History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts - citizen hylbom blog

at S536,400 on an invested capital of §393,500.
In other occupations $151,695 worth of goods
were produced. Of these products the most im-
portant were brick, §123,500; rum, §6-t,000;
carriages, §80,000 ; carpets, prints, etc., §95,000 ;
buttons, 140,000; bread, §45,000; gold-leaf,
$45,000. Of the trades, carpentry produced
$30,620, and butchering, §52,000. The total
product was §688,095 ;
452 males and 88 females.
the workers employed were
TUFTS COLLEGE.!
TuPTS College is situated on an eminence for-
merly known as Walnut Hill, now College Hill, in
the soutiierly part of Medford, near the boundary
line of Somerville. The grounds comprise about
one hundred and twenty acres, lying in convenient
shape, and ample for all present and future needs
of the college. The buildings consist of a main
hall in which are recitation-rooms and laboratories,
with chapels and library, and three halls used
chiefly as dormitories, and containing between
sixty and seventy suites of rooms for students.
Tiiese buildings occupy the summit of the hill, and
command a view which in variety, interest, and
beauty is rarely surpassed.
Tufts College owes its existence to a conviction
in the minds of influential Universalists that tlie
usefulness and prosperity of their denomination re-
quired the establishment of higher institutions of
learning. Nearly fifty years ago several academies
were created in New England and New York under
the control and patronage of the denomination, and
the experience of these schools showed that the
college is indispensable to the scheme of education.
The movement that resulted in the founding of
Tufts College began in 1847. Eev. Thomas J.
Sawyer, D. D., had then recently left the church
over which he had been settled, in the city of New
York, to accept the principalship of the Clinton
Liberal Institute in the same state. Here, seeing
still more clearly the necessity of higher institu-
tions, he in April, 1847, issued a call through the
denominational papers for an educational conven-
tion to be held in the city of New York on the
18th of ilay foUomng. This convention was
largely attended by representative men of the denomination
from New England as well as New
York, and as the result of its two days' session
measures were inaugurated for raising by subscrip-
173
tion §100,000, which sum, it was agreed, would
be necessary to found a college. The following
autumn Kev. Otis A. Skinner of Boston was ap-
pointed general agent for raising funds, and in the
spring of 1848 entered upon what proved a most
difiicult task. It was a very large sum to be raised
at that time in a small denomination little accus-
tomed to giving, and with no general interest as
yet in the cause of education, and the subscription
was not completed till the spring of 1851. On the
16th of September in that year the subscribers
to the fund met in Boston, and elected trustees
representing all the New England states, with New
York, Pennsylvania, and Ohio.
The original convention had expressed the opin-
ion that the college should be located in the valley
of the Hudson or the Moliawk ; but the board of
trustees, to whom the question of location had been
referred, found that the principal part of the sub-
scriptions to the fund had been obtained in Massa-
chusetts, and that the promise of pecuniary support
would be greatest in the vicinity of Boston. Very
advantageous ofi"ers of land and money were made
by Dr. Oliver Dean of Franklin, Mass., on condi-
tion that the college should be located in that
town ; but after mature consideration the present
site was chosen. Twenty acres of land, afterwards
made up to about one hundred acres, were given
by Charles Tufts of Somerville, and the institution
located upon it received his name, in accordance
with what has been a very common custom in the
founding of American colleges. Other prominent
benefactors of the college at the outset or during
its earlier years were Silvanus Packard and Thomas
A. Goddard of Boston, Dr. Dean of Franklin,
Dr. William J. Walker of Newport, K. I., Mr.
Wade of Woburn, and Timothy Cotting of Medford.
While the first subscription of $100,000
for building purposes was raised only by the ut-
most exertion, probably no other college in the
country has received during its early }ears, for
current expenses and permanent funds, so large an
amount from so many donors as Tufts College.
The question of location having been decided
early in January, 1852, application was immedi-
ately made to the legislature of Massachusetts for
a charter, which was granted in the usual form and
with all the usual privileges, April 21, 1852. The
charter authorized the conferring of all except
medical degrees, and this restriction was subse-
1 Communicated by Professor W. quently removed. The first board of trustees,
R. Shipman. of Tufts Coi-
after incorporation, consisted of twenty gentlemen.