In 1865, Mr. Fayette R. Buell began an academy for boys and girls at
Westminster, Carroll County,[51] and, in the spring of 1866, he proposed
to the Conference of the Methodist Protestant Church, of which he was a
member, that the school should be chartered as a college and taken under
the Church's patronage. This proposition was not acceded to, but Mr.
Buell went on with his plan. Confidence in the Rev. J.T. Ward, one of
the teachers in Mr. Buell's school, induced two of his friends to lend
the enterprise $10,000, and the corner-stone of the College building was
laid on September 6, 1886. The College opened a year later with
seventy-three pupils. In February, 1868, Mr. Buell found himself so much
in debt, that he appealed to the Conference to take the property off his
hands. This was done, and a Board of Trustees appointed by the
Conference was incorporated by the legislature on March 30, 1868.
The next fall, the institution reopened with Rev. J.T. Ward as
President, in which office he continued for seventeen years. These were
years of trouble and severe work to make the College a success. There
was no endowment, and only by the most strenuous efforts was the College
saved on several occasions from being overwhelmed with debt. Still, in
spite of all disadvantages, good work was done and valuable experience
was gained. The College has been a co-educational one from the first,
and connected with it was a department of Biblical Literature, for such
as intended to become clergymen, until a separate Theological School was
opened in 1882. During Dr. Ward's administration, new buildings were
erected and, at his resignation in 1886, he left the institution ready
to be made still more efficient by his successor. Rev. Thomas H. Lewis
succeeded as President and, while he has caused the work and equipment
of the College to be further enlarged, he has also been successful in
paying off the last dollar of the debt that had hung over it so long as
an incubus.