In 1873 the number of school corporations in the county was 42,

increased to 87 in 1909. The number of ungraded schools in the former

year was 178, and 166 in the latter year. The average number of months

the schools were in session has increased from 6.6 in 1873 to 8.9 in

1909, and the average compensation from $39.78 to $73.50 for males, and

from $26.33 to $50.85 for females. The number of female teachers

employed in 1873 was 244, and in 1909, 503. The number of male teachers

was 90 and 40 respectively.

In the matter of attendance there has been a vast betterment. In 1873

there were 460 boys and 544 girls between the ages of seven and

fourteen not in school. In 1909 these numbers were 29 and 17.

The value of school property in 1873 was $240,105; in 1909, $814,300.

The value of school apparatus was $2,309.50 in 1873, and in 1909,

$20,035.25. There were in 1873 in the school libraries 482 volumes,

which was increased to 17,079 in 1909.

There are now between twenty-five and thirty fine school buildings in

the country districts. They are modern in all respects, being supplied

with slate blackboards, hardwood floors, ventilators, cloak rooms,

bookcases and cupboards. Several have furnaces and cloak rooms in the

basements. Some of the buildings are supplied with telephones, making

it possible for the county superintendent and patrons to communicate

direct with the school.

The plans and specifications for these buildings are owned by the

county, and are furnished gratis to the school districts wishing to

build. All of these school-houses except two or three are not only

provided with libraries, cloak rooms, etc., but are also provided with

a good organ.

This year there is being installed a hot air ventilating system which

keeps the warm air pure, the cold air being taken directly from the

outside and passed through the hot air radiators before being allowed

to enter the school room.

[Illustration: CORNELL COLLEGE IN 1865]

CHAPTER XXIII

_Historical Sketch of Cornell College_

BY WILLIAM HARMON NORTON, ALUMNI PROFESSOR OF GEOLOGY, CORNELL COLLEGE

Linn county may well take pride in the history of her oldest school of

higher education, founded in 1853, when the county held but 6,000

people. But the beginnings of Cornell College are of more than local

interest; they are thoroughly typical of America and of the West.

Cornell was founded in much the same way as were hundreds of American

colleges along the ever advancing frontier of civilization from

Massachusetts to California--a way which the world had never seen

before and will never see again.

THE FOUNDATION AND THE FOUNDER

Cornell owes its inception to a Methodist circuit rider, the Rev.

George B. Bowman, a North Carolinian by birth, who came to Iowa from

Missouri in 1841, three years after the territorial organization of the

commonwealth. This heroic pioneer, resourceful, far seeing, and

sanguine of the future, eminent in initiative and in the power of

compelling others to his plans, was one of those rare men to whom the

task of building states is intrusted. He was not himself a college man,

but with him education was a passion. To found institutions of higher

education he considered his special mission. Hardly had he been

appointed as pastor of the church at Iowa City in 1841 when he

undertook the building of a church school, called Iowa City College. In

1845 Rev. James Harlan, a local preacher of Indiana, was chosen

president, and with one assistant opened the school in 1846. The next

year Mr. Harlan was elected state superintendent of public instruction,

and the college was closed never to be re-opened. It had at least

served to bring to the state one of its most distinguished citizens,

afterward to be honored with the United States senatorship and the

secretaryship of the interior. Meanwhile Mr. Bowman had been appointed

presiding elder of the Dubuque district, which then included much of

east-central Iowa. The failure of the premature attempt at Iowa City

had not discouraged him; he awaited the favorable opportunity he still

looked for--suitable local conditions for a Christian college in the

state. It is a long-told legend, even if it be nothing more than

legend, that when Elder Bowman came riding on horseback to the Linn

Grove circuit, he stopped on the crest of the lonely hill on which

Mount Vernon now stands. From its commanding summit vistas of virgin

prairie and primeval forest stretched for ten and twenty miles away.

Here there fell upon him, the circuit preacher, the trance and vision

of the prophet. He saw the far-off future; he heard the tramp of the

multitudes to come. Dismounting, he kneeled down in the rank prairie

grass and in prayer to Almighty God consecrated this hill for all time

to the cause of Christian education. And it is a matter of authentic

history that in the spring of 1851 Elder Bowman and Rev. Dr. A. J.

Kynett, in the parsonage at Mount Vernon, planned together for the

early founding and upbuilding of a Christian college on this site.

With the characteristic initiative of the Iowa pioneer, Bowman did not

wait for authority to be given him by anybody, for articles of

incorporation to be drawn up, or even for a title deed to the land on

which the college was to stand. Early in 1852 he laid his plans for the

launching of the school. On the Fourth of July of this year an

educational celebration was held at Mount Vernon, which drew the

farmers for miles about the town, and other friends of the new

enterprise from Marion and Cedar Rapids, Anamosa, Dubuque, and

Burlington. The oration of the day was delivered by State

Superintendent Harlan on the theme of Education, and at its close

ground was broken formally for the first building of the college. A

month later a deed was obtained for the land and the following

September the guardianship of the infant school was accepted under the

name of the Iowa Conference Seminary, by the Methodist Episcopal

church.

In this highly democratic manner Cornell College was founded by the

people as an institution of higher learning, which should ever be of

the people and for the people. It was born on the anniversary of the

nation's natal day, and was to remain one of the highest expressions of

patriotism and civic life. Christened by the head of the educational

interests of the young commonwealth, supported by its citizens,

protected by a charter from the state, and exempt as a beneficent

institution of the state from contributing by taxation to the support

of other institutions, the college was thus begun as a state school in

a very real sense.

One can not read the early archives of the college without the

profoundest admiration for the pioneers, its founders. Avid of

education to a degree pathetic, they depended on no beaurocracy of

church or state; they waited for no foreign philanthropy to supply

their educational needs. They laid the foundations of their colleges

with the same free, independent, self-sufficing spirit with which they

laid their hearthstones, and they laid both at the same time.

THE IOWA CONFERENCE SEMINARY

In January, 1853, the first meeting of the board of trustees was held,

and in the fall of the same year the school was opened in the old

Methodist church at Mount Vernon. Before the end of the term a new

edifice on the campus was so far completed that it was available for

school purposes and "on the morning of November 14, 1853, the school

met for the last time in the old church and after singing and prayer

the students were formed in line and walked in procession with banners

flying, led by the teachers, through the village, and took formal

possession of what was then declared to be a large and commodious

building."[J]

The first catalog--a little time-stained pamphlet of fifteen

pages--lists the following faculty:

Rev. Samuel M. Fellows, A. M., professor of mental and moral science

and belle lettres.

Rev. David H. Wheeler, professor of languages.

Miss Catherine A. Fortner, preceptress.

Miss Sarah L. Matson, assistant.

Mrs. Olive P. Fellows, teacher of painting and embroidery.

Mrs. Sophia E. Wheeler, teacher of instrumental music.

The first board of trustees is also noteworthy:

Rev. George B. Bowman, president, Mount Vernon; E. D. Waln, Esq.,

secretary, Mount Vernon; Rev. H. W. Reed, Centerville; Rev. E. W.

Twining, Iowa City; Rev. J. B. Taylor, Mount Vernon; Jesse Holman,

North Sugar Grove; Henry Kepler, North Sugar Grove; William Hayzlett,

Mount Vernon; A. I. Willits, Mount Vernon.

The roster of students enrolls 104 gentlemen, and 57 ladies. Among them

are familiar and honored names, some of which are to reappear in all

later catalogs of the school, either as students of the second and

third generation, or as trustees and members of faculty. Four Rigbys,

for example, were students in 1853. In 1910 the catalog lists three

Rigbys, one a student and two members of the faculty. The first catalog

contains the names of no less than nine Keplers as students, six

stalwart young men from North Sugar Grove and their three sisters. Four

Walns are enrolled from Mount Vernon, two Farleys from Dubuque and two

Reeders from Red Oak.

In 1853 the population of the entire state was only about 300,000. Not

a railway had been projected west of the Mississippi river. And yet the

scattered settlements sent across the unbroken prairie and the

unbridged rivers no less than 161 students to the young school on this

the first year of its existence. The most important route to Mount

Vernon was the military road extending from Dubuque to Iowa City. Both

towns contributed their quota of students, Dubuque sending no less than

twelve, although the entire population of Dubuque county was then, less

than 16,000. Considering the difficulty of communications, the poverty

of the pioneers, the wide extent of the sphere of influence of the

school is remarkable. Students were drawn this first year from as far

to the northeast as Elkader and Garnavillo. They came from Dyersville

and Independence, from Quasqueton and Vinton, from Marengo, Columbus

City, West Liberty, and Burlington. Muscatine alone sent seven

students. This town was at the time the point of supply for Mount

Vernon, and the materials for the first building of the college except

such as local saw mills and brick kilns could supply were hauled from

that river port.[K] Students came also from Davenport, Le Claire,

Princeton, and Blue Grass in Scott county, from Comanche, and from the

pioneer settlements of La Motte and Canton in Jackson county. The eight

hundred students of Cornell today reach the school from all parts of

the state and the adjacent portions of our neighboring states by a few

hours swift and comfortable ride by rail. But who shall picture in

detail the long and adventurous journeys in ox cart and pioneer wagon

and perchance often on foot of the boys and girls of 1853--the climbing

of steep hills, the fording of rivers, the miring in abysmal sloughs,

the succession of mile after mile of undulating treeless prairie

carpeted with gorgeous flowers stretching unbroken to the horizon, the

camp at night illuminated by distant prairie fires, until at last a

boat shaped hill surmounted by a lonely red brick building lifts itself

above the horizon, and the goal of the long journey is in view!

No doubt there were other hardships awaiting these students after their

arrival. Rule No. 1 of the new school compelled their rising at five

o'clock in the morning. They were expected to furnish their own beds,

lights, mirrors, etc., when boarding in Seminary Hall. It is

interesting to note that they paid for tuition $4.00 and $5.00 per

quarter, and for board from $1.50 to $1.75 per week. The next year the

steward's petition to the board of trustees that he be allowed to put

three students in each of the little rooms was granted with the proviso

"that he furnish suitable bunks for the same." The catalog's statement

regarding apparatus is a guarded one: "The Institution is furnished

with apparatus for illustrating some of the most important principles

of Natural Science. As the wants of school demand, additions will be

made to this apparatus." And that regarding the library is wholly

prophetic: "It is intended to procure a good selection of _readable_

and _instructive_ books, by the commencement of the next academic year,

to which the students will have access at a trifling expense. With

these books as a nucleus, a good library will be accumulated as rapidly

as possible. Donations of _good_ books are solicited from friends of

the institution." In the next catalog it is stated that "a small but

good selection of _readable_ and _instructive_ books has been

procured," the remainder of the statement being the same as that of

the first year. This statement appeared without change in all

succeeding catalogs during the remainder of the first decade.

THE FIRST DECADE

As early as 1855 the articles of incorporation were amended changing

the name of the institution to Cornell College, in honor of W. W.

Cornell and his brother J. B. Cornell, of New York City, men prominent

in business and widely known for their benevolences to various

enterprises of the church. It will be noted that Cornell College was

thus named several years before the founding by Ezra Cornell, of

Cornell University at Ithaca, N. Y.

The first year of the school under the new collegiate régime was that

of 1857-1858. Rev. R. W. Keeler of the Upper Iowa Conference was made

president, Principal Fellows of the Seminary taking the professorship

of Latin. Two years later President Keeler reentered the more congenial

work of the ministry, and Principal Fellows was elected president of

the college, a position which he held most acceptably until his death

on the day after commencement June 26, 1863, thus completing a full

decade of years of service in the school.

President Fellows had come to Cornell from the Rock River Seminary at

Mount Morris. His character and the quality of his work left lasting

impressions on his pupils at both institutions. Thus Hon. Robert R.

Hitt, of Illinois, writes of him as follows: "He was a diligent, acute,

and active student, and his personal character was admirable. It is the

fortune of few men to exercise so wide and prominent an influence from

a position which, to the ambitious, is not considered eminent." And

Senator Shelby M. Cullom has written: "I regard Professor Fellows as

one of the best men I ever knew. I said it when I was under him at

school, and now that I am over seventy years of age, I say it now. He

was strong, honest-hearted, full of kindness, and a splendid teacher."

His colleague at Cornell, Dr. David H. Wheeler, described him as "a man

sweet-spirited, pure-minded, of fine executive ability, a rarely

qualified teacher, a patient sufferer, a tireless worker, a model

friend."

A word may be said as to the members of President Fellows's faculty:

Miss Catharine A. Fortner, a graduate of Cazenovia Seminary, N. Y., was

sent out in 1851 by Governor Slade, of Vermont, as a missionary teacher

to Iowa. Her success near Tipton was so marked that she was chosen as

the first preceptress of the institution. In 1857 she resigned to marry

Rev. Rufus Ricker, of the Upper Iowa Conference.

Wm. H. Barnes, professor of languages in 1854-1855, resigned to accept

a professorship in Baldwin University, Ohio, and is known as author of

several works in history and politics.

His successor, Rev. B. W. Smith, after leaving the school in 1857

became pastor of several of the largest churches in northern Indiana,

and president of Valparaiso College.

Dr. David H. Wheeler, professor of languages in 1853-1854, and

professor of Greek from 1857 to 1861, when he was appointed U. S.

consul to Genoa, was a brilliant and versatile man, author of a number

of books, professor for eight years at Northwestern University, editor

for eight years of the New York Methodist, and for nine years president

of Allegheny College.

The brother of President Fellows, Dr. Stephen N. Fellows, has a large

place in the educational history of Iowa. He assisted his brother in

laying the foundation of Cornell College, being professor of

mathematics from 1854 to 1860, and later occupied the chair of mental

and moral science and didactics at the State University of Iowa for

twenty years.

On account of her long connection with the college, from 1857 to 1890,

Miss Harriette J. Cooke exerted a more potent influence on the

institution than any of her colleagues of the first decade. Miss Cooke

came to Cornell from Hopkinton, Massachusetts, and brought the best

culture for women which New England then afforded, as well as an

exceptionally forceful personality, and rare natural aptitudes for her

profession. From 1860 to the time of her resignation she was dean of

women, and her influence for good on the thousands of young women under

her care is incalculable. After long service as an instructor she was

made a full professor in 1871, the first woman in America, it has been

said, to be thus honored. Her chair for fifteen years was history and

German, and after 1886 history and the science of government. On

leaving the college she studied the methods of deaconess work in

England, wrote a book upon the subject, and returning to her native

land became one of the leaders in this new department of social

service. For many years she has been closely connected with the

University Settlement of Boston. On the recent celebration of her

eightieth birthday she received hundreds of letters of loving

congratulation from her former students of Cornell, and each of these

letters was answered by her painstakingly and at length.

[Illustration: A STREET SCENE IN MARION]

[Illustration: THE DANIELS HOTEL, MARION]

The first ten years of the institution were marked by a singularly

rapid growth, considering the fact that they included the darkest days

of the Civil war, when nearly every male student was drawn from the

college halls to the service of his country. At the end of the decade

the faculty numbered eight professors and instructors, and 375 students

were enrolled, fifty-one of whom were in college classes, the largest

enrollment of collegiate students in the state, unless at the State

University. The assets of the institution amounted to $50,000 in notes

and pledges, a campus of fifteen acres, and two brick buildings which

compared not unfavorably with other college buildings in the west and

with the earlier halls of Harvard.

In a large measure this exceptional growth was due to Elder Bowman, to

his initiative and wide and powerful influence. The chief problem then

as now was one of sustenance, and as a college beggar Bowman was

incomparable. He travelled over the settled portions of the state,

winning men to his cause by a singular personal charm, and enticing

even out of poverty money, promissory notes at altitudinous rates of

interest, farm produce, live stock and poultry, household furniture and

jewelry. His barnyard at Mount Vernon was continually stocked with

horses, cattle, and chickens--votive offerings to the cause of higher

education. A citizen of the town once told me how under some mesmeric

influence he bought at high price from Elder Bowman an old book case

and coal scuttle, begged somewhere for the school. This prince of

college beggars once returned from Dubuque with a silver watch which he

had plundered off the person of an eminent minister of that city.

FROM 1863 TO 1910--GROWTH IN RESOURCES

Nothing is so tame as the history of a college once the interesting

period of its childhood is over, and the history of Cornell is

exceptionally uneventful among colleges. No building has been destroyed

by fire or tornado. No famous lawsuit against the school has been

defended by some Webster among the alumni. None of the faculty has won

notoriety by sensational speech or erratic morals.

The salient feature of the forty-seven years since 1863 is a marvelous

growth unparalleled in some respects in the history of education. The

campus has been enlarged by addition after addition until now it

measures sixty acres, including the larger part of the long hill and

wide athletic fields along its northern base. To the two first

buildings, still used, one for the chemical, biological and physical

laboratories and the other for class rooms and society halls, there

have been added South Hall, built in 1873 and now used for the

engineering and geological laboratories; the Chapel, completed in 1882,

a stately Gothic structure of stone, containing the auditorium, seating

about 1,500, a smaller audience room, the museum, and several music

rooms; Bowman Hall, built in 1885, as the well appointed home of

ninety-two young women; the library dedicated in 1905, the gift of

Andrew Carnegie; the alumni gymnasium in Ash Park, built in 1909, a

noble structure, one of the largest of the kind in the state, besides

several minor buildings used for allied schools and professors's

residences.

The material equipment has made a phenomenal growth, until several of

the scientific laboratories are reckoned among the best in the Central

West, and the library, numbering 35,000 volumes, ranks as third in size

among the university and college libraries in the state, and second to

but one of the city libraries of Iowa. The museum includes several

collections which rank among the largest in the west: the Kendig

collection of minerals, the Norton collection of fossils, and the

Powers collection in American anthropology.

GROWTH IN ATTENDANCE

From the beginning Cornell has been a relatively large school measured

by the number of its students, and its growth the last decades forbids

it longer to be called a small college. Indeed, for many years it has

maintained its place as the largest denominational college, or among

the two or three largest, in the United States west of the Great Lakes,

reckoned by the number of students of collegiate rank. The attendance

has steadily risen until, in 1909-1910, 741 students were enrolled, 450

of them being in the college of liberal arts. The steady growth in

numbers of collegiate students evidences the satisfaction which the

school has given to its patrons, and an ever widening influence and

power. Moreover, it has increased the efficiency of the school by the

inspiration of numbers and the intensity of competition in all

departments of college life. By bringing together students from all

parts of the state and scores from other states, some with the polish

of the city and others with the sturdy strength of the country, it has

escaped the narrowness of the provincial and has attained something

akin to cosmopolitanism.

To make Cornell an institution state-wide in its patronage and

influence was the evident purpose of its founders. Nothing was further

from their minds than a local college for the students of a town or

county, or one drawing its patronage from a few contiguous counties.

The trustees have been chosen widely over the state and the attendance

from all parts of Iowa has been surprisingly large, considering the

many excellent colleges the state supports. In an investigation made a

few years since of the geographic distribution of the students it was

found that 41 per cent of the collegiate students came from beyond the

borders of the patronizing conference, and the counties west and south

of the Des Moines river furnished 20 per cent of the students in

attendance from the state. The college has thus grown to have a

state-wide field.

THE STRATEGIC POSITION

In explaining the growth of Cornell college we must recognize, of

course, that it has grown up with the country. We must relate the

growth of the school directly to the material prosperity of this land

of corn and swine, to the marvelously fertile soil and to the era of

expansion in which our history falls. The fact remains, however, that

the college has obtained somehow a good deal more than its due share in

the general advance. While the population of the state increased 330

per cent from 1860 to 1900, the collegiate attendance at Cornell

increased 720 per cent. The college has grown more than twice as fast

as has the state, and that notwithstanding the numerous good schools

which have sprung up to share its patronage.

We can not doubt that much of the success of the school has been due to

its strategic position. It is located in a suburban town of the chief

railway center of eastern Iowa. From Cedar Rapids long iron ways, like

the spokes of a wheel, reach in all directions to the limits of the

state and beyond, and bring every portion of the commonwealth and the

adjacent parts of our neighboring states within a few hours ride of

Cornell college. It is located also in east Central Iowa, an area of

the state the first to be settled and developed, an area surpassed by

none in the fertility of its soils, and the wealth which has been

produced from them. To these geographic factors, advantages shared in

like degree by none of the early competitors of the school, we may

assign a place similar to that given such factors in explaining the

growth of New York city and of Pittsburg.

While the college had thus had the city's advantages of communication

and markets because of its nearness to Cedar Rapids, it has retained

all the peculiar advantages which inhere in a location in a village.

Like Bowdoin, Dartmouth, and Oberlin, Cornell has found in the small

town, rather than in the city, an ideal college environment. It has

never permitted the presence of saloon or other haunt of vice. The

citizens with whom the students have made their homes have been people

of culture drawn to the town by its educational advantages. In all that

makes for the intellectual life, in libraries and collections, in

lectures and good music, and church privileges, Mount Vernon has had

more to offer than perhaps any city of the state; while the temptations

and distractions, the round of low amusements offered by the city, have

been fortunately absent.

THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES

More than geographic location, it is great men and great plans that

make great schools. Let us give much credit therefore to the men who

have administered the college as members of its board of trustees. Our

debt to them is like that of Michigan University to its board of

regents whose wise plans pushed it early to the fore among the state

universities of the west and far in advance of the place to which

geographic causes alone would have assigned it. Some of these were

pioneers of only local fame, such as Elijah D. Waln, Henry D. Albright,

William Hayzlett, Jesse Holman, Noah McKean, and Dr. G. L. Carhart, men

whose memory will ever be cherished in Mount Vernon. Others were men of

note in the early history of the state, such as Hon. Hiram Price, of

Davenport, Jesse Farley, of Dubuque, and A. P. Hosford and W. H. Lunt,

of Clinton. Especially to be noted is the long service which the

trustees have given to the school. Of the members of the executive

committee Col. Robert Smyth, sturdy Scotch Presbyterian, was a member

for twenty-eight years until his death in 1896. On the same committee

Hon. W. F. Johnston, of Toledo, long president of the board, has

already served for thirty-three years. Col. H. H. Rood, another of the

members of the executive committee, has served continuously as trustee

since 1867, and Capt. E. B. Soper, of Emmetsburg, since 1878. Captain

Soper has long been one of the most influential members of the

governing board, and it is to his initiative and faith that the alumni

gymnasium is due. Dr. J. B. Allbrook has served since 1874. H. A.

Collin was treasurer of the college from 1860 to his death in 1892.

Hon. D. N. Cooley, of Dubuque, served as trustee for twenty-four years,

and Hon. W. J. Young, of Clinton, for twenty-six years, their terms of

office being terminated only by death. Of the present board of trustees

there may be named as among those longest in service, F. H. Armstrong,

of Chicago; Hon. W. C. Stuckslager, of Lisbon; E. J. Esgate, of Marion;

Maj. E. B. Hayward, of Davenport; Hon. Eugene Secor, of Forest City;

Dr. Edward T. Devine, of New York; T. J. B. Robinson, of Hampton; John

H. Blair, of Des Moines; Rev. W. W. Carlton, of Mason City; Rev. E. J.

Lockwood and John H. Taft, of Cedar Rapids; Hon. Leslie M. Shaw, of

Philadelphia; R. J. Alexander, of Waukon; E. B. Willix, of Mount

Vernon; Senator Edgar T. Brackett, of Saratoga, N. Y.; O. P. Miller, of

Rock Rapids; Rev. Homer C. Stuntz, of Madison, N. J. and N. G. Van

Sant, of Sterling, Ill.

Among the eminent men who have served the college we must give special

mention to Rev. Alpha J. Kynett, one of the pioneers of Methodism west

of the Mississippi, who served on the board from 1865 to his death in

1899. Dr. Kynett was the founder of the great Church Extension society

and for many years was its chief executive. In this capacity he

probably built more churches than any man who has ever lived. For a

third of a century he was a close friend and adviser of the college,

and all his wide experience and his ability as an organizer and

financier were always at its service.

THE ADMINISTRATION

In 1863 occurred the sad death of President Fellows, under whose

superintendence the school had been organized. He was succeeded in

office by William Fletcher King, a graduate of the Ohio Wesleyan

University and a member of its faculty, who thus brought to Cornell an

acquaintance with the scope and methods of one of the best colleges of

the middle west. At the time of his election to the presidency Dr. King

was professor of Latin and Greek at Cornell, and thus for the second

time a president was chosen from the ranks of those actively engaged in

the work of higher education rather than, as was then almost

universally the custom, from those of another profession. In 1908 Dr.

King resigned his office after a term of service of forty-five years.

For a number of years he had thus been the oldest college president in

the United States in the duration of his office. His administration was

essentially a business administration, with little talk but much of

doing. There was in it nothing spectacular, and no pretense, or sham.

No discourteous act ever strained friendly relations with other

schools. Dr. King made no enemies and no mistakes. He was ever tactful,

poised, discreet, far-seeing, winning men to the support of his wise

and well-laid plans but never forcing their acceptance. The college

itself is a monument to this successful business administration. For

Cornell does not owe its success to any munificent gifts. Like John

Harvard, W. W. Cornell and his brother left the college which

perpetuates their memories little more than a good name and a few good

books. No donation of more than $25,000 was received until more than

forty years of the history of the college had elapsed. Whatever

excellence the college has attained is due to the skill and patience of

its builders and not to any unlimited or even large funds at their

disposal.

On the resignation of Dr. King, the presidency passed to his logical

successor, Dr. James Elliott Harlan, who had served as vice president

of the college since 1881. He had long had the management and

investment of the large funds of the college and the administration of

the school in its immediate relations with the students. Just,

sympathetic, patient, he had won the esteem of all connected with the

college, and to him was largely due the exceptional tranquillity which

the college had enjoyed in all its intimate relations. Dr. Harlan was

graduated from Cornell College in 1869. For three years he was

superintendent of the schools of Cedar Rapids, and for one year he held

a similar place at Sterling, Ill. From here he was called to the alumni

professorship of mathematics in Cornell College. The larger part of his

life has thus been bound up inextricably with the school. He knows and

is known and loved by all the alumni and old students. The first year

of his administration was signalized by the erection of the new alumni

gymnasium, and the second by the conditional gift by the general

educational board of $100,000.00 to its endowment funds.

[Illustration: REV. SAMUEL M. FELLOWS, A. M. First President Cornell

College]

The dean of the college since 1902 has been Professor H. H. Freer, a

graduate of the school of the class of 1869, and a member of the

faculty since 1870. Dean Freer was one of the first men in Iowa to see

the need of schools of education in connection with colleges and

universities and was placed at the head of such a school--the normal

department of Cornell--early in the '70s. As has recently been said

of him by Pres. H. H. Seerley, of Iowa Teachers College, "his

connection with teacher education is probably unexcelled in Iowa

educational history and no tribute that can be paid could do justice to

his faithful endeavors." Dean Freer has been most intimately connected

with the administration for many years. In 1873 he organized the

alumni, with the help of Rev. Dr. J. B. Albrook, for the endowment of a

professorship. At that time there were but 108 living graduates,

forty-seven of whom were women. Of the men, only thirty-eight had been

out of college more than three years. Yet this audacious enterprise was

carried through to complete success and was followed by the endowment

of a second alumni chair. In all of the great financial campaigns Dean

Freer has been indispensible, and the moneys he has secured to the

college amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars. More than this, by

his wide acquaintance throughout the state and by his cordial

friendship with all old students, he has been one of the chief

representatives of the college around whom its friends have ever

rallied. Since 1887 he has been professor of political economy in the

college, and now occupies the David Joyce chair of economics and

sociology.

THE FACULTY

Of the nearly 300 teachers who have been enrolled in the faculties of

the college there is space for the mention of but few names: Dr. Alonzo

Collin, who began by teaching all the sciences and mathematics in the

young school in 1860, and resigned in 1906 as professor of physics; Dr.

Hugh Boyd, professor of Latin from 1871 to 1906; Prof. S. N. Williams,

head of the school of civil engineering since 1873; Prof. George O.

Curme, professor of German from 1884 to 1897, now a member of the

faculty of Northwestern University; Dr. W. S. Ebersole, professor of

Greek since 1892; Dr. James A. James, professor of history from 1893 to

1897, now teaching in Northwestern University; Prof. H. M. Kelley,

professor of biology since 1894; Dr. Thomas Nicholson, professor of the

English Bible from 1894 to 1904, now general educational secretary of

the M. E. church; Dr. F. A. Wood, professor of German from 1897 to

1903, now member of the faculty of University of Chicago; Prof. Mary

Burr Norton, alumni professor of mathematics, whose connection with the

faculty dates from 1877; Dr. H. C. Stanclift, professor of history

since 1899; Dr. Nicholas Knight, professor of chemistry since 1899; Dr.

George H. Betts, psychology, who entered the faculty in 1902; Prof. C.

D. Stevens, English literature, since 1903; Prof. C. R. Keyes, German,

since 1903; Miss Mary L. McLeod, dean of women, since 1900; Prof. John

E. Stout, education, since 1903.

The continuity, the long terms of service of the administrative

officers and the professors, can hardly be too strongly emphasized as a

potent factor in the growth of the college. If the history of the

school had seen a rapid succession of different presidents and frequent

changes of faculty, if there had been changes in plans and purposes,

factions and struggles, and the loss of friends which such struggles

entail, if the power of the machinery had been wasted in internal

friction we may be sure that the story of the college would have been

far other than it is.

THE ALUMNI

The graduates of Cornell now number 1,446. This small army of educated

men and women have scattered widely over all the states of the union

and to many foreign countries. They have entered many vocations. The

profession receiving the largest number is teaching. Of the 1,139

graduates including the class of 1905, reported in the catalog of 1908,

ninety-seven have been engaged in teaching in colleges and

universities, and 165 in secondary and normal schools. One hundred and

forty-nine have entered the law, and 139 have entered the ministry.

Business and banking were the employments of 113. Medicine has been the

choice of forty-nine, and engineering and architecture of fifty-two.

The foreign missionary field has claimed thirty-four, and social

service in charity organization societies, deaconess work, social

settlements, and the Y. M. C. A. and the Y. W. C. A. have engaged

twenty-six. Thirty-two have engaged in farming, and twenty-six in

newspaper work. The women graduates of the school very largely have

been induced to enter the profession of matrimony. Up to 1876, for

example, ninety per cent of the alumnae had married. Of later years the

larger opportunities for professional service, opening for women, and

no doubt other general causes, have decreased the percentage, but of

all women graduates up to the year 1900, seventy per cent have married.

Of these forty-two per cent have married graduates of the college. The

common error that college education lessens the opportunities of woman

for her natural vocation is disproved, at least so far as Cornell

college is concerned. The marriages of the graduates of Cornell have

been singularly fortunate. Among the more than 1,400 alumni, there has

been so far as known but two divorces. Considering the high percentages

of divorce in the states of the Union, rising as high in some states as

one divorce to every six marriages, the divorceless history of the

Cornell alumni witnesses the sociologic value of the Christian

co-educational college.

In numbers the graduating classes have steadily increased. The first

class, that of 1858, consisted of two members, Mr. and Mrs. Matthew

Cavanaugh, of Iowa City. Classes remained small, never exceeding five,

until the close of the Civil war when the young men who had entered the

service of their country, and who survived the war, returned to school.

In 1867 eleven were graduated, and in 1869 the class numbered

twenty-two. The last decade the graduating class from the college of

liberal arts has averaged sixty.

CORNELL AND THE WAR FOR THE UNION

President Charles W. Elliot, in one of his educational addresses, after

enumerating what the community must do for the college, asks, "And what

will the college do for the community? It will make rich returns of

learning, of poetry, and of piety, and of that fine sense of civic duty

without which republics are impossible." That Cornell has made all

these returns in ample measure is shown by the roster of the alumni

with its many eminent names in the service of state and church. More

than fifteen thousand young men and women have left the college halls

carrying with them for the enrichment of the community stores of

learning, poetic ideals of life, and vital piety. The fine sense of

civic duty which the college breeds finds special illustration in the

crisis of the Civil war, and here we may quote the eloquent words of

Colonel Harry H. Rood in an address delivered at the Semi-Centennial of

the college in 1904:

"The first seven and a half years in the history of this

college was a period of struggle and embarrassment. The

spring of 1861 seemed to be the beginning of brighter days.

A railway had brought it in touch with the outer world, and

the effects of the great financial panic of 1857 were

passing, enabling the sons and daughters of the pioneers to

enter its halls to secure the education they so greatly

desired. The sky of hope was quickly overcast, and the storm

cloud of the Civil war, which had been gathering for half a

century, burst over the land. The students of Cornell were

not surprised or alarmed. The winter preceding they had

organized a mock congress with every state represented, in

which all the issues of the coming conflict were fully

discussed and understood.... The first regiment the young

state sent out to preserve the Union had in its ranks a

company from this county--_one-third of the names upon its

muster rolls were students from this school. The first full

company to go from this township into the three years

service had one-third of its membership from this college,

and the second full company from the township, in 1862, also

had an equal number of Cornell's patriotic sons._ In the

great crisis of 1864, when President Lincoln asked for men

to relieve the veteran regiments and permit them to go to

the front, _almost a full company were college men_. In the

class of 1861 only two men were graduated and both entered

the service.... The record shows that from 1853 to 1871

fifty-four men were graduated from the college, and of these

thirty had worn the blue."

During the war the college had much the aspect of a female seminary to

which a few young boys and cripples had been admitted by courtesy. In

1863 but twelve male students were registered in college classes, and

at the commencement of this year all upon the program were women except

a delicate youth unfit for war and a boy of sixteen years. This

commencement was unique in the history of the college. On commencement

day the audience of peaceful folk seated in the grove quietly listening

to the student orations was suddenly transformed to an infuriated mob,

when one girl visitor attempted to snatch from another a copperhead pin

she was wearing. So strong was the excitement, that the college

buildings were guarded by night for some time afterward for fear that

they might be burned in revenge by sympathisers with the south.[L]

Near the close of the war it was seen that many of the soldier students

of the college would be unable to complete their education because of

the sacrifices they had made in the service of their country. A fund of

fourteen thousand dollars was therefore contributed by patriot friends

at home and in part by Iowa regiments in the field for the education of

disabled soldiers and soldiers' orphans. No gift to the school has ever

been more useful than this foundation, which aided in the support of

hundreds of the most worthy students of the college.

Two of the students of Cornell were enrolled in the armies of the

Confederacy. Of these one became a lieutenant in a Texas regiment. At

one time learning that one of his prisoners was a Cornell boy and a

member of his own literary society, the Texas lieutenant found Cornell

loyalty a stronger motive than official duty. He took his prisoner

several miles from camp, gave him a horse and started him for the Union

lines.

THE SOCIAL ORGANIZATION

From the beginning Cornell college has been coëducational. In the

earliest years of her history some concessions were made in the courses

of study to the supposed weakness of woman's intellect, and "ornamental

branches," such as "Grecian painting," which seems to have been a sort

of transfer work, "ornamental hair work and wax flowers" were grafted

on the curriculum for her special benefit--branches which soon were

pruned away.

Woman's presence seems to have been regarded in these early years as a

menace to the social order, safely permitted only under the most

rigorous restrictions. So late as 1869 Rule Number Twelve appeared in

the catalog--"_The escorting of young ladies by young gentlemen is not

allowed_." This was a weak and degenerate offspring of the stern edict

of President Keeler's administration:

"_Young ladies and gentlemen will not associate together in walking or

riding nor stand conversing together in the halls or public rooms of

the buildings, but when necessary they can see the persons they desire

by permission._"

For many years these blue laws have been abrogated, and the only

restrictions found needful are those ordinarily imposed by good

society. The association and competition of young men and women in all

college activities--an association necessarily devoid of all romance

and glamour--has been found sane and helpful to both sexes, and no

policy of segregation in any form has ever been as much as suggested.

The social life of the college has always been under the leadership of

the literary societies. They are now eight in number: The Amphictyon,

Adelphian, Miltonian and Star for men and the Philomathean, Aesthesian,

Alethean and Aonian for women. The students of the Academy also sustain

four flourishing societies, the Irving and Gladstone, Clionian and

King.

These societies meet in large and rather luxuriously furnished halls in

which they entertain their friends each week with literary and musical

programs, followed by short socials. Business meetings offer thorough

drill in parliamentary practice and often give place to impromptu

debates which give facility in extemporaneous speaking. The societies

also give banquets and less formal receptions from time to time and in

general have charge of the social life of the school. Members are

chosen by election and the rushing of the incoming freshman class is a

fast and furious campaign, occupying a week or so of the first

half-year. However it may affect studies, it certainly develops

friendships and promotes the rapid assimilation of the large number of

new students in the body social of the school.

The societies have always been in effect fraternities and sororities so

far as social advantages are concerned, and they have performed the

function of the best fraternities in the intellectual and moral

supervision which they have given their members. But the literary

societies have been more than fraternities, and under their supervision

the social life of the college has been lived on a distinctly higher

plane than had its organization been purely social and for recreation

only. They have also been markedly distinguished from fraternities in

their democratic character. Instead of excluding fifty or even seventy

or eighty per cent of the students from their privileges, they have

given their inestimable social advantages to practically all who cared

to join them. They have thus prevented the growth of a leisured class

of students whose sole interest in college is found in its recreations

and who have been allowed the control of the college social life.

Indeed, so valuable in the history of the college has this social

organization proved that students have suggested that it be extended to

other colleges by means of affiliated chapters.

ENDOWMENTS

During the earlier years of its history the college received few

notable gifts. It was largely sustained by innumerable small

contributions to its current expenses and endowment funds made by

devoted friends whose generosity and self sacrifice deserve the praise

bestowed upon the widow who cast her mite into the treasury of the

temple. The larger gifts which have been made in endowing chairs, with

the amounts and dates of the foundation and names of the donors, are as

follows:

1859 Hamline Professorship of Greek Language and Literature,

$25,000, by Bishop L. L. Hamline.

1873 D. N. Cooley Professorship of Civil and Sanitary

Engineering, $10,000, by Hon. D. N. Cooley, Dubuque, and

Oliver Hoyt.

1873 Alumni Professorship of Mathematics, $50,000, by The

Alumni.

1885 W. F. Johnston Professorship of Physics, $50,000, by

Hon. W. F. Johnston, Toledo.

1902 Edgar Truman Brackett, Jr., Professorship of History

and Politics, $30,000, by Hon. Edgar T. Brackett, Saratoga,

N. Y.

1904 David Joyce Professorship of Political Economy and

Sociology, $50,000, by David Joyce, Clinton.

[Illustration: COMMERCIAL HOTEL, CENTER POINT]

[Illustration: BRIDGE OVER CEDAR RIVER AT CENTER POINT]

1904 Lucy Hayes King Foundation, now in support of the

presidency, by ex-president Wm. F. King, $50,000.

1910 Alumni Professorship of Geology, $50,000, by The

Alumni.

Among the other notable gifts to the college must be mentioned that by

the Hon. Andrew Carnegie, of $50,000 for the erection of the Carnegie

library, dedicated in 1905.

The largest donations to the college have been those of its president

emeritus, William Fletcher King. Most valuable of all have been the

long years of service, but besides these he has given from time to time

many financial gifts to meet current needs and near the end of his term

of office, he crowned his benefactions not only with the endowment of

the professorship just mentioned, but with the munificent gift of

$100,000 to found 100 scholarships in memory of Margaret Fletcher King.

At the unveiling of the bronze tablet in her memory, in 1904, Hon. L.

M. Shaw spoke these fitting words: "It is my privilege to witness the

unveiling of a tablet erected in memory of a saintly woman who came in

bridal clothes and left in cerements, and who spent the entire

thirty-eight years of her married life wedded as completely to Cornell

college as to William F. King, and who served both with equal

faithfulness and with unfaltering devotion. Words are inadequate to

measure the influence of a Christian woman's life spent amid

surroundings such as have existed here for a generation. Neither does

bronze suffice to prophesy the lift toward righteousness and higher

citizenship of what is here done by the bereaved husband in the name of

Margaret McKell King.... The tablet so thoughtfully erected to her

memory and the endowment of scholarships so generously made by Dr. King

guarantee the perpetuation of the sweet influence of a noble life and

extend the benison of Christian education to one hundred students per

annum, on and on, far beyond the ken of those who knew her and knowing

loved her."

In 1910 the general education board made a conditional gift to the

college of $100,000 for endowment, and of the $300,000 to be secured to

meet the conditions nearly half has already been promised in sums among

the largest ever given to the school.

THE CURRICULUM

In the fifties Cornell college was a very simple organization. In the

first year of the college as distinct from the seminary, six teachers

taught the entire round of the college course, which then included but

forty subjects, each pursued for but three months. Besides Latin, Greek

and mathematics, there were offered six terms in science and seven in

the following subjects: Natural Theology, Evidences of Christianity,

Moral Science, Butler's Analogy, Mental Philosophy, Rhetoric, and

Elements of Criticism. This simple curriculum was stated by the catalog

to embrace "the course of study in Mathematics, Languages, Sciences,

and Belle Lettres which is prescribed in the best colleges and

universities. It is thorough, extensive and systematic." All the same,

both Cornell and "the best colleges and universities" have found that

college courses could be made more "thorough and extensive" if not

"more systematic." Latin, for example, at Cornell now offers eleven

half-year courses instead of nine third-year courses as in 1857-1858.

Sciences, which then offered six terms, now offer thirty-seven

half-years and form five strong departments with their own professors

and assistants. In 1875 the department of English Literature was

organized, and the same year special teachers were employed for the

first time in public speaking, although the School of Oratory was not

organized until 1891. History and Politics became a distinct department

in 1886. Courses in the English Bible were offered in 1894, and in

Sociology in 1900. In all, the last catalog lists more than two hundred

half-year collegiate courses of study.

The college has been among the foremost in the west in adapting and

enlarging its courses to meet changing ideals. As early as 1873 the

department of Civil and Sanitary Engineering was organized, in which

hundreds of young men have received a valuable equipment for the work

of life. One of the earliest recognitions of education as a collegiate

subject was when courses in this science were offered at Cornell in

1872--the beginning of the present strong school of education. In 1900

and 1901 special directors of Physical Training for both men and women

were first employed.

SPIRIT AND INFLUENCE

During all these changing years since 1853 the spirit of Cornell has

remained essentially the same. It has made for scholarship--a

scholarship honest, tireless, and fearless in the search for truth; it

has cherished culture; it has fitted for service and has sent forth its

students to perform, in the words of Milton, "justly, skilfully, and

magnanimously all the duties both public and private of peace and war."

It has ever been a religious spirit, too, this spirit of Cornell, and

kindling in thousands of young hearts has inspired them to purer,

stronger, and more helpful living.

The influence of Cornell may be summarized by a quotation from an

editorial in the Cedar Rapids _Republican_ in 1904, reviewing the

history of the college:

"Fifty years of college work and college building; what does

it mean? What is it these men, about whom we have been

writing, have done? The half can not be told. No research,

however painstaking, could discover it all, for only a

portion of such work is ever seen of men. For fifty years a

constant stream of beneficent influences has been flowing

out from this institution. The pure water which gushes from

a spring on the hillsides, who can trace? A certain portion

will refresh those who dwell near its source. The remainder

flows away to form a brooklet that 'joins brimming river'

which carries ships, waters cities, and finally augments an

ocean current that washes illimitable shores. But for these

springs the everlasting ocean would dry up. The stream of

beneficent influences which has been flowing from this

institution on the hillside down yonder, has been carried

around the world--into countless fields of human activity

and high endeavor--into homes where mothers teach their

children to avoid those things that are of the earth

earthy--into business establishments where the golden rule

is not always turned toward the wall--into legislative halls

where statesmen and patriots are needed--into the judiciary

of state and nation--into the cabinet of the president of

the United States--into all callings and all

professions--into all countries and all climes. May it flow

on forever and forever!"

CHAPTER XXIV

_History of Coe College_

BY REV. E. R. BURKHALTER, D. D.

There is an interest, and a charm peculiarly its own in tracing a

stream that has grown to be a river back to its head waters in some

lake or mountain spring. And when instead of a river we trace backward

a college to its source and fountain head, this interest and charm come

to possess a sacred value and are full of hallowed associations. And

the charm and interest become complete when this matter is pursued by

one who is not only a historian but also a participant in the

transactions which cover years of time and call up many holy and tender

memories of scenes and places, and yet more, of persons who were

fellow-workers in the good cause and the most of whom have passed from

earth.

The fountain head of Coe College, whose history it is now proposed to

record, is to be sought and found in the mind and heart of the Rev.

Williston Jones, the pioneer pastor of Cedar Rapids, who for the years

between 1849 and 1856 was the minister of the First Presbyterian church

of this city. Mr. Jones was a most zealous servant of his Divine

Master, and labored zealously for His cause, not only in the local

field, which was then so newly opened for settlement, but in the whole

outlying region. His heart felt the needs of this entire middle west,

which, as a fertile wilderness, was offering such inducements for the

pioneer settler, and he longed to do his part to the utmost in

assisting to provide this region with a gospel ministry. To this end,

he opened a School of the Prophets in his own home.

We now avail ourselves at this early point of our history of the

valuable contributions furnished by the words of the Rev. George R.

Carroll, in his most interesting little volume entitled _Pioneer Life

in and Around Cedar Rapids, 1839-1849_.

"Mr. Jones had persuaded one young man, the writer of this

sketch, to devote his life to the gospel ministry. But there

was no school here in which he could begin his studies. At

last the zealous pastor decided to undertake himself the

task of preparing that young man for college. Meantime,

other young men heard of the arrangement, and persuaded Mr.

Jones to admit them also to the same privileges. The result

was the formation of a class of sixteen or eighteen young

men who occupied the unfurnished parlor in the pastor's

house, which was temporarily fitted up for the purpose. One

of the number was chosen to act as monitor each week, and

Mr. and Mrs. Jones came in at different hours of the day to

hear the recitations in the various branches of study

pursued. The branches studied were reading, writing,

geography, arithmetic, Latin and Greek. This school

continued its regular sessions for about six months, and was

successfully wound up with a public exhibition under the

shade trees in front of the pastor's residence on the hill

near the Milwaukee depot. The following young men were among

the students of that first school: George Weare, John Stony,

Cyrus E. Ferguson, Murry S. D. Davis, Amos Ferguson, Isaac

W. Carroll, Mortimer A. Higley, William E. Earl, William J.

Wood, Edwin Kennedy, George R. Carroll, James L. Bever, and

George W. Bever."

We also avail ourselves of an extract from the _Fortieth Anniversary

First Presbyterian Church, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, 1887_, on which occasion

Mr. Carroll in his biographical sketch of the Rev. Williston Jones, our

first pastor, used the following language:

"Mr. Jones was deeply interested in the subject of raising

up a native ministry. That is to say, he believed that it

was important that we should seek out young men from among

the people of the west to labor in the west. It was,

therefore, his constant aim wherever he met a Christian

young man of any promise, to lay before him the claims of

the gospel ministry, and urge him prayerfully to consider

the question as to whether or not God had called him to the

sacred office. This fact, of course, led him to take a great

interest in the subject of education. There were no schools

at that time where a young man could even begin a course of

study for the ministry. He felt the embarrassment of the

situation. He had at last found one young man who had

decided to study for the ministry, but there was no school

in Cedar Rapids where he could make a beginning of the study

of Latin or Greek or any of the higher branches of study. At

last he decided to undertake himself the task of preparing

that young man for college. In a short time, a dozen or

fifteen more, hearing of this arrangement, begged the

privilege of joining that lone student in studying under Mr.

Jones, and before he was aware of it, he found himself at

the head of a school for young men. This was in the autumn

of 1851. He had erected for himself, meantime, a house of

the same material of the old church, cement. It still stands

on the hill north of the Milwaukee depot. The parlor of that

house was at that time unfinished. It was lathed but not

plastered. Mr. Jones said to the young men, if they would

get one coat of plastering put onto that room, and put in

some temporary seats made of slabs, they could have the use

of it for a school room. The offer was promptly accepted,

and, in due time, the school began in good earnest. One of

the number would act as monitor in the school-room for a

week, and then another, until the honor had been enjoyed by

all. Mr. and Mrs. Jones were the first professors of the

institution, coming in at regular hours to hear recitations.

The branches of study pursued in the new academy were

reading, writing, geography, arithmetic, algebra, grammar,

Latin and Greek. Due attention was also given to

composition, declamation, and vocal music. For six months

that school continued in perfect harmony and marked success.

The term closed sometime in June, I think 1852, with public

exercises appropriate to the occasion. The place of meeting

was in a grove immediately in front of the school-room. The

order of exercises, as nearly as I can remember, consisted

in singing and prayer of course, recitations, reading of

essays, and declamations. Everything passed off pleasantly

and satisfactorily, and I believe the school was pronounced

a success. This effort convinced Mr. Jones more than ever of

the need of a permanent school of a higher order. He

therefore wrote on to Knox college, I think to Professor

Blanchard, to see if one of the graduates could not come and

take charge of the school. The result was that Mr. David

Blakely, then a recent graduate of Knox college, came in the

fall of 1852 and opened the school in the church. The school

then assumed the name of the Cedar Rapids Collegiate

Institute. Mr. Blakely held the position of principal of

that school for two years, and then resigned his position to

enter the active work of the gospel ministry, in which he is

still engaged. During all this time the school was kept up

with unabated interest, many students coming in from the

country round about, and several from remote parts of the

state. At least three of the members of that school entered

the ministry, and are still engaged in the active duties of

the sacred calling: one. Rev. Hiram Hill, in California;

another, Rev. William Campbell, in Kansas; and the third in

this state. It was during the spring of 1853, I think, that

Mr. Jones was sent as a commissioner to the General Assembly

(N. S.) which met in Buffalo, N. Y. During his absence the

school at home occupied his thoughts and called out all the

energies of his ardent nature. He determined if possible to

secure aid in the east by which to place the school upon a

permanent basis, having for its chief end the education of

indigent young men for the gospel ministry. He was not

disappointed in his purpose. Guided no doubt by an all-wise

Providence, he met Mr. Daniel Coe, who listened to his

earnest appeal, and gave him the money with which the eighty

acres of ground, where the college now stands, and these two

lots now occupied by this church and chapel, and a lot now

occupied by the M. E. church, were secured, Dr. J. F. Ely

making the purchase. You will see then, that out of the

little school, started in the first pastor's house, has

grown Coe college, and Rev. Williston Jones was its

founder."

[Illustration: W. F. KING, LL. D. Long President Cornell College]

It can thus be easily seen that the yearning of Mr. Jones to see a

school provided in Cedar Rapids was a fire in his bones. And so, when

in the providence of God, he was in attendance at a meeting of the

General Assembly of the Presbyterian church (New School) which was held

in May, 1853, in the city of Buffalo, N. Y., he sought to interest

everyone whom he met in the cause of Christian education in the west.

At that same session of the General Assembly was a minister of the

Presbyterian church from the Catskill mountain region of New York

state. He said to Mr. Jones, in substance. "I cannot help you myself,

but I believe I know a man in my section of the country who can and

will, and if you come home with me to Durham, Greene county, New York,

I will introduce you to him." The man alluded to was Mr. Daniel Coe, an

elder of the church, already deeply interested in the cause of

Christian education and preparing to help according to his ability when

the suitable opportunity was afforded.

Mr. Jones went to Durham and met Mr. Coe, and presenting to him the

matter nearest to his heart, the founding of a school of christian

learning in the new world beyond the Mississippi. Mr. Coe gladly

consented to assist in the enterprise. The sum promised, $1,500, would

be considered in these days a very meagre one, but in 1853, and in

Iowa, it must have seemed like $15,000 or more would seem now to us,

and Mr. Jones must have welcomed the proffered aid with delight.

When he returned to his home in Cedar Rapids and to his brethren of the

Presbytery of Iowa City, of which he was a member, he made such

encouraging statements concerning the treatment he had received at the

General Assembly, and especially concerning the offer of Mr. Coe, that

there was formed in Cedar Rapids a corporation by the name of the Cedar

Rapids Collegiate Institute, which prepared articles and filed them for

record August 9, 1853. All persons owning one share of stock each in

the Institute became thereby members of the corporation, each share of

stock being of the value of $25.00. Article twelve of the fourteen

articles of corporation reads as follows:

"The Iowa City Presbytery in consideration of five scholarships for the

first five years, and of ten scholarships thereafter, shall have the

right to nominate all teachers of the Institute, subject, however, to

confirmation by the Board of Directors, but this right shall be

forfeited if said consideration should at any time fail."

There is no reason to suppose from the records that this consideration

was ever fulfilled.

Article thirteen gives the names of the directors: Williston Jones,

John F. Ely, W. W. Smith, Seymour D. Carpenter, Addison Daniels, Isaac

Cook, William Greene, John L. Shearer, and Aaron Van Dorn; and the

following persons as officers of the board: George Greene, president;

Samson C. Bever, treasurer; David Blakely, secretary.

It is very interesting to note that of these persons there is one who

survives to this day, Mr. W. W. Smith, who at a very advanced age still

lives at Minneapolis.

The first meeting of this board of directors was held July 18, 1853,

and it was at that meeting that Mr. Jones presented the instrument of

writing signed by Daniel Coe, of the county of Greene, in the state of

New York, making a conditional donation to the Institute of the sum of

$1,500, of which the following is a copy:

"CONDITIONAL DONATION TO CEDAR RAPIDS COLLEGIATE INSTITUTE

"Know all men by these presents that I, Daniel Coe, of the

town of Durham, County of Greene, and State of New York, in

view of the educational wants of the great and growing West,

and in expectation of its resulting in the establishment of

a permanent institution of learning, do hereby engage to

give in behalf of Iowa City Presbytery, connected with the

constitutional General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church

which met at Buffalo, May 19th, 1853, to Cedar Rapids

Collegiate Institute the following sums for the object

hereinafter specified, to-wit: Four Hundred and twenty-five

Dollars ($425.00) for the purchase of as large and suitable

tract of land as practicable as a site for the location of

the institute. And Seventy-five Dollars ($75.00) for fencing

of the same. Also One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00) to be

appropriated in the best manner for a farm contiguous to the

site, the avails of which are to be appropriated to the best

advantage for the benefit of such students as may need to

assist themselves by manual labor. Of these two sums the

first mentioned, consisting of Five Hundred Dollars

($500.00), can be secured to the Institute as a part of its

property by the erection upon its site thus purchased of a

building costing at least Two Thousand Dollars ($2000.00),

and the last mentioned One Thousand Dollars ($1000.00) can

be thus secured by bringing the Institute into successful

operation. _Provided_ that if these conditions fail, or if

the Institute be removed or diverted from its original

design, either or both of these donations shall be

forfeited, and the land purchased shall revert back to the

said Daniel Coe, his heirs, executors, or administrators.

"Dr. John F. Ely, Hon. George Greene, Dr. S. D. Carpenter,

Isaac Cook, Esq., James Ferguson, and Williston Jones are

hereby authorized to act for me in the selection and

purchasing for said Institute the above mentioned site and

farm, and are to draw on me for the money; of which sum

Seven Hundred Dollars ($700.00) can be drawn at any time,

and the remaining Eight Hundred Dollars ($800.00) one year

from the date of this engagement.

"It is my strong desire that this Institute should be made

available for the education of females as well as males."

It is evidently to be seen that it was the purpose of Mr. Coe to enable

the directors of the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute to maintain a

school of learning to be conducted in a building within easy access to

the town, and at the same time aid such students as needed assistance

through the products of the farm purchased on the edge of the town.

Steps were taken at once to procure two sites, one for the school

building, the other for the farm. And after considerable inquiry and

debate, two sites were chosen and purchased: the one for the school

building consisting of the two lots on which the First Presbyterian

church of this city now stands and has stood since 1869; the other for

the farm, consisting of a plot of eighty acres, of which the present

campus of Coe College of ten acres, is the southwestern extremity.

The town lots were purchased for $275.00. The eighty acres were bought

for $1000.00. These eighty acres were obtained from Mr. Otho S. Bowling

by Dr. John F. Ely, who bought them with Mr. Coe's money for the Cedar

Rapids Collegiate Institute. The date of the purchase is December 5,

1853. Mr. Bowling had obtained the land at the price of $820.00 from

the executors of the estate of Mr. Joshua Phillips, of Franklin county,

Pennsylvania. Mr. Phillips had died at his residence in Pennsylvania

at some time between the 15th of December, 1852, and the 4th of

January, 1853, and he had himself obtained the property in Cedar Rapids

by patent from the United States government May 1, 1848. So that the

plot of ground which figures in such a vital manner in the history of

Coe College had passed through but two hands before being transferred

to the Collegiate Institute from the government which had obtained it

from the Indians.

It has also appeared that it was the wish of Mr. Coe and the design of

the directors of the school that the building to cost $2000.00 should

be erected as soon as practicable upon the town lots. But the erection

of this building was delayed for various causes and especially in

consequence of the lack of funds. Meanwhile, a school of very

elementary character was maintained in the building used as their house

of worship by the First Presbyterian church, and Mr. David Blakely was

obtained as principal at a salary of $400.00 per annum, payable

quarterly.

As time went on it was found to be more difficult than seemed probable

in the beginning, to obtain subscriptions for the erection of the

building of a school of just the character that seemed within the

feeble means of the directors. And it became even more difficult, if

not impossible, to maintain the school in the building occupied by the

Presbyterian church. For it would appear that this community of Cedar

Rapids was in process of organizing a general public school system, and

no place seemed to exist for a parochial school of the elementary

character that was then being conducted by the Cedar Rapids Collegiate

Institute, at least in so small a community and one so feebly provided

with material funds.

Therefore, through the want of proper sustenance, everyone connected

with the Institute and notably the principal upon whom the chief burden

fell became wholly discouraged and the Presbytery of Iowa City, that

had a certain relationship to the school and interest in its success,

proposed to put the school on wheels and offer it to the highest

bidder, naming several localities among which were: Vinton, Waterloo,

Lyons, Cedar Falls, Newton, and Iowa City.[M]

It will surely be of interest to learn [See _Minutes Iowa City

Presbytery_, Mt. Vernon, February 4, 1857] that the citizens and

proprietors of Comanche offered a site and subscriptions to the amount

of $10,000, or $200.00 more than any other town, for the location of

the Collegiate Institute of the Presbytery. Vinton also made a strong

bid for the school and hoped to capture it, and might have done so had

it not been that the eighty acre plot of ground, which was the only

financial asset of the institution, was securely fastened down in Cedar

Rapids, and Mr. Coe hesitated as to the propositions for the removal of

the school.

But these internal and external discussions acted in a very unfavorable

manner upon the Institute, and led to the winding up of its affairs,

for there is no record of any meeting of its board of directors

subsequent to July 26, 1859.

Meanwhile, a new star of hope arose in the heavens, and for several

years at least it was a star of considerable brilliancy. It was made

known, namely, that the will of Mr. Lewis Baldwin Parsons, a benefactor

and philanthropist, and who died in Detroit, Michigan, December 21,

1855, after a successful life as a manufacturer in Buffalo, N. Y.,

contained a bequest setting aside a very considerable amount of money

to found a Presbyterian college in Iowa. It could not be a matter of

surprise, therefore, that the brethren in Cedar Rapids, who had

struggled so hard to found a college with Mr. Coe's donation, and who

had been so sorely disappointed, should now with enthusiasm welcome the

thought that the Parsons legacy might be located here and be added to

the Coe donation, and thus become the foundation of a strong college in

Iowa in connection with the Presbyterian church. Accordingly, steps

were taken to incorporate a new body of stockholders into an

organization to be known as Parsons Seminary. The date of the first

meeting with this end in view is November 10, 1866, and the following

persons were chosen to serve as officers until the annual meeting in

December: Rev. James Knox, president; Hon. George Greene,

vice-president; Dr. John F. Ely, secretary; and Mr. S. C. Bever,

treasurer.

At the annual meeting, December 3, 1866, the following officers were

chosen: George Greene, president; James Knox, vice-president; John F.

Ely, secretary; W. W. Walker, treasurer.

It was resolved immediately that Mr. Coe should be requested to deed to

the new organization the eighty acres of land already donated by him to

the Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute, and at a meeting of the board of

trustees of Parsons Seminary, held January 4, 1867, Judge Greene,

president of the board, reported that he had visited Mr. Daniel Coe at

his home in Durham, N. Y., and had procured from him the deed to

Parsons Seminary of the land in question.

This most generous act of Mr. Coe reveals the large and unselfish

character of the man and declares the nobility of his motive to promote

the cause of high christian education in the west.

This act of Mr. Coe also gave great encouragement to the board of

trustees of the seminary to proceed in their work, and they proceeded

vigorously to raise what must in those days have been a considerable

sum of money, for the purpose of erecting a suitable building for

college purposes upon the edge of the eighty acre plot nearest to the

town. The two town lots which had originally been purchased for the

location of the school building were sold to the trustees of the First

Presbyterian church, to become the site of a house of worship, which

building was erected by them in 1869, and still stands a substantial

edifice of stone, facing the public square long known as Washington

Park, now George Greene Square.

The ways and means and plans for this new building occupied the

attention of the board for many meetings during the years 1867 and

1868, and the work was pushed with all vigor to enable the trustees to

open their seminary in the new building in the fall of 1868.

Meanwhile, the school work was inaugurated, pending the erection of the

building on the college grounds, in the Wadsworth block, a row of

unpretentious buildings resembling a barracks, on Second street and

Fifth avenue, in the school year 1867-8. The principal of this school

was the Rev. A. B. Goodale, a Presbyterian clergyman who survived in

southern California until a few years ago.

Mr. Charles J. Deacon, our highly esteemed and greatly respected fellow

citizen, who has spent a long and useful life among us, as an attorney,

and who has been for several years a most valuable trustee of Coe

College, was one of the first students of Parsons Seminary, and he has

furnished us the following reminiscences which we gladly incorporate in

this historical sketch:

"I came to Cedar Rapids and enrolled as a student in Parsons

Seminary early in September, 1868. The school had been in

progress under that name for a year previous, but then for

the first time entered into the new building, now the west

half of the main building of Coe college. This school was

then prosperous and the body of students very enthusiastic.

Dr. A. B. Goodale was the principal and Prof. Augustus

Maasburg was the professor of Latin, Greek, French, and

German. Miss A. D. Kelsey, a graduate of Mt. Holyoke, and a

most estimable lady, had charge of the primary department,

and also taught many of the classes in mathematics, and had

charge of the botany class. Miss Lindsay, a sister of Mrs.

Goodale, taught painting and drawing. A few weeks after the

school opened, Professor and Madame Masurier came, and

Professor Masurier took charge of the music, and Mme.

Masurier was given the care of the French class. I remember

also that Miss Addie Goodell, now Mrs. Birdsall, of Lake

City, Iowa, was a student in the seminary, and it became

necessary to have an assistant in the primary department,

and she was employed in that capacity.

[Illustration: MAIN STREET FROM THE NORTH, FAIRFAX]

[Illustration: MAIN STREET LOOKING WEST, CENTRAL CITY]

"At the beginning of the year 1868-1869 the school numbered

over one hundred students. They were, of course, largely

from the city of Cedar Rapids, but they came also from the

surrounding towns of Fairfax, Springville, Center Point,

Central City, and some from the farms within a few miles of

the city. They came also from Vinton and Marengo, and some

from more distant portions of the state, and I remember two

from the state of Illinois, and one from Nebraska.

"The school year was divided into four terms of ten weeks

each, the tuition being $7.50 per term. I remember there was

some falling off in the attendance at the close of the

second term in mid-winter. In the spring we were told that

Dr. Goodale would have an assistant in the person of Mr. J.

W. Stephens. When he came he was introduced to us by Dr.

Goodale as his assistant, but it soon developed that he was

the principal of the seminary, Doctor Goodale having about

that time accepted the pastorate of the Presbyterian church

at Marshalltown. The attendance at the spring term under the

conduct of Dr. Stephens was much smaller than in the fall,

but the school continued until the 20th of June, when it

closed for the summer vacation. It issued a catalogue as it

had the previous year and announced the opening for the

following September.

"I returned to the school in the fall when it opened for the

third year, being the second year in the new building, and

found many of the old students. The school, however, was

much smaller than at the opening of the previous year. It

also dwindled very much during the year, and when we closed

in June, 1870, my recollection is that it numbered about

forty students. Mr. Stephens announced that it would be

continued, however, and the school opened again in the

September following. I did not return to the school, but

went to the State University of Iowa. Mr. Stephens continued

the school until the following spring, and then closed it.

[We understand that Mr. Stephens is still living in

connection with Park College, Mo.]

"One thing that is quite clearly impressed upon my memory is

the meeting of the Synod of Iowa, North, in this city in the

late winter or early spring of 1869. The application of the

Parsons legacy and the endowment of the college was then a

very prominent question in Presbyterian circles. Cedar

Rapids was a most prominent applicant for the location of

the college to be thus endowed, and the seminary had been

named Parsons Seminary with a view to attracting that legacy

here. A large representation of the synod visited the

college at the time I speak of and addressed the students.

Amongst others, I remember Doctor Spees, then of Dubuque;

the Rev. Samuel Howe, and Mr. Alexander Danskin, of Marengo.

They said to us that we were now a college, that whereas

yesterday we were a seminary, today we were a college. There

was much enthusiasm manifested among us by this statement,

and we all felt satisfied that the matter had been

practically settled. Subsequent facts proved that their

statement was a little premature.

"Another thing that comes to my recollection is the visit of

the committee to locate the Parsons legacy in the spring of

1870. This committee was headed by Doctor Craig, then pastor

of the church at Keokuk, now of McCormick Seminary, Chicago.

The committee made a very thorough examination of the

buildings and of the grounds and of the location generally.

I distinctly recall their walking over the grounds. The

trustees of the seminary, being informed in advance of the

coming of this committee, were preparing to create a good

impression. A few days before their expected arrival, the

ground, which had been leveled off in front of the college,

and which consisted of coarse sand, was ornamented by some

fifty or sixty evergreen trees, and a large amount of black

dirt was hauled in upon the sand with the expectation of

spreading it over the sand to present a surface of good soil

with a large number of evergreen trees set out in an

ornamental order. Unfortunately, however, the committee

arrived earlier than was anticipated and the black dirt had

not been spread over the sand. To render the situation still

worse, a high wind was blowing the day the committee were

here and the sand was drifting over the dirt piles and

filling up against the lower board of the fence. What the

effect of this was upon the committee I have no means of

judging. It is, however, interesting to notice that the

Parsons legacy never came to Cedar Rapids.

"I could mention many names of Cedar Rapids citizens who as

boys attended school at Parsons Seminary during those early

years. Mr. C. C. Greene, Mr. John S. Ely, Mr. George B.

Douglas, were all there with me. Mr. George W. Winn, also a

trustee, used to go there for private lessons in German from

Professor Maasburg. Mr. C. L. Miller, of the _Gazette_,

Emery and Harry Brown, and Elmer Higley are names that also

occur to me readily. I could mention, likewise, many ladies

who studied there in those early years. The Rev. Alexander

Danskin, editor of one of our church papers at Detroit,

Michigan, was a student there at that time, afterwards

graduating from Wabash College; also the Rev. R. M. L.

Braden, who likewise went to Wabash College.

"These are a few of the things that come to my mind as I

review my two years in Parsons Seminary."

It can easily be read between the lines of Mr. Deacon's reminiscences

that Parsons Seminary, however enthusiastic its support was at the

beginning, did not continue by any means to be an entire success. We

must look for the explanation of this very largely to its lack of

financial resources. It was living largely on hopes, and hopes that

were not destined to be realized. Mr. Coe's donation, lying in the

eighty acres of land, was utterly unproductive of a revenue, and the

Parsons legacy, which consisted of four thousand acres of wild lands in

various counties in Iowa, had not yet been located in Cedar Rapids, but

was hovering in the air as a glittering object which several localities

in the state were reaching out to obtain.

It would be an interesting and instructive pursuit to trace the history

of this legacy both within the Presbyterian synod of Iowa and within

the various cities of the state which made bids for its attainment. The

story, as far as Cedar Rapids is concerned, is one of bright hopes,

earnest aspiration, valiant endeavor and achievement, to be followed by

severe disappointment and bitter regret. The citizens of this city went

heroically to work to raise the sum of $75,000 to be subscribed and

added to the Parsons legacy [then estimated to be of the value of

$50,000], and this again to be added to the Coe donation of eighty

acres of land, which were continually increasing in value through the

growth of the city of Cedar Rapids. These three sums, when added

together, would furnish, it was intelligently felt, a very substantial

endowment as the beginning of a college. We have often been told that

when this campaign for the raising of the $75,000 had been successfully

completed, there was such a general jubilee in our city that

instinctively in demonstration thereof the whistles of the locomotives

and manufacturing establishments were merrily blown. But all these

plans went agley. Although committees from the synods of Iowa had

presented unanimous reports recommending that the Parsons legacy be

located at Cedar Rapids, it was eventually taken to Fairfield to found

Parsons College. The fund of $75,000 which was raised in Cedar Rapids

fell to the ground because of the failure to meet its vital condition

of the bringing of the Parsons legacy here, and so, once more, all that

was left for us was Mr. Coe's donation of the eighty acre plot and the

indomitable spirit of a few of the citizens of Cedar Rapids to plant in

our city an institution of higher learning in connection with the

Presbyterian church.

It is idle at this late date to discuss the wisdom or the folly of

those men in the synod who were responsible for this result. It were

wholly unproductive to speculate what might have been accomplished by

the union of all our educational forces here in Cedar Rapids. What is

written is written, what is done is an accomplished fact. Presbyterians

are not in the habit of quarreling with Divine Providence, but are the

rather given to rejoicing in the sovereignty of God. It is quite

conceivable that results already visible can give occasion for

gratitude that we have now the two colleges, Coe and Parsons, instead

of but one, as was once so ardently hoped for here at Cedar Rapids. If

anyone in the years between 1870 and 1873 made an error in judgment in

objecting to the merger, the only way to rectify it now is by pressing

all the more for the promoting of the endowment and the buildings of

both the colleges, the one at Fairfield, and the one at Cedar Rapids.

But the facts are that through the force of circumstances, the school

at Cedar Rapids was obliged to suspend its work, and little or nothing

was done in the building erected in 1868 from 1871 to 1875. Then for

the third time, and under new auspices, was the work begun afresh, and

it took place on this wise: On the 26th of April, 1875, the trustees of

Parsons Seminary held a meeting, at which meeting a committee of the

Presbytery of Cedar Rapids was present for the purpose of consulting

with the board to the end that the seminary building and the Coe legacy

located at Cedar Rapids might be made available for the establishment

of a school of a high order under the care of the said Presbytery. This

committee had been appointed by the Presbytery at its session at

Anamosa April 24, 1875, and they presented to the board of trustees of

Parsons Seminary a formal report in writing, which expressed the

readiness of the Presbytery to undertake the care of the school at

Cedar Rapids on condition that all its debts be cancelled, and its

charter be so amended as to give to the Presbytery the power to appoint

its board of trustees. The Presbytery also pledged itself to do all in

its power to maintain the school and open it in the school building by

the 1st of October, 1875. The board of trustees consented to the

proposition of the Presbytery and resolved to change the name of the

institution from Parsons Seminary to Coe Collegiate Institute. The

articles of incorporation of Parsons Seminary, which had been adopted

October 30, 1866, were amended May 11, 1875, to meet the new

conditions. The board of trustees was fixed at the number of eighteen,

and the power to elect them was vested in the Presbytery of Cedar

Rapids, or in the synod of Iowa North, if the said synod shall assume

such power with the consent of said Presbytery. The first election was

appointed to take place in the fall of the year 1876.

Mr. Daniel Coe had passed from earth in the interval between December

23, 1866, when he deeded the eighty acres of land in Cedar Rapids to

Parsons Seminary, and this date in 1875, when these new relations with

the seminary were entered into. He left a daughter, an only child, who

had become the wife of Mr. J. E. Jewell. This daughter, Mr. Coe's sole

heir at law, with her husband, entered in a very friendly manner and

measure into the new plans of the institution, and nobly agreed to

permit the school to avail itself under certain conditions well

understood and agreed to, of the advantages accruing from the revenues

of the property.

On the 21st of September, 1875, it was announced at a meeting of the

trustees of Coe Collegiate Institute that correspondence had been

conducted with the Rev. R. A. Condit with a view to his being made

principal of the school. Mr. Condit was then elected to that office.

This event marks the entrance into the work of Coe College of a

personality of rare value in himself and of rare value to the

institution of learning which he served most faithfully for a period of

thirty years after his appointment in 1875. Robert Aaron Condit was a

man of sweet spirit and gentle demeanor; he was a Christian and a

scholar. No one ever doubted his piety or his moral integrity. The

students who for a whole generation passed under his care all loved him

because he loved them, and was himself so lovable. His influence upon

them was mild, but effective, and we venture to say without fear of

contradiction, that all the alumni of Coe College who knew him as their

preceptor recognize the fact with gratitude that they are better

persons for having known him. In the weak and struggling days of Coe

Collegiate Institute before it emerged into its present larger,

stronger growth, as Coe College, Robert Condit was a factor peculiarly

fitted for the task providentially laid upon him, and his full value to

the college can scarcely be over-estimated or even stated sufficiently.

On the 8th of March, 1876, Prof. J. W. McLaury was employed to assist

Mr. Condit in the school, his salary being raised by voluntary

subscriptions. Mr. McLaury's services, though valuable, were not long

retained by the institution.

At the meeting of the board held December 28, 1876, the report of the

election of the trustees by the Presbytery October 4, 1876, was made,

as directed by the charter. And at the same meeting the following

officers of the board were chosen: Hon. George Greene, president;

Thomas M. Sinclair, vice president; D. W. C. Rowley, secretary; George

W. Winn, treasurer. It was at this meeting that the present writer took

his seat with his brethren for the first time as an officially

accredited member of the board. And it is a matter of grateful, tender

recollection to him, that he has remained to this day in unbroken

relation with the institution in all possible varieties of official

position and duties upon its manifold committees. And it is a solemn

recollection with him that he alone remains on the board of all those

who have served with him for thirty-four years.

He can well remember the tone and atmosphere of the meetings of the

board, which he was then called upon to attend. It was truly a day of

small things. The meetings were frequent and they were often lengthy,

and we must truly say they were usually dreary, and we went from them

with depressed hearts. For the questions for discussion were mostly,

not how to promote high christian learning, but how to pay the debts of

Parsons Seminary. And the problem was, how to pay something with

nothing. There were notes at two of the leading banks of the city,

notes which were increasing fearfully by the compounding of interest at

ten per cent, and there were notes held by individuals who had loaned

money to the seminary, there were mechanic's liens of sums unpaid in

the erection of the building put up in 1867-8, and to meet these

obligations there was nothing in sight. For all moneys that found their

way into the treasury were needed, and more than needed, to pay current

bills to teachers, heating and lighting bills and such minor fees. We

remember that our treasurer was once garnisheed by the brother of one

of our teachers for the payment of his sister's salary, and some sort

of compromise settlement was effected.

We have not a thought or word of disparagement concerning any member of

the board at that time. But it would have required men of heroic mold

and prophetic vision to face those problems. The president of the

board, the Hon. George Greene, a name never to be mentioned in this

city without a tribute of respect, was deeply immersed in his own

private interests and was compelled to be absent from home a great part

of the time. Soon after the date of which we speak, he insisted upon

pressing his resignation as president of the board. Other prominent

business and professional men on the board were also engrossed in large

personal interests. The ministers on the board, however valuable though

they may have been for counsel concerning educational questions, were

quite helpless in grappling with the financial problems which from

necessity were uppermost.

The Rev. James Knox had passed from earth October 10, 1875, after

having contributed valuable services to the college during the eleven

years of his pastorate in this city. We here insert the following

tribute to Mr. Knox, which was presented at a meeting of the board of

trustees March 8, 1876, and was adopted, all the members present

standing:

"In the providence of God the Rev. James Knox, former vice

president of this board, having been removed by death we

take this opportunity to record our testimony to his

exceeding worth as a man and his wisdom and faithfulness as

a minister of the gospel, and to his great devotion and

usefulness to this institution, having been connected with

it from its earliest days, and having given to it his best

strength and ability for many years, and his very latest

prayers. We feel that his place cannot easily be filled and

that in him the college has lost one of its truest and best

friends."

[Illustration: AN OLD GRAVE AT SPRINGVILLE]

[Illustration: REV. J. B. ALBROOK, D. D.]

[Illustration: PROF. HARRIETTE J. COOK]

[Illustration: MRS. MARGARET McKELL KING]

There was one notable exception to all these. One personality stands

out from the midst of his brethren and to him more than to any other

element at this critical period of the history of Coe College do we

attribute the fact that we have a college today, and one with such

promise and potency. We refer to Mr. Thomas M. Sinclair. Mr. Sinclair

had come to Cedar Rapids in 1871 a young man not quite thirty years of

age. He was pursuing a large manufacturing business, that of pork

packing, with rare energy and intelligence, and with great success. He

was making money, and his great desire and single aim was to use this

money with a keen sense of responsibility to God and usefulness to his

fellow men. He was a man of rare christian character, one among ten

thousand. It may truly be said of him that he walked with God. Coming

into this young country from the older world, he took a most keenly

active interest in all things that pertained to its welfare, and it was

a fortunate thing for Coe College that he came to Cedar Rapids at such

a time as he did. The cause of christian education was one of his most

treasured conceptions of opportunity, and he identified himself with

the representative of that cause which he providentially found to his

hand in this struggling institution.

Seeing the imperative need of relief from debt which Coe Collegiate

Institute manifested, he determined in the nobility of his heart that

he would pay out of his own pocket such obligations, principal and

interest, as lay against the institution, although they amounted to

several thousand dollars. And this he gladly did in all such cases as

he could not induce those who owned these obligations to cancel them

themselves. And thus it came about one happy day that he could declare

the college was actually free from all such incumbrances. Then he and

several of his colleagues, inspired with new hope and courage, and

determined to launch the institution upon broader and deeper waters,

went before the synod of Iowa North, which met at Waterloo, Iowa, in

October, 1880, and asked the synod to assume the care and control of

the Institute, free from debt, and possessed of a building, and of

eighty acres of land in the city of Cedar Rapids. The synod accepted

the proposition, and steps were taken at once to frame articles of

incorporation of a new organization to be called Coe College. The

articles were filed for record on the 16th day of April, 1881. Proper

deeds were drawn and filed for record which conveyed to Coe College all

the properties owned by Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute, Parsons

Seminary, and Coe Collegiate Institute, and thus the line of

inheritance and descent was duly established. In these negotiations

relating to the transference of the property through the hands of Mr.

and Mrs. Jewell, negotiations which required great care in the

handling, the valuable services of Mr. A. V. Eastman should be

mentioned. Mr. Eastman served the college most valuably for several

years at this period as its secretary. He subsequently removed from

Cedar Rapids to St. Paul, Minn., and still later to St. Charles, La.,

where he died most suddenly several years ago.

We have now emerged with our history from the intricacies of a somewhat

tortuous channel, and we have passed out from shoals and shallows to

enter upon clearer, deeper, broader waters. Henceforth we are to pursue

the story of the institution known as Coe College, which, with devious

fortunes, but with perceptibly increasing volume, has been filling its

place and doing its work under the charter prepared in 1881. Certain

changes have been made to this charter, more or less important, but

Coe College is the same institution, conducted by the same

incorporation from 1881 to the present time.

The first item which we are called upon to record at this period of the

history of our college, is the lamentable death of Mr. Thomas M.

Sinclair, which occurred on the 24th day of March, 1881. The

circumstances were peculiarly startling. By an accident he fell through

an open hatchway in his own packing house and never recovered

consciousness, although he continued to breathe for several hours. We

can never forget our emotions over this event. It was truly an

inscrutable Providence. Mr. Sinclair was at that time a young man, full

of vigor and energy. He was a pillar of strength upon whom many leaned.

He had done so much to bring the college up to this point of its new

beginning that both he and we were looking forward with desire and

delight to what might be accomplished through his co-operation. But it

was willed otherwise. We cannot interpret the event, but may we not

even now at this comparatively far removed time from its occurrence use

it in memory of him for the greater glory of God and increase of the

college. "He being dead, yet speaketh."

Dr. Stephen Phelps, then the pastor of the Presbyterian church at

Vinton, had been very prominently connected with the college ever since

its reconstruction as Coe Collegiate Institute in 1875. And now, when

it became Coe College, under the care of the synod, he was invited to

become its president. He was by nature and grace a pastor greatly

beloved by his people, and very useful in the community at Vinton. It

was a great request to make of him to ask him to lay down his pastoral

office and undertake the new and untried work of a college president.

And this was made especially significant because he was asked to

preside not over an institution already well endowed, richly equipped

with buildings, and possessed of the prestige of a generation, but over

an institution still in the process of formation, without any endowment

or equipment or faculty or history. He paused to consider his duty, and

decided to come to the college and with the help of God to undertake

the task.

He was a man of many gifts; an eloquent preacher and lovable pastor who

attracted young people to him, and a man of consecration and singleness

of aim. His pure spirit and untiring energy were rewarded with much

success in spite of the many difficulties which resulted from the

limitations of the new situation. He remained in the presidency of the

college six years, when he resigned his office to go back to his loved

work in the pastorate, to which he felt called of God. He became the

pastor of the Presbyterian church at Council Bluffs, and has

subsequently served other churches, until at the present time he is in

charge of the church at Bellevue, Nebraska, where he lives enjoying the

respect and affection of all who know him. He will ever be cherished as

the first president of Coe College.

Another figure that rises very prominently and pleasantly before us, as

we go back to this period of our history, is that of the first

treasurer of Coe College, Mr. John C. Broeksmit. Mr. Broeksmit became

the treasurer of Coe Collegiate Institute in 1878, and passed on into

the new administration in 1881, and continued in the exercise of his

duties as treasurer until he was made treasurer emeritus in 1903, when

Mr. John M. Dinwiddie, our present very efficient treasurer, assumed

the duties of the office which Mr. Broeksmit laid down. In the

formative period of our college history it was very important that the

charge of our slender funds should be placed in hands which were

trustworthy, not only because of honesty, but also because of business

ability and experience. Mr. Broeksmit possessed ideal qualities for a

treasurer. As auditor of the B., C. R. & N. R. R. he was accustomed to

the handling and careful accounting of the funds of that corporation,

and he brought his knowledge, judgment, and integrity to bear upon the

financial affairs of the college. We always felt secure in placing

these affairs in his hands, and we were not disappointed. Besides his

services as treasurer, he also rendered valuable services as a

trustee, always faithful in attendance, and giving his full and entire

interest to the matters in hand; wise in counsel, kind and genial in

manner, and friendly in attitude, he was a peculiarly attractive

co-laborer. He should be written down as one who loved his fellow men.

His decease in March, 1907, at the age of 82, was universally lamented.

We note the fact that Williston Hall was completed as a boarding hall

and dormitory for young ladies in 1881-1882, and the college building,

which had been occupied more or less since September, 1868, for school

room purposes, was enlarged in 1884 by an addition which simply

duplicated the original building.

In 1882 the Rev. E. H. Avery, D. D., who had succeeded Dr. Phelps in

the pastoral charge at Vinton when Dr. Phelps came to Cedar Rapids to

be president of Coe College, came into the board of trustees, and was

elected president of the board. He remained in this office until 1899,

when he removed to California where he subsequently died. Dr. Avery's

long administration of seventeen years was marked by his qualities of

cool, calm judgment, enlightened understanding, and zealous attention

to educational interests. He was punctual in attendance at the many

meetings of the board, and of the executive committee, coming down from

Vinton many times at much sacrifice of personal comfort and the laying

aside of his pastoral work, and during that long and eventful period,

marked by so many changes from 1882-1899, it was fortunate that we had

so wise and safe a president of our board as Eugene H. Avery.

On the 13th of May, 1887, the Rev. James Marshall, D. D., was elected

president of the College to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation

of Dr. Phelps. Dr. Marshall was an alumnus of Yale University and had

spent several years in New York City in city missionary work. He

entered upon the duties of his office in September, 1887. He brought

with him to these duties a mind matured and well rounded, a culture

produced by wide reading and considerable foreign travel and residence,

and an intelligent appreciation of college work. He had a strong sense

of the value of discipline in college life. He was much assisted by his

cultured wife, whose attractive personality won for her a valued place

in the hearts of the students. Mrs. Marshall died in Cedar Rapids after

a brief illness in November, 1892, leaving her husband sadly alone, for

there were no children in the household. Dr. Marshall labored on

bravely in his work until September, 1896, when, just at the opening of

the college year, he was stricken down with pneumonia, and his death

occurred after a few days amidst circumstances of peculiar solitude.

His funeral services were conducted at the First Presbyterian church of

this city, September 13, 1896, and the address on that occasion was

given by Dr. J. Milton Greene, then of Ft. Dodge, Iowa, now of Havana,

Cuba, and a life long friend of the deceased. Dr. Marshall is the only

one of the presidents of our college who has departed this life, and he

died literally in the harness. In summing up his life and work we avail

ourselves of the words which it was our privilege to report to the

board at their meeting October 13, 1896:

"He was a man of power, the power that is born of the

possession of a high ideal and consecrated purpose and

unusual faculty to organize, and an unflagging zeal to

execute and perform. He never spared himself. He forgot

himself, but he never forgot the college. His works do

follow him. These works which remain with us are the strong

and united faculty which he organized, and which he inspired

with his own high ideals, the noble standard of scholarship

to which he elevated the curriculum, the beautiful campus,

which is a wonder of improvement when we contrast it with

what it was when his hands first touched it, and the example

of industry and energy which his life has furnished. It

seems pathetic that he should have passed away without

seeing the fulfillment of the hopes he so dearly cherished,

and the plans be so wisely formulated. But it is a common

thing in this world that one should sow and another reap.

One conceives the building of the house, but leaves it to

another to build it. Yet no one ever thinks that the former

lives in vain."

The college pursued its work in the year 1896-7 without a president,

and it is a happiness to note the fact that owing to the harmonious

cooperation of a devoted faculty and a sympathetic body of students,

the year passed with much smoothness and prosperity.

On the 5th of August, 1897, the Rev. Samuel B. McCormick, D. D., was

called to the presidency of the college from the pastoral charge of the

Presbyterian church of Omaha, Neb. He entered upon the duties of his

office with the opening of the college year 1897. He soon made it

manifest that a man of great vigor was directing its affairs. He went

at his work with a spirit almost fierce, and he kept at it with a

persistency that compelled things to come his way. His energy was

contagious, and his colleagues in the faculty and on the board of

trustees felt it from the day he came among us until the day he left.

The pace he kept was not always pleasurable, but it was always

fruitful. It was during the seven years of his administration that

great growth of the college was experienced in the size of the faculty,

the number of the student body and increase of college buildings. The

financial campaign that was undertaken to secure the $25,000 promised

by Mr. Ralph Vorhees, of New Jersey, on condition of our raising

$125,000 additional, was successfully conducted when Dr. McCormick was

president. It was he who brought to Coe College the Rev. H. H. Maynard

as field secretary, and the two men worked together with congenial

vehemence and brought things to pass. Among the things which were

brought to pass was the present college gymnasium a very useful and

attractive asset.

In the summer of 1904 Doctor McCormick was invited back to his old home

in western Pennsylvania to become the chancellor of the Western

University of Pennsylvania, located at Pittsburg, and which is now

called the University of Pittsburg. This invitation was attractive to

him chiefly because it seemed evidently to offer him unusual

opportunity of enlarged usefulness in the educational field to which he

had devoted his life. Yet it plainly caused him a struggle to sever his

connection with Coe College, and with Cedar Rapids as a city. For in

the seven years of his life here, he had become strongly attached to

his friends and to the community which were strongly attached to him.

He also left this portion of our country, the Mississippi Valley which

was to his mind so full of hope and promise, with great reluctance. Yet

it was clear to him that he ought to go, and we parted from him with

much regret September 15, 1904.

Marshall Hall and the Athletic Field House were erected in the summer

of 1900, the latter the gift of Mr. C. B. Soutter. The College

Gymnasium was completed in 1904.

During the year following the departure of Doctor McCormick the duties

of the presidency were discharged by Dr. Stephen W. Stookey. Dr.

Stookey was an alumnus of Coe of the class of 1884, the first class to

be graduated after Coe became a college. He was always from the

beginning greatly attached to the college, and after teaching a while

in the schools of Manchester, Iowa, he returned to his alma mater in

1892 to become professor of the natural sciences. From that time onward

he filled a place of very distinguished usefulness in the institution,

commanding the high respect of his fellow workers in the faculty, the

student body, and the board of trustees, until 1908 when he left Coe to

assume the office of the presidency of Bellevue College, Nebraska, a

position which he still occupies very much to the benefit of that

school of learning.

[Illustration: BAPTIST CHURCH, CENTRAL CITY]

[Illustration: OLD BARN BUILT IN THE '50s AT CENTRAL CITY Now Used as a

Store and Post Office]

At this point of our story we note the fact that at the October meeting

of the board of trustees in 1899, Mr. C. B. Soutter was made the

president of the board. Mr. Soutter had been a resident of Cedar Rapids

since 1881 when he came from New York city to fill the very responsible

place in the business house of T. M. Sinclair & Company made vacant

by the death of Mr. Sinclair. The duties of the management of the large

packing house were very onerous and responsible, yet Mr. Soutter was

able, besides fulfilling them, to give much of his valuable time to his

duties as a trustee of the college, to which he was called in 1883. He

had already, therefore, for many years, shown marked interest in

college work and adaptation for it by taste and culture when in 1899 he

was felt to be the logical successor to Dr. Avery in the presidency. He

entered at once with zeal and intelligence upon his new and enlarged

duties. He was unintermitting in his attention to them until he

resigned his office in October, 1907, and, greatly to the regret of his

brethren, withdrew from the board of trustees.

On the 23rd of December, 1904, Dr. William Wilberforce Smith was chosen

president of the college to succeed Doctor McCormick. Doctor Smith was

not a clergyman as his predecessors had been and as hitherto has been

usual with American colleges in their selection of a president. He had

studied at Princeton Theological Seminary, and had been graduated

therefrom, but he had never been ordained to the ministry. He had

followed the vocation of a teacher, and was called to the presidency of

Coe from the Berkely School in New York city, a school of high grade

for boys. He entered upon his duties as president of Coe College at the

opening of the college year 1905, and remained with the college for

three years. He is now occupying the very honorable position of head of

the School of Commerce and Finance in the James Millikin University,

Decatur, Illinois.

His administration was marked by three notable events, all of which

indicate stages of great progress in the history of the college: First,

the successful launching of the plans to put the college on the list of

the accepted colleges of the Carnegie foundation for the advancement of

teaching. This took place near the close of the year 1908. Second, the

attainment of the Science Hall, given by Mr. Carnegie at the cost to

him of $63,500 upon the condition that the college raise $45,000 for

its maintenance. Third, the successful completion of a financial

campaign whereby a conditional grant of $50,000 was obtained from the

General Board of Education [John D. Rockefeller Foundation] on the

condition that the college pay all its debts and raise in various funds

the sum of $200,000 additional for endowment and buildings. This

campaign increased the assets of the college by $293,000.

It was during this campaign that the services of the Rev. Dr. H. H.

Maynard, field secretary of the college, were so peculiarly strenuous

and so uniquely valuable. Dr. Maynard merits most honorable mention for

his bold conceptions and his heroic execution of them, wherein the word

"fail" was expunged from his dictionary. Dr. Maynard left Coe College

in the summer of 1908 and has become the vice president and field

secretary of the University of Omaha, Nebraska.

In the year 1908-9 which followed the resignation of Dr. Smith, the

college was governed by a commission of four members of the faculty,

who distributed among themselves the duties of administration. The

result was a smooth and prosperous year, although at the end of it all

parties concerned were looking very wishfully towards a filling of the

vacant office of the presidency. At length, on the 7th of September,

1909, Rev. Dr. John Abner Marquis, pastor of the Presbyterian church at

Beaver, Pa., was chosen to be the head of the college. After due

deliberation he decided to accept the call, and on the 12th of October,

1909, he was presented to the students and friends of the college as

the president-elect. He returned to Beaver to sever his relations with

the church there, with the Presbytery and synod, and he came in

December and entered upon his duties. On the 13th of June, 1910, in

connection with the exercises of commencement week, Doctor Marquis was

formally inaugurated president of Coe College. This was the first time

in which formal exercises of this character were observed in connection

with setting a president over the institution, and the occasion was

greeted accordingly with peculiar pleasure, and large use was made of

it to perfect a relationship which it is believed augurs great things

to the advantage of the college. Doctor Marquis has been so short a

time in his office that it would be too soon to speak of what he has

done, but it is not too soon to say that in the brief period in which

he has been president of the college, he has already awakened the

fondest hopes and most steadfast convictions that under his

administration the institution over which he presides is destined to

move forward to a future which will far surpass any measure of size and

value that it ever attained in the past.

On the same week in last June in the midst of the commencement season

which witnessed the inauguration of Doctor Marquis, ground was broken

on the college campus by Mr. Robert S. Sinclair for a chapel in memory

of his father, Mr. Thomas M. Sinclair. This memorial chapel was

prepared for almost thirty years ago very soon after Mr. Sinclair's

death, but the execution of the purpose has been long delayed. But now

at last we see our thoughts and wishes about to be realized in the

erection of a building which shall from its beauty and the purposes

which it is destined to fulfill be a worthy monument to keep in

perpetual remembrance a man, who, in his life-time, did so much to make

it possible for us to have a college at all.

* * * * *

We have now accomplished the purpose for which we set out. We have, to

the best of our ability, traced the history of Coe College from its

beginnings to the present time. We have followed the Institution from

its fountain head in the heart and home of the Rev. Williston Jones,

when a handful of young men gathered in his parlor for such elementary

instruction as could be given by the zealous pastor and his wife, down

to the present day, when more than three-hundred students, young men

and maidens, gather in the halls of buildings erected and equipped for

college purposes, and one of these buildings at least prepared and

provided along the most progressive modern lines, the equal of any in

the land. Today the faculty of thirty-two persons conducts the teaching

of a curriculum which embraces every department of learning that is

recognized as belonging to a liberal education. And these teachers have

been prepared for their work by special training and selection.

The endowment also has grown from the paltry sum of $1,500, furnished

in 1853 by Daniel Coe, to the sum of $450,000, and the total amount of

money invested in the plant known as Coe College must exceed $750,000,

which is surely no mean aggregate.

In the course of our history, we have seen a feeble rivulet sink at

least twice in the sands only to reappear with new volume and freshness

further down the bed of the stream. And we see it now a river of such

dimension that it cannot disappear again. We have seen the work of the

heroic men who have nobly spent upon the college in the days when it

sorely needed their help. Such men were not wanting in the days of

emergency but were sent from God. They could not have known as we now

can plainly see what they were doing. They wrought in faith what it is

now given us to possess in sight. They sowed in weakness what we now

reap in power. Surely the lesson is plain and impressive; surely the

teaching of this historical sketch is to the purport that we with our

larger resources should enrich the institution which they sustained and

promoted in their poverty.

They could not see how much worth their while it was to give and labor

for Cedar Rapids Collegiate Institute, for Parsons Seminary, for Coe

Collegiate Institute, for the institution was then but a tender, feeble

shoot, whose future development was an uncertainty. We now can plainly

see that it is well worth our while to give and labor for Coe College,

for it is now one of the most potent and promising of all the colleges

in this Mississippi valley. And every intelligent mind who has any

powers of observation and has any experience of college work, knows

full well that as colleges grow and prosper they need more financial

help. It would be the extreme of selfishness and folly to take the

view that Coe College is now strong enough and rich enough to advance

on its present assets to meet its future.

Its needs are greater than ever. But it presents itself not as a beggar

or a suppliant, but as a splendid opportunity for investment. It

presents itself as the finest possible place to locate something to be

spent in buildings, equipment, and endowment whereby in the course of

the years, and we may even say the centuries to come, this money can go

on yielding the richest conceivable dividends in the preparation for

life and leadership of those of our choicest young men and women who

shall come hither from near and far to enjoy the privileges of a

college education. And thus as we close, our history becomes really an

appeal.

CHAPTER XXV

_The Old Blair Building_

The Kimball building in Cedar Rapids stands on the site of an old

landmark--the Blair building. This building, with the land and railroad

companies it housed from time to time, was the center of much history

in the development of Iowa, Nebraska, and the Dakotas. It is difficult

for us to realize now what an immense influence these companies in the

early days had in the settling up of the central west. A debt of

gratitude is due the men who risked their fortunes in this developing

work that many of us now are too apt to forget. Had it not been for the

railroads these early patriots projected into the unsettled portions of

these states the development of the west would have been greatly

retarded. Immigration would have been slow, for people are never eager

to settle in farming communities where there is lack of transportation

facilities to get the produce of the farms to market.

It is felt that a brief account of the influences that went out from

this center is entirely appropriate here. In fact it is needed as a

part of this history of Linn county. Greatly to our regret the

gentleman responsible for the historical data given below wishes his

name withheld, but through modesty only. What is here printed was

furnished by one who knows whereof he speaks, for as Virgil once wrote,

"of it he was a great part."

THE BLAIR BUILDING

John I. Blair, of Blairstown, New Jersey, being then the president of

several railroad companies having their general offices and official

headquarters at Cedar Rapids, erected a building to furnish adequate

room for the business of these companies and for the First National

Bank of Cedar Rapids, in which he was heavily interested. This building

was known as the "Blair Building." In its time it was much the most

pretentious structure in the city. It was located at the corner of

Eagle and Adams streets--now Third street and Second avenue--was two

stories in heighth with a high mansard roof, and set above and back

from the street. The plans for this building were made by W. W.

Boyington, then the most prominent architect in Chicago. It was what

might be termed of the "court house" style, having more the appearance

of a public building than one erected for commercial purposes.

On May 23, 1868, Mrs. Mary A. Ely purchased of A. C. Churchill, for Mr.

Blair, lots 6, 7, and 8 in block 15, including the brick dwelling house

thereon, for the sum of $10,000. Mrs. Ely afterwards conveyed this land

to Mr. Blair, who deeded it to himself and Oakes Ames as trustees for

the several companies who contributed to the cost of the land and the

buildings.

The work of construction began in the autumn of 1868. The building was

completed and occupied in the spring or early summer of 1869. The total

cost of the land, the new building, and the overhauling of the dwelling

house was $54,418, which was paid by the Cedar Rapids and Missouri

River Railroad Company, The Iowa Rail Road Land Company, the Iowa Falls

and Sioux City Railroad Company, the Sioux City and Pacific Railroad

Company, and the First National Bank of Cedar Rapids.

[Illustration: JAMES E. HARLAN, LL. D. President Cornell College]

In 1870 the dwelling house and the land lying southwesterly of the wall

of the Blair building was sold to John F. Ely for $11,000. In 1884 the

First National Bank conveyed its interest to the Iowa Falls and Sioux

City Railroad Company, and thereafter, until the liquidation of the

bank in 1886, occupied the banking room as a tenant. When the bank had

gone out of business, the railroads had been sold and the offices moved

away, and the real estate holdings of the companies very largely

reduced, the owners having no use for the space for their own purposes,

and the building being so constructed as not to be useful for

commercial purposes, it was decided to sell the property. It was

advertised for sale. A customer not being found at private sale, it was

sold at public auction on May 2, 1888, to David P. Kimball, of Boston,

Massachusetts, for $25,000.

Mr. Kimball, together with his brother L. C. Kimball, of Boston, J. Van

Deventer, then of Clinton but later of Knoxville, Tennessee, J. E.

Ainsworth, then of Council Bluffs but later of Williamstown, Vermont,

and P. E. Hall and Henry V. Ferguson of Cedar Rapids, organized the

Kimball Building Company, to whom the property was conveyed.

During the year 1888 the Kimball Building Company rebuilt the Blair

Building, extending its exterior walls out to the street line and added

a new portion so as to cover the entire lot, making the building when

so completed 76 feet on Second avenue and 140 feet on Third street,

four stories high, and thereafter known as the "Kimball Building."

In addition to being the president of all of these railroad companies,

Mr. Blair after 1862 gave personal attention to their construction and

was in absolute control of their affairs in the west. These railroads

came to be called the "Blair Roads," and were so generally spoken of in

the public prints. From this people generally came to think that he was

nearly the sole owner of all, or at least personally owned a

controlling interest in the whole group. This, however, was not the

fact. Mr. Blair's individual ownership averaged about one-sixth, about

another sixth being owned by his associates in the Lackawana Iron &

Coal Company of Pennsylvania, among which were Joseph H. Scranton, of

Scranton, Pa.; Moses Taylor, of New York, and William E. Dodge, D.

Willis James, and James Stokes, who then comprised the firm of Phelps,

Dodge & Company.

The controlling interest was always owned by a group of New England

capitalists and their associates, who were at the same time the

controlling stockholders in the Chicago, Iowa & Nebraska Railroad

Company--the line already constructed from Clinton to Cedar Rapids.

Among these latter were Oakes and Oliver Ames, of North Easton, Mass.;

John Bertram, of Salem, Mass.; Charles A. Lambard, of Maine and later

of New York; William T. Glidden, David P. Kimball, Joseph and Frederic

Nickerson, of Boston, and Horace Williams, of Clinton, Iowa.

THE CEDAR RAPIDS AND MISSOURI RIVER RAILROAD

In May, 1856, congress passed what was then called "The Iowa Land

Bill," making grants of land to the state of Iowa to aid in the

construction of four lines of railway across the state, one of which

was to be from Lyons City, thence "northwesterly to a point of

intersection with the main line of the Iowa Central Railroad near

Maquoketa, thence on said main line running as near as practicable to

the 42nd parallel across the state of Iowa to the Missouri River." The

general assembly of the state by an act approved July 14, 1856, granted

the land inuring to the state for the construction of this line to the

Iowa Central Air Line Railroad Company upon certain conditions

contained in said act. That company began the construction of the road

in the year 1856, considerable grading was done at different points

along the line as far west us Anamosa, but the panic of 1857 coming on

the work was stopped and never again resumed by the Iowa Central Air

Line Company.

It being quite probable that at the next legislative session the state

would resume this land grant and forfeit the rights of the Iowa Central

Company, and pass the grant over to some other company who would

undertake the construction of the road; for the purpose of obtaining

this grant, the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad Company was

organized on June 14, 1859, by the prominent eastern stockholders in

the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska Railroad, together with John Weare and

John P. Ely, of Cedar Rapids, and G. M. Woodbury, of Marshalltown,

Iowa.

In March, 1860, the state resumed the land grant from the Iowa Central

Company and made it over to the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River

Railroad. Work was begun on the line west from Cedar Rapids in 1860.

The bridge over the Cedar river was built in the winter of 1860-61, and

forty miles of track completed to Otter Creek Station (now Chelsea)

during the year 1861, and to Marshalltown in December, 1862. Milo

Smith, of Clinton, Iowa, was the chief engineer and had charge of the

construction of the road until it reached Marshalltown.

In 1861 John I. Blair became largely interested in this enterprise, and

thereafter took control of the construction beyond Marshalltown. After

1862 W. W. Walker was chief engineer until the road was finished. Track

was laid to State Center in 1863, and on July 4, 1864, to Nevada, and

to Boone in December, 1864, but the road was not surfaced up, finished

and put in operation from Nevada to Boone until the succeeding year.

In July, 1864, congress made an additional grant of land to the Cedar

Rapids and Missouri River Railroad, and authorized it to change its

line of road so as to connect with the Union Pacific Railroad at

Council Bluffs. Work beyond Boone began in December, 1865, the track

was laid into Council Bluffs in January, 1867, but regular service

between Woodbine and Council Bluffs was not instituted until April of

that year.

In July, 1862, the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad was leased

in perpetuity to the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad Company, which

company then owned the line from Chicago west to the Mississippi River

opposite Clinton, Iowa, and operated the Chicago, Iowa and Nebraska

Railroad under lease. The lease covered not only the portion of the

Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad then built, but the entire

line to the Missouri river when the same should be completed.

On June 2, 1864, the Galena and Chicago Union Railroad Company was

consolidated with the Chicago and North-Western Railway, and from that

time the operation of the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad

under the lease was by the Chicago and North-Western Railway Company.

L. B. Crocker, of Oswego, N. Y., was the first president of the Cedar

Rapids and Missouri River Railroad, and until 1866. Mr. Crocker during

this period was active in the financial affairs of the company, and

especially in obtaining the land grant from the state and the

supplemental grant direct from the United States. While not a man of

large means, he was possessed of great energy and foresight.

John I. Blair was president from 1866 to 1871, when he was succeeded by

Horace Williams, who remained the president until the company went out

of existence in 1884.

In 1884 the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad was sold to the

Chicago and North-Western Railway. It was in fact a consolidation, but

for convenience in handling the transaction it was made a sale, the

Cedar Rapids Company deeding its railroad and all rights and franchises

pertaining thereto to the Chicago and North-Western Railway Company,

receiving its pay in the stock of the latter company, which stock was

distributed pro rata to the stockholders of the Cedar Rapids and

Missouri River Company, after which the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River

Railroad Company closed up its affairs and went out of business.

THE SIOUX CITY AND PACIFIC RAILROAD COMPANY

An act of congress passed in 1862 authorized and required the Union

Pacific Railroad Company to construct a railroad and telegraph line

from Sioux City to a connection with the Iowa branch of the Union

Pacific Railroad, whenever there should be a line of railroad completed

through Minnesota or Iowa to Sioux City, Iowa. On July 2, 1864, the

original Union Pacific act was amended, and among other things it was

provided that the Union Pacific Railroad was released from the

construction of said branch, and such company as should be organized

under the laws of Iowa, Minnesota, Dakota or Nebraska, and be by the

president of the United States designated and approved for that

purpose, was authorized to construct said branch and receive therefor

lands and subsidy bonds to the same extent that the Union Pacific

Railroad would have done under the act of 1862. It was further provided

that if a railroad should not be completed to Sioux City across Iowa or

Minnesota within eighteen months after the passage of said act, then

the company which should have been so designated might commence,

continue and complete the construction of said Sioux City branch.

The Sioux City and Pacific Railroad Company was organized in August,

1864, to construct this branch line and was by the president of the

United States designated and approved for that purpose. The corporators

and first board of directors were Platt Smith, L. B. Crocker, M. K.

Jesup, James F. Wilson, A. W. Hubbard, Charles A. Lambard, Frederick

Schuchardt, William B. Allison, and John I. Blair. Soon afterwards the

Sioux City and Pacific Company passed under the control of Mr. Blair

and his associates in the Cedar Rapids and Missouri River Railroad. The

necessary money to build and equip the Sioux City and Pacific was

principally furnished by them. The general offices of the company were

first at Dubuque, but on the passing of the control to the Cedar Rapids

people headquarters were moved to Cedar Rapids.

Construction was begun in the spring of 1867. The Cedar Rapids and

Missouri River Company built six and a half miles of railroad from

Missouri Valley Junction to California Junction, where it connected

with the line of the Sioux City and Pacific. These six and a half miles

were turned over to the latter company. Track laying began at

California Junction in September, 1867. Thirty-six miles were completed

by the first day of December, 1867, and the line to Sioux City in

February, 1868. Early in 1869 the entire line was completed and in

operation between Missouri Valley Junction and Sioux City and to

Fremont, Nebraska, where connection was made with the Union Pacific

Railroad. The cars were ferried across the Missouri river during the

summer months, and crossed on a temporary bridge during the winter

months up to the fall of 1883, when the bridge across the river was

completed and opened up for business. L. Burnett was the engineer in

charge of construction of this railroad and superintendent in its

operation until January 1, 1878.