Coburn Classical Institute).

In 1833, Rufus Babcock became Colby's second president. That same year, students formed the nation's first college-based anti-slavery society. In 1845, the college's first Greek Society was formed, a chapter of Delta Kappa Epsilon, which was followed by chapters of Zeta Psi in 1850 and Delta Upsilon in 1852.

During the Civil War, many young men were called away from school to join the fight; from Waterville College, Richard C. Shannon, Henry C. Merriam, and Benjamin Butler. Twenty-seven Waterville College students perished in the war, and more than 100 men from the town. In the years following the war, as was the case at many American colleges, Waterville College was left with few students remaining to pay the bills and a depleted endowment. The college was on the verge of closing.

On August 9, 1865, prominent Baptist philanthropist Gardner Colby attended Waterville College's commencement dinner, and unbeknownst to anyone in attendance except college president James Tift Champlin, announced a matching $50,000 donation to the college; two years later the college was named after him. Trustees of the college voted to construct a library and chapel to honor the Colby men who died in the war, called the Memorial Hall; it was dedicated at the commencement of 1869. At the 1871 commencement, a Martin Milmore sculpture based on the Lion of Lucerne was added as the centerpiece of the building.

In the fall of 1871, Colby University was the first all-male college in New England to accept female students. The national Sigma Kappa sorority was founded at Colby in 1874 by the college's first five female students. However the college temporarily resegregated them in 1890. One of the buildings is named after the first woman to attend, Mary Caffrey Low, who was the valedictorian of the Class of 1875. In "The History of Colby College," Ernest C. Marriner wrote, "No small part of the agitation that arose later in regard to the retention of women in the College was prompted by the fact that they persistently ran away with the honors." In 1890, the president of Colby initiated a plan to divide women and men into separate classes at the college. Low, along with Louise Coburn and 17 other women who had graduated from Colby, sent a petition protesting the move. The letter declared, "The issue is not whether men and women can recite together, whether men and women shall study this or that. It is simply the issue whether the men are willing to take the risk of having women surpass them in scholarship."

In 1874, based on the success of its partnership with the Coburn Classical Institute, Colby created relationships with Hebron Academy and Houlton Academy (most recently known as Ricker College). In 1893, the Higgins Classical Institute was also deeded to Colby – the last preparatory school that the university would acquire. Students published the first issue of the Colby Echo in 1877. On January 25, 1899, Colby president Nathaniel Butler Jr., Class of 1873, renamed the "university" Colby College.

20th century

In 1920, Colby celebrated its centennial, marking not the date of the original charter (1813), but the date of its charter from the new State of Maine in 1820.In June 1929, Franklin W. Johnson was appointed president of the college. That same year saw the public release of the Maine Higher Education Survey Report, which gave Colby's campus a less than desirable review. Criticisms included a cramped location on just 28 acres located between the Kennebec River and the Maine Central Railroad Company tracks through Waterville, an aging physical plant, proximity to the unpleasant odors of a pulp mill, and the soot of the railroad. Using the report as justification, President Johnson presented a proposal to the Trustees on June 14, 1929, to move the college to a more adequate location. The campaign to raise funds for the move was immediately complicated by the Wall Street crash of 1929 and the Great Depression, and competing offers for the college's contemplated location emerged. Most notably, William H. Gannett offered a site in Augusta, a financially attractive option for the college, but a troublesome prospect for the town of Waterville. Ultimately, a joint effort between Waterville citizens and the college raised more than $100,000 to purchase 600 acres (2.4 km2) near the outskirts of the city on Mayflower Hill, and the deed was presented to the college on April 12, 1931.

Mayflower Hill

In 1937, construction broke ground on Lorimer Chapel according to master plans drawn up by Jens Fredrick Larson. It was to be the first building on the Mayflower Hill campus. In 1956, the Maine State Highway Commission diverted the proposed path of Interstate 95 to swing clear of the new campus to the west. The college began competing athletically with Bowdoin and Bates in the 1940s, and officially joined the two colleges in the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium in 1965. The consortium became both an athletic rivalry and an academic exchange program.