Happy Birthday to U Mansfield By Joyce Tice
Mansfield University celebrates its unpronounceable (sesquicentennial) anniversary. For the Latin-impaired, that means it’s been in business 150 years. Now, how do we fit all those candles on a cake? I know, let’s make the cake bigger.
On July 6, 1854, the Methodist Episcopal Church of Mansfield
held its quarterly meeting as a camp meeting on the farm of Lent
Seeley in Sullivan Township. The former Seeley farm is high on
Scouten Hill and overlooks Richmond Township and the Borough of
Mansfield to the west. Mansfield was a village in the township
at that time. Camp tents of attendees covered the hill. At the
meeting, Joseph S. Hoard is credited with first bringing up the
idea of establishing an institution of higher learning in Mansfield.
The discussion is said to have occurred in the tent of Rodney
C. Shaw.
The initial discussion was followed by a meeting at the Methodist
Church a few days later. This was the old Methodist Church on
the corner of North Main and Elmira streets that is used now by
the Presbyterian Orthodox Church. Enthusiasm was high and enough
subscription money was raised to secure the charter for Mansfield
Classical Seminary on December 1, 1854. A building plan was developed
for a four-story brick structure and construction began immediately.
In a ledger that I rescued off eBay a couple of years ago, Shaw
recorded the first of many entries for providing building materials
to Mansfield Classical Seminary early in 1855. He delivered eight
loads of stone for $4 and five cords of wood for $5.
The building progressed with Hoard, Daniel Sherwood, and Amos
Bixby supervising its construction. The school opened in January
1857 with 105 students. During the same year, Mansfield incorporated
as a borough. Second term began with 150 students on April 16,
1857. It all came to an end six days later when the building burned.
The very next night supporters started raising money to rebuild.
A financial panic that year bankrupted one of their insurance
companies, so much of their earlier investment was never recovered.
Mansfield’s citizens were resolute and started building
again in September 1857. Thus we are celebrating this year the
150th anniversary of both the Borough of Mansfield and the successor
to the Classical Seminary that has grown to be Mansfield University.
After a slow start, the school reopened in 1859, and, in 1862,
its administration and ownership were transferred to the State
Normal School system.
The first class of graduates in 1866 was made up of fifteen
persons. Elizabeth Borden Ames, by virtue of the alphabet, is
at the top of the list. “Lizzie” Ames grew up on Ames
Hill in Sullivan Township within sight of the Seeley farm. In
fact, she and her brother Herbert (Class of 1867) had attended
the same camp meeting where the idea of the school was first discussed.
She later went to medical school in Philadelphia and died in February
1875 from an infection contracted from a cadaver in the dissecting
room.
By coincidence, part of the Seeley farm is now owned by Janice
Kent, a great-great-great-grandaughter of Shaw, who participated
in the school’s early development. The Normal School evolved
as Mansfield State Teachers College, Mansfield State College,
and is now Mansfield University. Since the 1960s, the university
has crept around the hill to the east with new buildings that
are now visible from the former Seeley farm where its name was
first spoken.
There will be many early photos of both the Borough of Mansfield
and the Normal School in the book with the working title, A Photographic
History, which Steve Orner and I compiled and annotated. Dennis
Miller wrote the introduction and the preface was written by me.
It will be available later in the summer as the sesquicentennial
celebrations continue.
Joyce M. Tice is the creator of the Tri-Counties Genealogy and
History http://www.rootsweb.com/~srgp/jmtindex.htm. You can contact
her at lookingback@mountainhomemag.com |
