Williams College,
An educational institution in
Williamstown, Mass., founded by
Col. Ephraim Williams (q. v.). The funds left by
Colonel Williams for founding a free school were allowed to accumulate.
A free school was incorporated in 1785, under the control of nine trustees, and a lottery was granted for raising funds to erect a schoolhouse.
About $3,500 was thus obtained, when the inhabitants of the town contributed about $2,000 more.
A large building, four stories high (afterwards the West College) was erected in 1790, and on Oct. 20, 1791, the free school was opened, with
Rev. Ebenzer Fitch as its first principal.
It was incorporated a college in 1793, under the title of Williams's Hall.
The property vested in the free school was transferred to the college, and the
State appropriated $4,000 for the purchase of apparatus and a library.
Mr. Fitch was its first president, and the first “commencement” was in 1795, when four students graduated.
Its catalogue of students printed in 1795 is said to be the earliest production of the kind in this country.
It contained the names of seventy-seven students.
Several college buildings have been added since.
Near the college building is “
Mills Park,” on the site of and commemorating the prayer-meeting of students in 1808, out of which grew the first organization in
America for foreign missionary work.
The leader among the students was
Samuel J. Mills, and his is the first name appended to the constitution of the society.
In 1900 the college reported twenty-nine professors and instructors; 401 students; 4,298 graduates; 44,250 volumes in the library; grounds and buildings valued at $452,425; and productive funds aggregating $1,048,317.
