Gazette-Times Columnist

Editor's note: Over a period of 12 years beginning in 1983, local historian Ken Munford wrote 561 columns for the Gazette-Times. As part of the city's 150th anniversary, the newspaper will publish a selection of these columns each Saturday. This one was originally printed on Dec. 4, 1983.

The founders who incorporated Corvallis College in January 1858 were optimistic. They included town-founders J.C. Avery and William F. Dixon and four others. They plunged into a building program, letting contracts for a two-story structure on Southwest Fifth Street between Madison and Monroe avenues. It was expected to cost $5,000.

They set out to raise funds to pay for it. Dr. J.R. Bayley and others solicited funds. Ladies of the community held a fair to raise more money. The students, whose classes met in the Baptist church the first year, paid tuition.

The handsome frame building was completed in 1859. But funds raised were not sufficient to pay the carpenters and suppliers, who went to court and obtained a mechanics' lien and forced a sheriff's sale of the property in 1860.

Two bidders appeared at the sale. One representing Presbyterians was authorized to bid no more than $4,000. One representing Southern Methodists bid $4,050 and obtained the Fifth Street property.

The Columbia Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, took over the college as its Willamette Valley school and continued the primary and preparatory classes. As was usual in those days before high schools, liberal arts colleges often operated their own prep schools. A local physician and a minister helped with the teaching.

To raise the course of study to college level, the new owners brought the Rev. Wm. A. Finley from Pacific Methodist College in Santa Rosa, Calif., as the first head of the school to be called president.

President Finley established a full liberal arts, degree-granting curriculum in 1865. It required three years of Greek, three years of Latin, three years of mathematics, and a variety of scientific and cultural courses, capped by a year of ethics and philosophy. Four of the prep-school students n Louis Horning, Charles Mulkey, Alice Biddle and Annie Finley n qualified for the collegiate course.

Corvallis College was always co-educational. In a day when many colleges were segregated by sex, this one announced: "Young ladies will be admitted into all the College Classes, and will be entitled to the same honors and diplomas as conferred upon young gentlemen."

The third collegiate year had barely started when the 25-member Board of Trustees made a deal with the state of Oregon. They agreed to develop an agricultural college for the state. This created a number of new problems.

In 1862, Congress had promised the state 90,000 acres of public land if it was used in a prescribed way. The land had to be sold and the proceeds put into an irreducible endowment fund. No part of the principal or interest in this fund could be used to buy land or to build. The interest had to be "inviolably appropriated" to the support and maintenance of a college where five fields of study were to be taught: scientific studies, classical studies, military science and subjects related to agriculture and the mechanical arts.

The 1862 Legislature replied promptly to Congress that the state wanted to participate. But the Legislature did nothing toward establishing a college to take advantage of the land grant.

The Morrill Act of 1862 as amended was about to expire when the 1868 Legislature realized that it had to take action or lose the 90,000 acres. The state had to have a college to which benefits of the act could be assigned.

In some states, the Morrill Act land grants were combined with previous land grants for territorial universities, and a state university was established. Oregon did not follow this pattern.

In the other far western state at that time, the California Legislature made a deal with a private institution, the College of California at Oakland. Out of it grew the University of California.

The Oregonians decided to do something similar. Oregon already had colleges at Salem, Forest Grove, Oregon City, Corvallis and Philomath, and there were several academies that wanted to be colleges. The Legislature decided to make a deal with one of them.

Willamette University, across the street from the state Capitol, was a strong contender but after a bit of political maneuvering, Corvallis College, on Oct. 27, 1868, was "designated and adopted as the Agricultural College" for the state.

Four days later, speaking for the Corvallis College Board of Trustees, Secretary B.R. Biddle replied. He assured the Legislature that "we promise on our part faithfully to carry out the provisions of the act," which required that "all students be instructed in all the arts, sciences and other studies in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Congress."

For little Corvallis College, this promise created a number of weighty problems, which will be discussed in later columns.