Chapter 1: The Founding
As of September 1972, the College Park campus of the University of
Maryland consisted of more than 1,000 acres. The faculty numbered some
____ members, the staff another ____. The student enrollment for day and
night classes topped 35,000. To trace the growth and explain the
development of this campus, the fourth most populous in the country, we
must begin with the founding of the first school situated on this site -- The
Maryland Agricultural College. On October 6, 1859, this institution opened
for the business of education with 34 students, several domestic and farm
laborers, 3 professors, 1 registrar, and an absent president. As of that date
the campus consisted of 4 buildings and three barns set on approximately
428 acres.
The Founders
Since the full story of the conditions, ideas and men influential in the
movement to found the Maryland Agricultural College has been well told
elsewhere, only the salient factors will be briefly summarized here. One of
the most important was the exhaustion of much of Maryland’s farm soil
during the first half of the 19th century. This condition contributed to a drop
in land values that saw land selling in 1850 for half what it had sold for in
1810. An attendant drain in population saw 1/2 of Maryland’s young men
leaving the state in 1850. While this situation had been developing,
agricultural societies had begun to organize and to crusade for statesupported elementary and high schools. In 1848 a group of gentlemen
planters who belonged to the affluent Farmer’s Club of Baltimore,
membership limited to “intelligent farmers,” organized the Maryland
Agricultural College, and though no public school system yet existed, began
immediately to promote the cause of an agricultural college.
In his A History of the University of Maryland, George Callcott
describes the founders of the Maryland Agricultural College:
Many of them dabbled in politics, most were wealthy and most all
boasted proud old Maryland names. From the Eastern Shore
came James T. Earle, William T. Goldsborough, John C. Groome
and Samuel Hambleton; from the southern counties were John
S. Skinner, Nicholas B. Worthington, Robert Bowie, John H.
Sothoron, Allen Bowie Davis and William N. Mercer: from near
Baltimore came Ramsey McHenry, Charles Carroll, John
Merryman and Thomas Swann: and from the western counties
came John O. Wharton, Thomas Perry, J. Dixon Roman and
George R. Dennis. After Calvert, these men remarkably evenly
distributed over the state, were almost equally prominent as
planners, early trustees and large stockholders in the new
institution.
By all accounts, the hardest working and most influential planner was
Charles Benedict Calvert of Prince George’s County. A descendant of the
Lords Baltimore and a graduate of the University of Virginia, Calvert had
returned from school to manage his father’s 2,200 acre “Riversdale” estate.
An advocate of the newly popular scientific approach to farming, he helped
gain national attention for the plantation by use of machines, fertilizers,
irrigation and experimental crops. He also helped the struggling Samuel
Morse get congressional backing for his experimental telegraph, and the first
successful message was sent from his mansion, which still stands on
Riverdale road about 2 1/2 miles from the University. A president of the
Maryland Agricultural Society, a leader in the United States Agricultural
Society, he had earlier offered to donate 200 acres to endow a national
college of agriculture. He served in the state legislature and in 1861 in
congress, where he led the fight to establish the United States Bureau of
Agriculture, the forerunner of the present Department of Agriculture. The
first to advocate the cause of the Maryland Agricultural College, the most
persistent in pleading for its support, Calvert would provide the college with
a home, supervise the initial construction and later serve as its second
president. Wealthy and well educated, he was a “patrician in the finest
Jeffersonian tradition,” as were most of his fellow founders. And he, like
they, believed that science and education held solutions for the problems of
impoverished farmers.
Many of these wealthy planters had benefitted from the plight of the
poor, small acreage farmer. By buying up their failed farms at cut-rate prices,
they had been able to increase the size of their large, slave-staffed estates.
Worried nevertheless by the problem of soil exhaustion, they undoubtedly
expected to benefit also from the work of the proposed college’s agricultural
farm. Their interest in scientific farming as the answer to the problem had
been spurred by the recent work of the German chemist Justus von Liebig.
One of the co-founders of organic chemistry, von Liebig had been pioneering
in the use of artificial fertilizers to replenish the soil. The planters hoped
that the college and farm would help solve this recent crisis and also provide
scientific answers to a whole raft of ancient agricultural controversies. But,
according to their own statements and according to the historians, these
planters, who saw themselves as “gentlemen of talents, influence and
wealth,” saw their primary aim as essentially philanthropic: “to alleviate the
misfortunes of the laboring farmer.:” At least this was the aim that most of
them began with.
Shortly after formation of the Maryland Agricultural Society, a special
committee investigated the problem of financing the proposed college and
suggested the sale of $50,00 in stock certificates. This committee, headed by
Calvert, first petitioned the legislature in 1851 without success. By 1855,
however, the planters had exercised enough political influence to override
the remaining opposition--mainly some small farmers suspicious of the
planters and fearful of further taxation. On March 6, 1865, the Act to Endow
an Agricultural College became law. The argument of the bill was framed by
three premises: (1) “certain wise and virtuous citizens” wanted to establish
a college to teach the arts and sciences of successful farming, (2) the study
of agriculture had been neglected, and (3) the legislature should aid such
philanthropic attempts to disseminate useful knowledge that would help man
“subdue the earth and elevate the State.” By the light of such logic the
legislature saw fit to authorize members of this committee, now named
“commissioners,” to sell stock, and promised the commissioners an annual
$6,000 state appropriation to support the college they would establish.
Probably the most important element of this bill was the fact that the
college was chartered as a private institution. An important condition of the
charter required the commissioners to raise $50,000 in stock subscriptions
and collect half the amount within two years. At that point the stockholders
could elect a board of trustees with one representative from each county and
one from Baltimore City. (This arrangement was later amended to include at
large trustees from the Western Shore, the Eastern Shore and the District of
Columbia.) The legislature set the price of a share at $25, and the
commissioners put Robert Bowie in charge of canvassing and collecting.
Despite the optimism of the planters and several large purchases, only
$43,000 had been subscribed by September 1, 1857. At a meeting on that
date the members of the board of commissioners subscribed the remaining
amount and authorized an agent to begin collections. It now appears that
the commissioners never amassed the subscribed total. The legislature of
1858 tried to help raise more money by lowering the price of a share to $5,
but as late as 1866 the total collected amounted to only $43,500. Partially
because the farming class and state legislature were reluctant to support
heavily what was essentially a private institution, the trustees would soon
face a crippling financial crisis.
The Rossborough Tract
In 1858, however, poor support produced little discouragement in the
enthusiastic planters. By January 5 of that year the stockholders were
legally able to elect a board of trustees to begin the business of the college.
The trustees then immediately voted Charles B. Calvert president of the
board and Nicholas B. Worthington secretary. They hired John O. Wharton
to be register at an annual salary of $1,000, and appointed Carroll, Eldridge,
Merryman, Mitchell and Worthington to a committee for site selection. Allen
B, Davis submitted a statement on the principles that should guide this
committee and then offered to donate, provided the board locate the college
there, a 100 acre farm in Montgomery County about 12 miles from
Washington, DC. Others offered farms at reduced prices.
The members of the committee visited the most likely sites and
analyzed the various proposals submitted. In their report, they presented to
the board at its next meeting on the 20th of the same month, they simply
stated advantages and disadvantages of each of the farms visited and made
no explicit recommendations. When they finished quizzing the examiners,
the members of the board held a series of ballotings, after each of which they
dropped from further consideration the entry with lowest number of votes.
Through this process the trustees selected on the 8th ballot the
Rossborough farm offered by Board president Charles Calvert.
Any discussion of the financial transactions of the first trustees has to
be rather tentative. The records they left were sufficiently confusing that
even their contemporaries soon (and wrongly) suspected mismanagement. In
the case of their first purchase, the acquisition of land from the Board’s
president, conflicting records survive. The Prince George’s County Land
Records state that the “consideration” was $20,000. Other sources-- entries
from an old college journal, the first report of the register-- indicate that
Calvert asked a price of $50 per acre for a total of $21,400. As we shall see,
the trustees, even at the higher price, received a bargain.
Further complicating this particular transaction was the fact that
Charles Calvert had inherited this parcel of land in common with his older
brother, George. To ensure that the college he had long advocated was
located near his home, Charles offered the trustees attractive payment
terms. He agreed to accept only $8,000 in cash, an additional $3400 in stock,
and said that he would remain the college’s creditor for the remaining
$10,000 -- which probably constituted most, if not all of his share from the
sale. The yearly interest on this loan was set at 6%, but records indicate
only two interest payments of $600 each were ever made. While he lived
Charles never received any payments on the principle, and according to
Callcott, the trustees never expected him to collect it.
George Henry Calvert, however, apparently did not share Charles’
passions for the rural life and for the struggling agricultural college. As soon
as Charles had returned from the University of Virginia to take over
management of the plantation, George left “Riversdale” to travel in Europe
and to settle in Newport, Rhode Island, where he wrote prolifically and
served once as mayor. After death of his younger brother in 1864, he would
return and press for repayment of the debt.
The $21,400 price was a bargain because the land was probably worth
considerably more. The county land records show that this plat took its
name from Richard Ross, who sold the following 4 contiguous parcels to a
John Davis in 1814:
(1)
(2)
(3)
(4)
the Rossborough farm -- 232 & 3/8 acres “more or less”;
the Arthur Stamp tract (enlarged) -- 136 & 1/4 acres “more or less”;
an unnamed tract -- 2 acres & 26 perches;
the addition of “Godfather’s Gift” -- 36 & 1/2 acres “more or less”
According to the deed, these parcels, totaling 407 & 1/2 acres, “more or
less,” were to be combined into one farm and called “Rossborough,” and sold
for $40,000. This tract became part of the Calvert estate in 1822, when
George Calvert bought it from John Davis for the identical sum of $40,000.
Then in 1837, the senior Calvert deeded “Rossborough” and “Lordship’s
Kindness” to his two sons. Apparently it was this “Rossborough” plot now
increased to 428 acres “more or less,” that Charles Calvert sold to the
Maryland Agricultural College. Though land values around the state had
been declining during the first half of the century, the value of this parcel
had been enhanced by construction of the Baltimore and Ohio railroad line.
In 1832 the line had been opened between Baltimore and Bladensburg.
In 1835 after congress reversed its earlier decision to keep the iron monster
out of the capital city, the railroad was extended into Washington, DC. The
line passed less than 1/4 mile from the eastern edge of the plot, and officials
promised to open a station for the proposed college.
Though they never suspected it, the trustees actually received not
“less” but considerably “more” than 428 acres as a result of inaccuracies in
the 1858 deed description. One 20th century surveyor would later compute
the area at slightly over 444 acres. According to M.A. Pyle in his 1937 study
of this deed, the 1858 description was probably based on three older surveys,
each of which used a different median. The resulting inaccuracies and the
subsequent removal or destruction of landmarks has made it difficult to
ascertain the precise boundaries of this tract, especially along the north line.
On p. __ is a picture of an old 19th century plat of the tract. The original now
hangs in Rossborough Inn.
Trustees, officials and supporter saw many benefits to the choice
besides the price and convenient terms. The location -- 9 miles north of
Washington and 28 miles south of Baltimore -- was a primary advantage, but
it came in for slightly inconsistent praise. The site was reasonably near the
geographic center of the state (see map on p. __), and its position on an
important railroad line made it one of the most accessible spots in the state.
Many thought proximity to the nation’s capital would be a double boon: it
could help create national interest in the school, and the students would be
able to use the scientific institutes and libraries connected with the federal
government.
Others, however, had advocated a site more isolated from large cities.
One of them was Benjamin Hallowell, the well known educator, scientist and
farmer from Montgomery County, who advised the trustees on many matters
connected with organizing a new college and would later serve as the first
president. Favoring an early version of the “ivory tower” approach to
education, Hallowell had argued that:
the college should not be too near a city nor too convenient to
railroad station or steamboat landing. My idea might be gathered
by imagining a very large ship or barge with everything on board
that could be needed - president, professors, teachers,
physicians, everything the very best of its line, farm and all -and then push it out into mid-ocean, as a floating island,
to come to shore only twice a year and have no communication
with it at other times.
Though the trustees ignored his warnings about the railroad station, some of
them still considered the location sufficiently isolated to be morally
healthful. Nicholas Worthington, trustee, editor of the American Farmer and
later president of the college, rhapsodized that in this setting the students:
may begin to live, growing up like young plants in their simple
dependence, rivaling the flowers in their innocent beauty and the
birds in their careless joy; and away from the unhealthful
atmosphere and the impure, corrupting associations of the city,
the nation’s children may be pursed into vigorous health, and
simpleminded virtue, and pure and undefiled religion.
In fact, the countryside surrounding the new agricultural college was
appropriately rural, sparsely settled and populated mainly by owners,
laborers and slaves on a few large and widely separated farms. One of the
largest and closest, of course, was Calvert’s nationally known 2,000 acre
“Riversdale” estate. In Adelphi several miles to the west was a grist mill
then known as Freeman’s and later Rigg’s Mill, which had been in operation
since the early 1800’s. Another operated by Walker and Gross was located to
the east where Calvert and Edmonston roads intersect.
Though small towns were considered a source of “refining influence,”
none were in the immediate vicinity, and the nearest were not known for
their refinements. Berwyn, College Park and Riverdale were still 20 to 30
years in the future. Beltsville, a five mile horse or train ride north, consisted
of two dozen homes, a store and a post office grouped around the train
station and a country crossroads. Two miles south of the campus,
Hyattsville held a dozen and a half homes and one combination store and
post office. A mile farther in the same direction brought one to Bladensburg,
the nearest town of any appreciable size. Once an important seaport,
Bladensburg had begun to decline as a trade center after the river silted up
in the late 18th century, and was know at this time primarily for its active
slave market and its infamous dueling grounds. Its main source of “refining
influence” for the college students was probably the “Female Seminary” run
by the Misses K__ and Lyons.
The sparse population of the locality paralleled that of the county and
state as a whole. Formed in 1695 by an act of the General Assembly, Prince
George’s County originally included the present Montgomery, Frederick,
Washington Allegany and Garrett counties, and was named to honor Prince
George of Denmark, then advisor to William and Mary, later consort to
Queen Anne. After several reductions, the county reached its present
expanse in 17__ when the present territory of Washington, DC was donated
for a new nation’s capital. By 1860, 687,000 resided in the state, 212,000 in
Baltimore City, but only 22,000 lived in Prince George’s 486 square miles -- a
close approximation of the per county average over the state. Of this 22,000,
9,605 were white, 7,332 slaves, and 4,864 free negroes.
The image of Prince George’s County as a heavily populated suburban
adjunct of Washington, DC is a product of the last 40 years, especially the
post World War II era. As the accompanying chart show (see p.__) the county
population grew very slowly between 1860 and the turn of the century.
Between 1900 and 1940 the number tripled, but since 1940 it has increased 7
fold to a 1970 total of 657,628, nearly as many who lived in the state as a
whole when the Maryland Agricultural College opened. During the last
period, the campus’s vaulted proximity to the nation’s capital would finally be
a significant factor, as the University of Maryland would develop then into
one of the country’s largest state universities, partly as a result of the large
numbers of families living within driving distance of the capitol and College
Park. But throughout the first 80 years the campus that the trustees chose
in 1858 would be surrounded mainly by farms and the residences of faculty
members.
A description of the tract as it appeared can be found in the first
Report of the Register:
The soil is of various quality and condition, affording fair
opportunity for experiment. It is chiefly a loam of good character.
In elevation it varies from meadow artificially drained, to bottom
lands, rolling and hilly. It has wood in abundance from old field
pine to heavy white oak timber.
Another observer described the site a “a large basin with a rising ground in
the center.” The hills and connecting ridges on which most of the college
buildings would rise stood to the west of the road. Four valleys intersected
the high ground -- two running directly west towards the road, and two
slanting off to the southwest. Currying through the northern section was
Paint Branch, the stream that would provide swimming spots and drinking
water for most of the next 60 years.
The First Buildings
Soon after the land purchase was completed, committees were at work
under Calvert’s direction buying equipment, hiring laborers to run the farm,
letting contracts for the renovation of existing buildings and for the
construction of the main college hall and two faculty residences. The only
buildings on the land were Rossborough Inn, a large barn with a brick
basement, and several sheds. It was decided to house the register in the
house and to utilize the other structures clustered behind it for what was
envisaged as an experimental and model farm.
The Inn, now known as Rossburg Inn, is the only building on the
campus erected before 1898 that is still standing. It dates from 1798 and for
many years served as a popular inn and tavern. The road in front of it was
part of the main north-south stage coach route, and was incorporated as the
Washington-Baltimore Turnpike on December 17, 1812. John W. Brown, a
driver for the Stockton and Stokes stage coach company, operated the inn for
a time as Brown’s Hotel. The inn was usually the breakfast stop on the run
from Georgetown to Baltimore and points north. Travelers would often stop
here for the night, and planters would gather for fox hunts and other
entertainments. During the War of 1812 the tavern apparently served briefly
as headquarters for some of the American forces pouted at the Battle of
Bladensburg by the British troops, who proceeded on to Washington to burn
the White House. In 1824 General Lafayette, the French statesman and
general who served with the Continental Army during the American
Revolution, spent the night of August 11 at Rossborough before visiting the
capitol.
Wharton, the register, described the Inn as a 40 foot square two story
building with a kitchen section at the back and wings on either side.
Sometime in the next 30 years the wings were dismantled. During this
period the house was used as a residence for the register, a boarding house
for college guests, a home for President Worthington from 1864 to 1867 and
for various faculty members from time to time. After the passage of the
Hatch Act of 1887, the house, sans wings, became the headquarters for the
Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station,the first such institution in the
country. To expand its facilities, the attic was changed to a third floor, which
probably resulted in the construction of a mansard roof to replace the
original gable type. In 1938 the university, with money from the Works
Progress Administration, restored the structure by constructing wings on the
sides and an addition to the rear, and by replacing the mansard with a gable
roof. Since then, it has served as a facility club.
Though none of the buildings erected by the founders still stand, two of
them, the main hall and the president’s house, would have far reaching
effects on the eventual development of the campus. The most important, of
course, was the main hall. Since future expansion, still 30 years away,
would cluster around it, this structure would influence later planning
primarily through its placement. Had the trustees built in the valleys or on
the plains, the large scale formal compositions attempted by later planners
would have been easier to accomplish, though the final aesthetic effect
would have been less impressive. But they built on hilltops, and they had
both practical and aesthetic reasons for doing so.
No complete explicit statement of their intentions survives, but in the
terrain and architecture they chose, they left an articulate record of their
reasoning. One practical concern that Wharton mentions is healthfulness.
A widespread notion was that swampy places (and decaying animal or
vegetable matter) produced “miasma” -- a poisonous vapor thought to infect
the air and people with disease. A high place was preferred for the college
building because it would be well “ventilated” which would disperse all
“miasma influences.” Another practical concern must have been drainage. A
characteristic common to the various soil conditions was a tendency, still
evident every spring, for the soil to retain water and to drain it very slowly, if
at all. Water should run off the hilltops more quickly. Aesthetic
considerations probably included the desire to provide the students with
“inspiring views of the surrounding countryside” and the wish to present a
“picturesque” scene to the travelers on the boulevard and the railroad. Thus
the hall was erected on a wooded hilltop plateau with ridges running off the
northwest, the southeast and the east.
The exact placement of this structure on the small hilltop would cause
considerable problems for later planners. (See Chapter 3 pp. __ to __) Since
the trustees hoped to double the size of the building within a few years, they
sited it slightly to the south of, rather than directly atop, the east running
ridge. The eastern facade of the building was roughly 150 feet in front of the
present Morrill Hall and approximately in line with the front of Dining Hall
#1 (see sketch on p.__). The building that the trustees planned (see sketch
on p.__) would have been 2 1/2 times as long as the section they built and
would have continued across the the crest to the northern slope. Expansion
would not come for more than 30 years, and when it did, it took the form of a
small quadrangle of buildings clustered close by. Because of the dominant
but off center position of this huge wing, the first quadrangle would be
jammed over onto the northern slope of the rather small plateau, with some
of the building awkwardly sited below the crest of the hill.
To impress observers along the boulevard, the trustees faced the
building to the east. Another reason for this alignment may have been the
fashion of “Orientalization,” as it was called in architectural circles. This
Islamic practice of facing major buildings toward the east, especially temples
and mausoleums, had as a result of the crusades been adopted in Western
Europe by the builders of the Gothic cathedrals, and had enjoyed a vogue in
this country. Hence the alignment would have been compatible with the
Gothic architecture the trustees chose for this building. With only a few
exceptions (Harford Hall for one, Ritchie for another) all buildings on the
present campus are aligned along longitudinal axes that are parallel or
perpendicular to this original building.
Though the name of the building’s architect is not known, the style he
favored can definitely be identified by the general name of Gothic Revival.
Essentially a medieval style, Gothic had enjoyed wide usage throughout
Northern Europe from 1150 to 1500. The revival of this style had begun in
England during the second quarter of the 18th century when landscape
designers began placing picturesque but artificial ruins in the new
naturalistic gardens they were creating. Gothic architecture then became
the most popular style during the first half of the 19th century. Its chief
monuments were churches, but during its later stages architects applied the
style to a variety of structures, including municipal buildings, railroad
stations, factories, etc. Spurred by the work of Upjohn, Towne and Davis,
Renwick and Downing, Gothic Revival began to replace Greek Revival on the
American campuses during the two decades preceding the Civil War.
The Gothic elements in the main hall of Maryland Agricultural College
were towers, the pointed arches, the steep roof and the buttresses that
supported the tall brick walls. In the arched doorway, the arched center
windows and the tower design, the 19th century architect was also imitating
motifs of some forerunners of the Gothic, specifically Italianate or Lombardic
Romanesque, which first flourished from 1000 to 1200. Renwick’s
Smithsonian Institute (1849) was one nearby example of this particular
variant of Gothic that the revival brought back into use. Another example
that may have influenced the trustees was the Calvert Station in Baltimore
(see picture p.) that had been designed by John Niernsee and built in 1855.
The name, proximity, date and design of this building (particularly the towers
and central section) encourage the speculation that this Baltimore firm may
have been the architects for the college hall. No additional evidence,
however, has yet been unearthed.
The trustees of the Maryland Agricultural College could have had
several reasons for preferring a Gothic design. Besides enjoying a general
vogue, it was, according to the reigning Romanticism, particularly appropriate
for such an informal, natural setting. A Gothic castle (or faked ruins of one)
on a remote wooded hilltop was a popular image, frequently recreated in
English landscape gardens (called “wilderness gardens” by Passeau). One
practical reason for the trustees’ choice was undoubtedly economy of
construction. According to one authority, the original change from Greek
Revival to Gothic coincided in this country with the financial panic of 1837,
“which brought to a halt many ambitious college schemes.” An advantage of
the Gothic style is that a large structure could easily be designed so that any
one of several sections when built could present a finished appearance.
Such was the case with the main hall of the Maryland Agricultural College.
Construction of the first section took more than a year. On june 16,
1858, the trustees met at the campus to award the construction contracts,
carpentry work assigned to Enos Chapman of Philadelphia, brickwork to
Charles Ogle, slating to Joseph Griffith, plastering to W. Connelly.
Supervision was apparently assigned to or assumed by Charles Calvert.
From then to completion he was on hand to oversee all important technical
and ceremonial details of the project. According to one of his colleagues
Calvert worked as hard as any paid employee. When the cost of commercial
bricks proved prohibitive, he set up a kiln to produce the needed stone.
When trustees and supporters met on August 24, 1858, Calvert laid the
cornerstone and invited everyone back to the mansion to celebrate his
birthday. The college finally opened on October 6, 1859 with Calvert again
presiding over the festivities.
The “wing” that the unknown architect designed and that Chapman and
Calvert built was 120 feet long, 54 wide, and 5 stories high, not counting the
attic. It was built of brick that was painted white. Some described the color
as ivory, others as drab. The basement contained a kitchen, dining room,
pantry and wash rooms; the ground floor held 8 lecture and class rooms and
the necessary offices. The upper floors consisted of dormitory rooms for 100
- 120 students. Each room was 12 feet by 23 feet, and was furnished with
two beds, wardrobes and presses.
According to one supporter, special care was taken to make sure the
building was well ventilated by the prevailing breezes. A water wheel pumped
water from Paint Branch into a nearby reservoir. An apparatus for steam
heat was somewhere on the premises, probably in the basement. To the rear
a small gas house manufactured gas from coal and pumped it into each room
to light the lamps that produced a glow “as brilliant as any city street-light.”
In order to attract competent professors into the wilderness, the
regents also built two faculty residences on the campus. They were identical
two story frame examples of “Carpenter’s Gothic,” fringed around the eaves
and porticos with gingerbread decorations that the revival had made
fashionable. One was built on a hill on the northwest edge of the campus,
just east of where the Health Service now stands. This house served as the
president’s residence until the fire of 1912 that destroyed the original college
hall. It was then converted and used as a men’s dormitory until the end of
the first World War, when secluded quarters were needed to house the
women that were beginning to attend the college. For the next several
decades the building continued as a women’s residence, and during this later
period thereby influenced the decision to group the women’s dormitories
around this northwestern hill, where they would be separated from men’s
dormitories on the southern side of the campus. The house next provided a
home for football coach, Tom Nugent. Its final function was to serve as the
burning house for the students of the Fire Service to practice on. It was
razed in this way in 1965 to make way for a new wing for H.J. Patterson Hall.
The other residence only remained in the possession of the college for
six years. Located where an apartment complex now stands on a hill behind
the College Park shopping center, this structure was intended to house
faculty members. One of these professors, Dr. Montgomery Johns, in effect
loaned the college some money when he joined the faculty in 1860. When
the school was unable to redeem the stocks he had bought, he accepted in
1865 the deed to this house and to the surrounding 62 1/2 acres. (See p.__
for details about the transaction and the sketch of this plot on p.__)
All told, the trustees expended on lands, buildings, furniture,
improvements to the farm and grounds roughly twice the amount they had
collected. The main hall alone cost $46,902, the faculty residences $7,352,
furniture another $6,000. Total expenditure came to over $98,000. Since
total income, counting two years of state appropriations that began in 1858,
amounted to less than $56,000, the college began with an original debt of
approximately $43,000. The trustees, however, were not worried. They
thought that their largest single creditor, Calvert, would wait repayment of
his $10,000 indefinitely and that student tuitions would soon cover the other
$33,000. At the time these were reasonable expectations, but unforeseen
developments would soon disappoint them.
Aims, Students, Curriculum
The first of these developments was of the founders’ own making.
Between the time they christened their school the Maryland Agricultural
College and the time they officially opened it, the founders radically revised
the aims of the institution. As a result they came to regret the title they had
chosen since it did not accurately describe the kind of school that eventually
emerged. According to Callcott, the founders had conflicting ideas from the
first about what the college would accomplish and who would attend it. The
planters definitely hoped to benefit from the scientific findings of the
experimental farm. Some also argued that the school should primarily train
overseers to manage their plantations. The dominant motivation, however,
was an expressed desire to uplift the poor farmer; to improve his economic
status by providing him with scientific and practical farm training, and to
enable the “clodhopper” by subjecting him to some traditional liberal arts
education.
As the planning financing and building proceeded, the question of the
school’s aims lay dormant. As the school’s opening approached, trustees
had to decide upon a curriculum and hire professors. The issue was
reopened for debate and a startling reversal developed. George Callcott, the
university historian has aptly described their dilemma:
Increasingly they came to realize that a European - style manual
labor institution was not practical in America, that the great
mass of ordinary farmers in Maryland were uninterested in their
philanthropy contemptuous of their ideals for refinement, and
unprepared for college work. Moreover, in the process of building
the College, the trustees had grown immensely fond of it, and
when Calvert proclaimed it the best “in the world,” he and many
of the trustees had persuaded themselves that it must be
dedicated to educating their sons. . . In a series of tumultuous
meetings held before the opening ceremonies, the manual labor,
charity-school advocates were decisively defeated. . . .
As a result, they set board and tuition charges at $260 a year, making M.A.C.
one of the 6 most expensive colleges in the country and effectively removing
it from the economic range of most farmer’s sons.
Another result of this decision was that only 34 students showed up
on opening day to take rooms in a building that could house over 100. Of
these, 13 were directly related to the founders -- Calverts, Carrolls, Bowies,
Pacas, Goldsboroughs, Whartons, Sothorons, Sands, Skinners, etc. Of the
rest, many were scions of well established families from all over the state.
Such families could afford the steep charges, but the tiny college would find
it difficult to survive, let alone expand, with only the support of such a small
segment of the Maryland populace.
After the dust of the departing carriages had settled and the students
finished hauling their trunks through the nearly empty halls, they probably
turned next to the semi-annual task of deciding on a class schedule. When
they did, they found a curriculum that considerably downplayed, indeed
almost eliminated, “agricultural training.” The student had to take all the
courses offered by four of five departments:
1. Ancient Languages -- Latin and Greek.
2. Modern Languages -- French, and either German, Spanish or
Italian.
3. Natural Sciences -- Botany, Entomology, Chemistry, Physics,
Geology or Practical Farming.
4. English -- Rhetoric, Composition, World History, United States
History, Bookkeeping, Philosophy, Ethics, Evidences of
Christianity.
5. Mathematics -- Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Calculus,
Surveying, Civil Engineering, Astronomy.
Since they were now educating their own offspring, the planters now said
that the purpose of the school was not so much “to teach the pupils to be
farmers, as to make liberally educated gentlemen.”
To accomplish this, the architects of the curriculum -- Calvert,
Wharton, and Hallowell -- included the traditional core of a liberal arts
education -- ancient languages and literature. More importantly they gave
equal status to the courses in natural sciences, which were usually excluded
from university curricula. This innovation was partly a result of the planters’
hopes that science would replenish the exhausted soil, but was largely a
result of Hallowell’s advice. Aware that there was a dearth of formalized
agricultural knowledge, he argued that the trustees should down grade
agricultural education and emphasize instead work in those sciences that
might someday contribute to the development of a true science of agriculture.
The curriculum the planters produced resembles that of a small 20th century
college of arts and sciences. Which meant that it bore little resemblance to
the kind of school they originally envisaged, and offered little practical
relevance to the kind of farmer for whom it was originally intended.
Afloat
The ship was launched, but with few paying passengers and no captain
aboard. The trustees had waited until shortly before the October opening to
name Hallowell to be the first president. Since he was then visiting in New
York, news of the appointment reached him some time later. After some
hesitation, Hallowell put aside his reservation about the location, extracted
a promise that no slave labor be used on the college farm, and accepted the
post. When he arrived three weeks late, he found that the students had
followed his lead: all of them had taken the science course, while only a few
chose ancient languages. After a busy month in which he put the students
to work hoeing, plowing and planting a hour a day, Hallowell resigned due to
illness and overwork, and the omnipresent Calvert took over as acting
president.
By the end of the first year Calvert had cajoled another 34 students to
sign aboard, but for a variety of reasons, the projection of 200 would never be
realized during the 19th century. With so few paying passengers, the large
debt would soon prove an unwieldy ballast. Mixing his metaphor, Hallowell
had written that college should be a ship or floating island that would only
touch shore twice a year and have no communication with it at other times.
One reason for the college’s failure to grow quickly was its disinterest in
communicating with the farming class on which it depended for the students
and support to expand. Since the farmers heart was never touched by a felt
need for the kind of education the college offered, he often did his best to
close up the state’s pocketbook. As a result of the difficulties summarized in
the next chapter, money for significant expansion would not materialize for
nearly 40 years. Large new buildings would rise only after a new generation
of trustees and the energetic President Sylvester had successfully converted
the college, at the cost of the liberal arts curriculum, into the kind of
vocational school that the founders had first wanted.
The only physical expansion before 1893 would be the construction of a
frame gymnasium sometime before 1861 and a brick laundry before 1863.
Nothing else is known about this first gymnasium except that it was
thoroughly dilapidated and out of use by 1888. The laundry was built into the
hill behind and below the main hall. It was later expanded by a frame
addition and converted into a chemistry laboratory. After the construction of
a new chemistry building in 1897, it was reconverted into a laundry.
Until 1893 the main hall, soon called the Barracks, was the only
substantial building on the campus. Since the college was located in midwilderness, the Barracks had to serve almost all the physical needs of the
students, faculty and staff. In addition to containing student rooms, faculty
apartments, lecture halls and laboratories, it soon was housing: chapel,
armory, museum, library, parlor, bakery, commadant’s office, etc. Until its
destruction by fire in 1912, this incomplete, ivory towered “wing” accurately
symbolized the unfortunate college it housed: both were half realized
dreams, floating islands that finally foundered.
(First few pages of Chapter 2 were missing,
therfore the following is from rough notes.)
At a distance the college building with its buttresses and tower
presented to the visitor a picturesque facade from its woodsy setting in the
hilltop grove of cedars, elms and oaks. From an attractive circle directly in
front of the front door, the main road went gracefully down a valley towards
the College Avenue entrance. At the edge of the grove stood a flagpole and
several Civil War cannon, and to the east ran the wide ridgetop parade
ground well trampled by generations of marching students. The remaining
and major portion of the college grounds, which supposedly constituted a
model, experimental farm was both unpicturesque and unproductive. This
was especially noticeable to a visiting farmer. Such visitors when they came
had either succeeded or failed at farming without assistance from the state,
so to see mismanagement with taxpayer dollars was disappointing, indeed.
“By now the farm clearly showed a state of neglect and
dilapidation, mismanagement and exhaustion. Nearly all the
land was worn from continued cropping and in need of careful
refertilization. The fields to the east of the turnpike provided fair
grasslands for a few cows the college still possessed, but no
adequate pasture could be found on the rest of the grounds.
Fences were rotting, drainage ditches blocked, and whole fields
suffered from a long continuance of standing water. At the
intersection of two dirt roads, the old country road running west
and the turnpike, stood the headquarters of this struggling
operation -- the wingless, decaying Rossborough House, shaded
in the front by 4 ancient English elms and attended in the rear by
chicken yards, sheds and a barn.”
President’s Report 1891,
Debts were becoming onerous. Little or nothing has been paid on a
mortgage secured July 1, 1860 and the repayment date had been set for July
1, 1865.
Other debts included a three year 1862 bond issue for $10,000 and
several loans from college employees. Montgomery Johns, hired in 1860 as
the new “Professor of the SCience of Agriculture, Chemistry, Geology and
Mineralology,” had purchased $ 6,800 worth of bonds that were due for
retirement on July 1, 1865. And, according to Callcott, John Wharton, the
register, had loaned the college about $8,000.
First Aid
Financial assistance for the indigent college came first from the federal
government in the form of the Morrill Land Grant Act. In 1857, one year after
the Maryland General Assembly chartered M.A.C., Senator Justin Morrill of
Vermont introduced a bill to endow one agricultural and mechanical college
in each state of the Union. To the disappointment of the Maryland planters,
this bill was vetoed by President Buchanan after narrowly passing both
houses over the opposition of the southern states. When, in 1862, the bill
was re-passed in the absence of the southern states and signed into law by
President Lincoln, the trustees of M.A.C. were no longer eager to apply for
the federal funds. Despite the pleadings of President Onderdunk and their
worsening debt crisis, the trustees decided not to ask the general assembly
to appoint M.A.C. the recipient of federal money, perhaps fearing that
acceptance of the aid would change their scientific-humanistic college back
into the kind of technical institute that they had originally planned.
Farming and industrial interests in the state, however, were
sufficiently enthused to persuade the 1864 legislature to accept the act.
Since the purpose of the act was consistent with the arguments that the
supporters of M.A.C. had employed with the 1856 legislature, the assembly of
1865 designated this institution as the beneficiary of these funds.
Though this act helped rescue and found many of the small
institutions that would later develop into large state universities, it had
little impact on the Maryland Agricultural College. This bill was meant to
endow a college in each state that would “without excluding other scientific
or classical studies . . . teach such branches of learning as are related to
agriculture and the mechanic arts.” Since the Civil War was in progress,
Congress added to the 1862 version a stipulation that military training
should also be provided, thus laying the groundwork for post-World War I
ROTC programs. This language was sufficiently vague that the trustees
could operate their college for years without noticeably altering the
curriculum, except for the addition of military training.
The designation of M.A.C. as a land-grant institution left the school’s
financial crisis, as well as its curriculum, largely intact. Due to poor
management the amount finally realized from the act fell far below
reasonable expectations. Before resigning, Onderdunk had predicted that
the bill would create an additional $10,000 income yearly. Each state
received 30,000 acres of unsettled land from the public domain for each of its
representatives and senators in congress. The proceeds from the sale of the
property were to be invested to form a permanent endowment fund and
return at least 5% annually to the college. Since Maryland had 5
representatives, 2 senators and no large expanse of unsettled public land, it
received 210,000 acres in Michigan, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Kansas.
Unfortunately, Maryland agents quickly sold the the entire allotment to an
Ohio speculator at an unprofitable 53 and 1/2 cents per acre. Of the
17,430,000 acres that were sold around the country by new colleges, the high
return was $6.73 per acre, the low was 41 cents and acre and the average was
$1.65, over three times the rate received for the Maryland portions. The
Maryland Agricultural College thus received a total sum of only $ 112,504,
which yielded an annual income of roughly $5,000.
One of the few strings attached to the income was that none of it could
be used for the physical plant. The purpose of this provision was to
stimulate the states to support the new colleges more vigorously by
contributing at least to the construction and maintenance of the institution.
One result of this provision was to prohibit the trustees of M.A.C. from
construction of the next wing, originally planned to house a machine shop for
the mechanic arts. The trustees could use the money to pay instructors but
not to pay off the large founding debt.
Retrenching
Instead of applying for the Morrill Land Grant money in 1864, the
trustees decided to reduce the debt by utilizing the school’s one marketable
commodity -- land. In one of their infrequent business meetings they
resolved to sell off 205 of the 428 acres. The exasperated Onderdunk
resigned, Nicholas Worthington took over as acting president, opened the
school to any 12 year old who could read and write, and found buyers for
three separate tracts totaling 140 acres, “more or less.” These sales reduced
the debt by less that 1/4 and the campus by about 1/3.
The first parcel to be sold was the long finger pointing north. This
peninsula totaled 34 1/2 acres and was purchased in March 1865 by John
Berry of Washington for $ 1812.50 (Section A o Map, P.__)
The largest and eventually most valuable tract to be sold was the 62 &
5/8 acre parcel south of the campus along the west side of the turnpike.
(Section B on the map) The trustees deeded this property to Professor
Montgomery Johns to retire the $6,800 in bonds he had purchased in 1860.
Johns paid an additional $855.15 to close the transaction and also received
the faculty residence that had been built in 1859 at the cost of about $3,600.
Thus, the trustees received a total of $7,655.15 for a house and the land that
now holds the College Park Shopping Center and many businesses,
residential and apartment buildings. The gradual growth of the College Park
business area during the first half of the 20th century, in effect, established
the southern boundary of the main campus.
In June of 1867 the college sold a 43 acre lot just beyond the present
north gate to Christian Engle for $1,405.28. Section C on the map) Of the
140 acres sold, the University of Maryland has since reacquired most of the
Berry and Engl. tracts, but at considerably higher prices. In 1932 the
University had to pay $22,000 to repurchase 34 acres of the Engl. tract (listed
in the Financial Report as the Kelley Tract). The Berry property and some of
the Eng;e were part of the 1936 purchase of the 213 acre Buckley farm. The
sale of these three pieces during 1865-67 netted the Maryland Agricultural
College a total of $ 10,832.78.
(Diagram below shows tracts that made up M.A.C. campus)
Reorganization
It soon became evident that the land sales and the new federal income
would be insufficient to rescue the school from bankruptcy. Ambitious plans
for state ownership of a new university system were soon discussed in the
halls at Annapolis. Under these new proposals, the Maryland Agricultural
College would be linked briefly to a 4 campus University of Maryland system,
but the state would only purchase half, rather than full ownership. While
these visionary plans were being debated and revised, the college quietly
closed for the 1866-67 school year.
These new arrangements were primarily the work of Libertus Van
Bokkeln, an Episcopal minister and advocate of public education, who
persuaded the 1864 Maryland Constitutional Convention to create a
superintendent and collect taxes for a public school system. As the first
superintendent, he presented to the 1865 assembly a plan for a unified
public school system that included and expanded University of Maryland
comprised of St John’s, Washington College, the undergraduate division of
the Baltimore professional schools and the Maryland Agricultural College.
Though the legislators passed the plan, they failed to appropriate the funds
for purchasing the schools from their private owners, thus effectively
dooming the merger. The following year, Van Bokkeln did persuade the
assembly to rescue M.A.C. from debt by appropriating $45,000 to be paid in
three annual and equal installments. For their part, the trustees agreed to
give the state 4 places on the governing board and to deed the state of
Maryland half ownership in the college.
State ownership and university status would not come to the campus
of M.A.C. for another half century. When a new Maryland Constitutional
Convention convened in 1867, it abolished the proposed university system,
leaving the private trustees temporarily out of debt and effectively in control
of the school’s finances, plant and curriculum.
Survival
The two decade following the 1867 re-opening produced few changes
pertinent to this account of the physical development of the campus at
College Park (called “College Station” until 1888). Periods of spiraling debts
alternated with spasms of solvency. The enrollment occasionally rose over
100, but only 38 managed to graduate in 21 years. The only change of note to
the campus was the deterioration of the buildings. For a more detailed
account of the misfortunes and misadventures that prevented the expansion
predicted for the Maryland Agricultural College by its founders, the reader
should consult Chapter 8 of George Callcott’s history.
From 1867 to 1888, the trustees managed to retain the Morrill landgrant money and, for most of the time, the state appropriation of $6,000 per
annum while maintaining a curriculum that had little relevance to the spirit
of the act or the wishes of the farmers in the state. Since the Morrill Act
mentioned that the land grant college need not exclude the scientific and
classical studies, trustees and teachers continued the original emphasis on
these disciplines. Under Presidents Samuel Jones (1873-75) and William H.
Parker (1875-82) the engineering courses were strengthened and military
training, previously confined to a weekly drill to satisfy the requirements in
the Morrill Act for teaching military tactics, now became the core of student
life. Courses in agriculture, however, were few and poorly enrolled. Not
many farmers’ sons could manage the entrance requirements of proficiency
in Latin, algebra and history. Of those who gained admittance, few wanted to
study agriculture or return to the farms from which they had come.
During these years the farmers declined in relative wealth but
succeeded in acquiring more political influence through their associations
and Granges. Most of these organizations constantly attacked the college for
using federal and state funds to maintain a classical, scientific and military
institution instead of helping solve the farmer’s poverty. In 1876 they finally
succeeded in persuading their legislators to rescind the state’s annual
stipend. The attorney general first ruled that this violated the state’s
acceptance of the Morrill Act, but six years later he reversed himself. From
1882 - 1888, the Maryland Agricultural College received from the state an
appropriation of “five dollars and no more.”
Saddled with previous debt and supported only by the money from the
Morrill Act plus 30 some students a year, the college was soon $19,000 in
arrears. Clamoring creditor, some of whom gouged their client for 10-30%
interest, even had the college property advertised once at a sheriff’s sale.
Any prospective buyers must have found a physical plant in grave need of
thorough renovation.
An 1888 survey of campus conditions revealed a raft of problems.
Though the Barracks was still structurally sound, extensive internal repairs
were needed: the floors and stairs were “actually worn out by constant
service,” the drains and sewers were “obstructed,” the roof leaked badly.
Twenty years usage had left the other buildings in similar straits. The brick
laundry that had been built in 1863 and later converted to a chemistry
laboratory was now too small for the people and projects it had to
accommodate. The frame gymnasium of 1861 was so “dismantled and
dilapidated” that it was almost useless. Though Rossborough Inn probably
received more careful treatment, it had lost both its wings -- the last in 1878,
and the 70 year old center section and rear annex required considerable
refurbishing.
The mechanical systems still functioned, but authorities feared
imminent breakdowns or worse. A windmill pumped water from a nearby well
up to two large tanks located in the attic of the Barracks. These tanks, one
of steel and one of wood, had a capacity of 6,000 gallons, and supplied the
main building, college laboratory, president’s house, the experimental
station and laboratory. The plumbing, however, was already in “dangerous
condition” and the whole system would be the cause of “serious and grave
concern” by 1892. Though the college still boasted of its modern steam heat,
the arrangement was both inefficient and hazardous. Three separate boilers
required a comparatively high expenditure of fuel in relation to the actual
heat provided. Because these boilers were placed in the basements of
inhabited buildings, they raised the possibility of explosion and fire in living
and working quarters. The same danger was presented by the coal oil lamps
that were used to light the buildings.
Solvency
Beginning in 1887, the financial picture and educational philosophy of
the school began to change markedly. Once again new federal assistance
was available, and this time the trustees never hesitated. Immediately after
passage of the Hatch Act of 1887, which provided and annual $15,000 for one
agricultural experiment station in each state, the trustees began petitioning
Maryland legislators to locate the station at the college. Considerable
persuasion was required since some of them preferred attaching the station
to Johns Hopkins or establishing it in place of the widely maligned
“agricultural” college. The trustees, however, persisted and college
prospered. Not only did the legislature agree to join the station to the
college, but it renewed its annual $6,000 appropriation. To acquire the
station, the trustees offered the use of the college farm and the Rossborough
House. Though the station and the college were officially separate, they
began with the same president and the same board of trustees managed both
budgets. To reacquire the annual appropriation, the trustees agreed to an
expanded board of 18 members to include only 5 private stockholders and one
“practical farmer” from each congressional district of the state.
More and greater federal help materialized in 1890. The second Morrill
Act passed that year and supplied an additional yearly bequest of $15,000
with yearly increases of $1,000 up to an annual $25,000. The new major
stipulation to this bill was a requirement that education be provided without
distinction to race or color. To comply, the trustees immediately applied 1/5
of the money to the eastern shore Normal and Industrial Branch, owned at
that time by Morgan College of Baltimore. As a result of these increases, the
budget for Maryland Agricultural College rose from $10,000 to almost $50,000
in only 5 years.
The curriculum changes were almost as drastic. The man responsible
was the new president, Henry Alvord. Chosen to head up both the
experimental station and the college, he responded by abruptly turning the
college into an agricultural training school. A founder of the American
Association of Land-Grant Colleges and a nationally known scientist, he had
no college degree, and cared little for traditional curricula. He made reading,
spelling, and common school arithmetic the only prerequisites for admission,
and a B.S. in agriculture the only degree program. Calling the school the
“people’s College,” he eliminated tuition and reduced living costs.
Enrollment, however, did not significantly increase, and the trustees worried
about this and the declining standards. In July 1892, they announced
Alvord’s resignation.
During Alvord’s tenure, he and the trustees did formulate serious
plans for renovation and expansion of the physical plant. They wanted
bathrooms for the barracks, a central heating plant, a new gas plant, an
addition to the Chemistry Lab and a new Science Hall. The changes began in
1888 with a new coat of paint for the Barracks and an addition of a third floor
for Rossborough Inn. The only expansion work that was accomplished before
Alvord left was a frame addition to the brick foundation of the old laundry and
chemical laboratory. It was under his successor, Robert Sylvester, that the
appearance and shape of the college property began to change dramatically
for the first time since the founding.
Rossborough Inn
Plan for Campus 1918
Plan for Campus 1923
Aerial View of Campus circa 1965