New-York Central College


New-York Central College, commonly called New-York Central College, McGrawville, and simply Central College, was an abolitionist institution of higher learning founded by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor and other anti-slavery Baptists in McGraw, New York. The sponsoring organization was the American Baptist Free Mission Society, of which Grosvenor was a vice-president. It was chartered by New York State in April 1848 and opened in September of that year.
The college lasted about 10 years. As put by the author of a modern study, "A little town tried to create a place without any prejudice, and it did make a difference. It created humanitarians and heroes in a time where nothing else existed like this." While Oberlin and Oneida had accepted African-American students, and Oberlin female students, New-York Central College was the first institution in the country founded to accept all students, and did so from its very first day. This was the vision of its founder, Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor.
As was common in the Antebellum period, when there were no public secondary schools anywhere in America, Central had a large preparatory, or high school, division.

College experience

This is how the college was described by an alumna and instructor, Angeline Stickney:

College curriculum and faculty

Grosvenor "proposed a 'free institution,' for the 'literary, scientific, moral, and physical education of both sexes and of all classes of youth.'" The school's curriculum included classical education as well as agricultural science. The Rev. Grosvenor served as the school's first President, 1849–1850. Replacing Grosvenor as President was Leonard G. Calkins, "a finished scholar, an accomplished orator, and a true gentleman, a deep thinker, of active temperament". In a newspaper advertisement we find that the Manual Labor Department was "under the supervision of Luther Wellington, a Practical Farmer, a kind and benevolent man, on a farm of." Under the "careful training" of the President students took a Rhetorical Class "with daily exercises in Extemporaneous Speaking", "not to be overlooked in this day of 'public speaking'".
The college was modeled after Oberlin, which in 1835 began admitting blacks and in 1837 women. However, New-York Central College was the first American college founded specifically to educate all students: black and white, male and female. It was also the first to have African-American professors, in a position filled by three men: first Charles L. Reason, who was an alumnus, then his replacement William G. Allen, a graduate of the Oneida Institute, another short-lived school which was a predecessor of the college. After Allen's departure he was replaced by George Boyer Vashon, the first African-American graduate of Oberlin. Reason was the first black college professor in the country. Allen was Professor of Rhetoric and Greek; in 1850, when he was appointed, he was "well known as a lecturer upon the origin, literature, and destiny of the African race."
In 1850 the students of the college published resolutions they had passed in support of William L. Chaplin, in jail for helping two slaves escape. Also in 1850, the college and town were afflicted by smallpox, and 6 students died. At that time, there were 150 students.
In 1851 it was one of 11 colleges to receive New York State legislative funding; it received $1,500, the same amount as New York University, Fordham University, Hamilton College, and Madison University. A few weeks later, another report says that the college received an appropriation of $25,000. A Baptist report of 1851 states that its Free Mission Society raised $30,000 for the college.
Students and professors were not allowed to use alcohol or tobacco.
Samuel J. May in 1851 spoke at the college on the English abolitionist George Thompson.
In 1852, according to Professor William G. Allen, "There is now a project on foot to attach a medical department to New York Central College. — A glorious idea this, as, if it should be successful, it will afford an opening for study to the very many colored young men who are now, by prejudice and scorn, shut out of most, if not all, of the medical colleges in the land. The faculty are physicians of Syracuse, in high standing and repute." Nothing came of this, although there is a reference to a Professor of Anatomy at the college. The medical college was established in New York City.
In 1852, the faculty were:
The college's first commencement was in 1855, with 5 graduates. In 1856 there were 226 students and 9 faculty, and approximately 50% were African-American. Most were in the college's preparatory program.

Hostility to the college

Because of its equalitarian treatment of blacks, the "nigger college at McGrawville", as it was called, received a lot of public vituperation.
A New York legislator said that rather than giving a state appropriation to that "vile sink of pollution", it would be better given to "a mob that will raze it to the ground", because it "was at war with every principle of American liberty". The New-York Tribune called it a "treasonable college", an "obnoxious edifice" where, "if things are suffered to go on at this rate, this whole region will become infected with Abolitionism; the contagion of Free Speech will spread til the Fugitive Slave law will become a nullity and the Union will collapse!"
The local hostility to the college was a factor in its demise. As it was put in a typically inaccurate newspaper column, which mistakenly puts Mary King's father at the head of the college:

William Allen affair

A scandal arose when African-American professor William G. Allen became engaged to a white student, Mary King. To escape violent repercussions, Allen fled to New York City, where he was joined by his fiancée. They married—the first black male–white female marriage in the country's history—and immediately left for England, never to return. This event exacerbated already lingering social and political opposition to the school.

Closure

The school was later denied funding by the New York State Legislature, and it was bankrupt by 1858.
President Callins left for a position at "an eminent law school in Albany". "Everything that an able faculty could do to advance the interests of the Institution has been done, and yet the College has not prospered. Its friends are discouraged, and the Board of Directors disheartened. Present appearances indicate that the College will either pass into the hands of its colored friends, or be purchased by the citizens of M'Grawville, and be renovated and reorganised into a seminary or academic institution, or finally cease to exist as a College."
Facing bankruptcy, the school was put into the hands of the wealthy activist Gerrit Smith, who lived nearby, in Peterboro. A smallpox epidemic struck McGrawville in 1860. The effects of the outbreak, coupled with the lingering social and political opposition and financial difficulties, caused the college to close that same year. Another source says it closed in 1859.
The New York Central Railroad, with which there is no known connection, began in 1853.

New York Central Academy

According to the New York State Department of Education, New York Central Academy operated from 1864 to 1867. It owned and occupied the college property.. In 1868 it became a high school.
Daniel S. Lamont, Secretary of War under President Grover Cleveland, was from McGraw, and studied as a child at the Central Academy, "the successor of a queer institution, known as the New York Central College, established by Gerrit Smith and other abolitionists, for the education of boys and girls without regard to color." Lamont was born in 1851.

Alumni

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