Yale College, 1701-1861: A Time Line
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Year |
Event |
Tags |
| 1700 | Connecticut an English colony of 30,000 people, in 33 towns; nearly all religious dissenters from the Church of England. Most of its clergy trained at Harvard; most dissatisfied with Harvard’s liberal leanings. | |
| 1701 | Ten ministers (9 Harvard grads) secure charter from Connecticut General Assembly to establish a “Collegiate School, locale as yet undecided. Some public funds appropriated. | |
| 1701 | School opened in Saybrook, alternating with Killingworth; Rev. Abraham Pierson (HC 1678) of Killingworth its first rector. | |
| 1708 | Saybrook Platform commits Connecticut churches to Presbyterian structure, whereby local parishes allow some oversight from colony-wide lay board. | |
| 1714 | Samuel Johnson graduates from Yale; stays on as a tutor | |
| 1717 | School settled in New Haven at urging of its minister John Davenport and town provision of land. | |
| 1718 | English merchant Elihu Yale becomes major donor at urging of Cotton Mather. | |
| 1719 | Timothy Cutler (HC 1701) becomes second rector | |
| 1722 | Rector Cutler announces his conversion to Anglicanism; fired in fall and departs with some of his protégés, including tutor Samuel Johnson. Both travel to England to be ordained in Church of England. | |
| 1726 | Rev. Elisha Williams (HC 1711) becomes 3rd rector; stays at helm until 1739 | |
| 1740 | Rev. Thomas Clapp (HC 1722) named 4th rector. Strongly opposes the “Great Awakening,” a movement among some Protestants to enliven religious observances with more emotional appeals. | |
| Among sympathizers to this movement are ministers Jonathan Edwards (Yale 1720) and James Davenport (Yale 1737), the son of a Yale founder, as well some Yale undergraduates, including David Brainerd. Davenport, a settled minister in Sothold, on Long Island, openly condemned Yale and the New Haven minister for opposing itinerant ministers such as Great Awakener Gilbert Tennent ; Edwards defended student Brainerd’s complaint about his tutor as ‘having no more grace than a chair.” |
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| 1743 | Davenport reenacted the “Bonfire of the Vanities,” during which he burned many books and some of his clothing in the streets of New London. Davenport’s earlier friends withdraw their support. | |
| 1745 | New charter secured from Connecticut by Clapp changes his title from rector to president; Samuel Johnson challenges charter for proscribing Anglican attendance and Clap backs down. | |
| 1750 | Connecticut Hall under construction; opened in 1753 | |
| 1753 | President Clap creates a church on campus to which Yaleys expected to attend; dissatisfied with New Haven church and its minister. | Town-Gown |
| 1766 | Clap resigns as president following student walkout; Napthali Daggett (Yale ) as acting president for next nine years. | |
| 1766 | Yale abandons earlier practice of ranking class members by the public prominence of their families. | |
| Early 1770s | Yale graduates, students and faculty generally supportive of the resistance movement against British authority | |
| 1775 | September – Scheduled commencement cancelled; not held again until 1781. | |
| 1776 | Xx Yale graduates signers of Declaration of Independence. 1 in 5 Yale graduates saw service in Revolutionary War. | |
| 1778 | Ezra Stiles (Yale ) becomes 5th president of Yale; serves until death in 1795 | |
| 1779 | British fleet raid New Haven; disrupt college activities | |
| 1792 | President Stiles assures Yale of public support from legislature for Union Hall by having charter changed to have 8 ex officio members on Corporation, but with ministerial members still in majority. | |
| 1795 | President Stiles died; succeeded by Timothy Dwight (Yale 1769) | |
| 1802 | Yale experiences its first student revival; surge in interest in missionary work abroad and out West. | |
| 1802 | Benjamin Silliman (Yale 1796) joins faculty as Professor of Chemistry; dominant force in Yale science for next half-century. | |
| 1806 | Riot on streets of New Haven as Yale students and sailors clash. | Town-Gown |
| 1817 | Jeremiah Day (Yale 1795), a professor of mathematics, succeeds Dwight as Yale’s 7th president. To serve for three decades. Yale then America’s most successful college. 10 faculty; 275 students; effective fundraising | |
| 1827 | Connecticut Assembly critical of Yale for its classical curriculum | |
| 1828 | Yale faculty respond with “Faculty Report of 1828” defending the classical curriculum and its long-term utility. | |
| 1830 | Yale launches a successful fund drive which brings $100,000 to the College. Operates in the black for next 20 years. | |
| 1830 | Student rebelliousness leads to expulsion of 43 of College’s 96 sophomores. | |
| 1841 | Yale students clash with New Haven firemen. Students attack firehouse and destroy equipment. New haven mob threatens to burn the College. | Town-gown |
| 1846 | President Day retires but stays as member of Yale Corporation. Theodore Dwight Woolsey (Yale 1820) elected Yale’s 8th president. Stays in office for quarter-century, until 1871. | |
| 1846 | August — Yale creates a graduate professorship in agricultural chemistry and an undergraduate professorship of chemistry for the College with gift of $5000 from industrialist Joseph E. Sheffield. John Pitkin Norton named to first; Benjamin Silliman, Jr., (Yale 1837) to the second. | |
| 1847 | Yael organizes a scientific course separate from and parallel to the College course, that eventuates into the Sheffield Scientific School | |
| 1852 | John A. Porter (Yale 1842) succeeds Norton as Graduate Professor of Chemistry. Was Sheffield’s son-in-law. | |
| 1858 | Yale student shoots a New Haven fireman. Guns barred at Yale thereafter.. | |
| 1861 | As Sheffield’s donation passes $100,000, Yale establishes the Sheffield Scientific School. | |
| 1861 | Yale authorizes awarding of the PhD to students who stay beyond their AB and pursue original work. The first American institution to do so; hoped to stem flow of Yale graduates to German universities. | |
Last updated; December 20, 2013
ram31@columbia.edu