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(^h^K^A^^u^i^-Ji ^ ^yVW^ /^^^l^^v^AC// ^ ^ CATALOGUE (MA'^^^'Y* (5^vKVV'^ VIRGINIA, FROM ITS FOUNDATION TO THE PRESENT TIME. 1859. fe f -^ CATALOGUE ii VIRGINIA, FROM ITS FOlIi\DATIOX TO THE PRESENT TIME. 1859 THE 11 aai iiiifi For founding a college in Virginia to educate and train Indians, so early as 1619, fifteen hundred pounds were raised in England, hj virtue of letters issued by James I. to the bishops. And during this year it was " moved and obtained " by Sir Edwin Sandys, President of the Company in England, that ten thousand acres of land, intended not only for the Indian College, but also to lay " the foundation of a Semi- nary of learning for the English," should be laid off for " the University at Henrico." It was also determined that a hundred men should be sent from England as tenants for this land. Out of the rents, which it was. supposed would be worth five hundred pounds a year, the buildings were to be erected, and the masters supported. Mr. George Thorpe, a gentleman of His Majesty's Privy Chamber, came over to be superin- tendent of the College. In 1621, a subscription of one hundred and twenty-five pounds was obtained ; and one thousand acres of land, with five servants and an overseer, were allotted by the Company to endow at Charles City, " School," a collegiate school termed the East India . where scholars were to be prepared for admittance into the College at Henrico. On March 22d, 1622, Mr. Thorpe and three hundred and forty of the colonists, including a number of the tenants of the College, were killed by the Indians. This caused the lands to be abandoned, and the establishment of a college to be delayed until that of William and Mary was chartered, which was in the fourth year of the reign of Wil- liam and Mary, a date corresponding under the new style, with the 19tli of February, A. D. 1693. This charter, sent over with Sir Edmund Andros, was granted upon the petition of the General Assembly of the Colony of Virginia, " to the end that the church of Virginia might be furnished with a Seminary of ministers of the Gospel, and that the THE COLLEGE OF WILLIAM AND MAEY. yoiitli miglit be piously educated in good letters and manners, and that the Christian faith might be propagated amongst the "Western Indians, to the glory of Almighty God." The design was to establish a " place of Universal Study, or perpetual College of Divinity, Philosophy, Lan- guages, and other good arts and sciences." The Trustees^ nominated and elected by the General Assembly, to whom the royal license Avas granted, were Francis Nicholson, Lieutenant Governor in the Colonies of Virginia and Maryland, William Cole, Ralph Wormley, William Byrd, and John Lear, Esquires ; James Blair, John Farnifold, Stephen Fouace, and Samuel Gray, Clerks ; Thomas Milner, Christopher Robin- son, Charles Scarborough, John Smith, Benjamin Harrison, Miles Cary, Henry Hartwell, William Randolph, and Mathew Page, Gentlemen. "The Assembly was so fond of Governor Nicholson at that time, that they presented him with the sum of three hundred pounds as a testi- mony of their good disposition towards him. But he having an instruc- tion to receive no present from the country, they drew up an address to their Majesties, praying that he miglit have leave to accept it, which was granted, and he gave one half thereof to the College." The Trustees were constituted the body corporate to establish the College, and to appoint Masters or Professors, but were required after the estab- lishment, " to transfer to the President and Masters, or Professors, or their successors, the lands, manors, tenements, rents, services, rec- tories, portions, annuities, pensions, and advowsons of churches, Avith all other inheritances, franchises, possessions, goods, chattels, and per- sonal estate " And in the fifth section of the Charter we find the fol- " lowing : It shall he called and denominated for ever, the College of William and Mary in Virginia, and the President and Masters or Pro- fessors of the said College, shall be a body politic in deed and in name^ It was further provided that after the transfer of the corporate powers, the Trustees should be " the true, sole, and undoubted Visitors and Gov- ernors of the College.^'' " And we give and grant to them, or the major part of them, by these our Letters Patent, a continual succession, as also full and absolute liberty, power, and authority of making and enacting, framing and establishing such and so many rules, laws, statutes, orders, and injunctions for the good and wholesome government of said Col- lege, as to them and their successors shall from time to time, according to their various occasions and circumstances, seem most fit and expe- dient." The Charter confirms to the President and Masters or Professors, " that there shall be a Chancellor of the College ; appoints the reverend father in God, Henry, by divine permission. Bishop of London," first THE COLLEGE 0? WILLIAM AXD MARY. Chancellor, and requires that the Visitors and Governors of the College, shall elect a discreet person to this office every seven years. Towards the endowment of the College, William III. and Mary con- tributed one thousand nine hundred and eighty-five pounds fourteen shillings and tenpence, raised out of the quit-rents of the colony, and at pound that time in the hands of William Byrd, Auditor ; one penny a the office of Sur- on all tobacco exported from Virginia and Maryland ; veyor General with all its issues, fees, profits, advantages, conveniences, thou- liberties, places, privileges, and pre-eminences whatsoever ; ten sand acres of land lying on the south side of Blackwater Swamp, and ten thousand acres lying in that neck of land, commonly called Pa- munky neck, between the ft)rks of York River. The Faculty had the right to elect either one of their own body, one " of the Visitors of the College, or one of the batter sort of inhabitants of the Colony," to represent the College in the House of Burgesses. The first College-building, designed to be a square when completed, was unfinished in 1700. The House of Burgesses, however, met in it until 1705, when, together with library and philosophical apparatus, it " was destroyed by fire. The fire broke out about ten o'clock at night in in a public time. The Governor and all the gentlemen that were town came up to the lamentable spectacle, many getting out of then- beds. But the fire had got such power before it was discovered, and was so fierce, that there was no hope of putting a stop to it, and there- fore no attempts were made to that end." The second building was but owing to the want commenced in the time of Governor Spottswood ; of available means, and the scarcity of workmen, it was not finished until 1723. Now that the College was fully established, the transfer of the cor- porate rights was shortly made to the Faculty, and the Trustees became " The Visitors and Governors of the College of William and Mary in and for Viro'inia." The deed of transfer was drawn by John Randolph ; his trouble, the Faculty voted him. a present of fifty guineas. The orig- inal instrument is now in the library of the College. It is written upon fourteen beautifully illuminated sheets of parchment. The date of it is the twenty-seventh of February, of the second year of the reign of George the Second, which, under the new style corresponds with the 10th of March, A.D. 1729. The donations conveyed by the charter, are recapitu- lated in the deed of transfer. These, and those received by the Trustees during the interval between the date of the charter and that of the trans- fer, were both now conveyed to the Faculty. The latter are as follows : " Sundry well-disposed individuals, together gave about two thousand THE COLLEGE OF AVJLLTAM AKD MARY. " pounds for encouraging and furthering so good a work ; the general assembly of the colony, in the fourth year of the reign of Queen Anne, laid duties on " raw hides and tanned hides, and upon all deer skins and furs exported," for the support and maintenance of the College ; the college tract of land, with all the buildings, <tc., upon it, viz : the pres- ent college buildings [This tract of laud, containing three hundred and thirty acres, lying in the Parish of Bruton, was bought for one hundred and seventy pounds, of Thomas Ballard, and conveyed to the Trustees on the 20th day of December, 1693],—the donation from the executors of the Hon. Robert Boyle, Esq. [Hon. Robert Boyle, Esq., in his will, dated July 18th, 1691, directed his executors, "after debts and legacies paid," to dispose of the residue of his personal estate "for such charita- ble and pious uses as they in their discretion should think fit,"' and made the Right Honorable Richard, Earl of Burlington, Sir Henry Ashurst^ Knight and Baronet, and John Marr, Gentleman, his executors. The executors proved the Will, and agreed to lay out five thousand four hundred pounds in land, and to apply the yearly rent thereof "towards propagating the christian religion amongst infidels. They bought of Sir Samuel Gerrard the Manor of Brafterton, in Yorkshire, England, and determined to grant " a rent charge in perpetuity of ninety pounds per annum" to the Company for propagating the Gospel in New Eng- land, " on condition that the Company should apply forty-five pounds a 3'^ear to the salaries of two ministers to instruct the natives in the christ- ian religion," and forty-five pounds a year to the President and Fellows of Harvard College, in Cambridge, New England, to be paid to two other ministers to teach the christian religion to the natives in or near the College.

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