West College had its origin as a seminary
to train young men for the ministry. Oueen Anne's County witnessed
a strong influence from the developing Methodist Church, an influence
that spread all along the Eastern Shore of Maryland. The initial
plan was to locate the seminary in Queenstown on the Chester River,
but John Hall, a member of the County Assembly and an overseer of
the Methodist movement, argued successfully for a location along
the Corsica River after the Assembly voted to move the county seat
from Oueenstown to Centre Ville which, at the time, was little more
than a crossroad of the main road from Chester Mill to Church Hill
and the lane to the Corsica Warehouse, a tobacco customs house at
the headwaters of the Corsica River.
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The year was 1782 when the Assembly authorized the construction
of a county courthouse on four acres of land adjacent to
the crossroad. The town-to-be was close to the center of
the county, hence its name; and the spelling reflected the
post-Revolutionary War admiration for the French. The seminary
was founded two years later, in 1784, ten years before the
courthouse was finished and the first case was heard.
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Sketch of Old Main
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In 1785 the seminary took its first class, a
class of seven young men taught by a faculty of one, the President
and Methodist minister named Simeon North. The seminary consisted
of a single frame building. In 1811 Elias Fancher became president.
Known behind his back as "Old Greek", he spent some
of his time as a Christian missionary to members of a local Indian
tribe, and the record shows that he took seriously his efforts
to "Christianize the pagans."
President Fancher remains part of the lore of
West College for he admitted as a matriculant a talented Indian
youth named Sansom who turned out to be a real spellbinder of
a preacher who also helped raise money for the seminary. All the
early presidents were ministers, but when the Maryland legislators
voted to grant a charter to the institution, its formal relationship
with the Methodist Church terminated and the stipulation that
the president be a Methodist minister no longer applied. The year
was 1846 and what had been known simply as The Seminary became
West College, an independent liberal arts institution, named to
honor Thomas West, an important person in the development of the
colonies. Also known as Lord Delaware, Thomas West arrived in
Jamestown, Virginia in 1610 where he served as a member of the
Privy Council of Queen Elizabeth, I. |
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Campus Map |
Since the formal founding of West College in 1846, it has grown
from 46 students and four faculty to its current size of 900 students
and seventy faculty. The campus occupies about 300 acres of slightly
rolling hills on a plateau that slopes gently down to the shoreline
of the Corsica Riyer, The campus is about three miles from the
courthouse in the center of Centreville. The College became co-educational
in 1969. While the financial health of the college waxed and waned
through the years, the most difficult period being during the
Civil War, a recent crisis in enrollment led to the addition of
new programs in nursing and in hotel management. The endowment
is modest but adequate primarily through the generosity of William
Baxter, the owner of a local winery who accepted the chairmanship
of the board of trustees six years ago,
As the Seminary and West College grew over the
years, so too did Centreville. The town now occupies a tract of
land earlier known as "Chesterfield", The original commissioners
of Centreville, who were appointed by the legislature in 1794,
laid out the town in 37 lots along two north-south streets, Liberty
Street and Commerce Street. The courthouse stood between them.
Later an east-west road was added, Water Street. By act of the
Assembly in 1796 provision was made for the erection of a Market
House behind the courthouse, with Wednesdays and Saturdays set
aside as market days. In 1804 the first school opened, but the
primary school system was not established until 1826. By the mid
1800's Centreville had become a center of commerce for the area.
To places of business were added several churchs, two taverns,
a hotel, and a volunteer fire company.
West College Curriculum
When the College received its charter in 1846, the Catalogue of
the Corporation listed a seven member board of trustees: Josiah
Bacon, Joshua Spencer, S. Newton Dexter, James R. Lawrence, Samuel
B. Woolworth, Edmund E. Wetmore, and Othniel Williams who also
served as secretary and treasurer of the board. The faculty consisted
of Charles Avery, LL.D, Professor of Natural Philosophy, Chemistry,
and Civil Engineering; Johannes Root, Professor of Mathematics,
Astronomy, Mineralogy, and Geology; Theodore William Dwight, A.M.,
Professor of Law, History, Civil Polity, and Political Economy;
and Anson Judd Upson, A.M., Professor of Rhetoric and Elocution.
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Sketch of Old Main
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The statement on Admissions
read as follows: "It is required that candidates for
admission to the Freshman class should not be less than
fourteen years of age. with a corresponding increase for
advanced standing; that they furnish evidence of a good
moral character, and, if from another college, a regular
dismission; and that they sustain a satisfactory examination
on the several studies to which the class they propose to
enter has attended. Preparatory studies should include English,
Latin, and Greek Grammar, including Prosody, Caesar's Commentaries, |
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Virgil's Aeneid, Cicero's Select Orations, Prose of the Greek
Reader, and Geography, Arithmetic, and Algebra to Quadratic Equations.
The whole course of instruction occupies four years. The object
of the course is to form the mind to habits of accurate discrimination,
close reasoning, and vigorous application; and, at the same time,
to furnish it with the great leading facts and principles in Literature,
Science, and the Arts."
There were no electives. The Freshman Class studied
Livy's History, Algebra, Rhetoric, Heroditus' History, Geometry,
and Horace. As Sophomores they
studied Homer's Odyssey, Plane Trigonometry, Demosthenes, Mathematics
of Navigation and Surveying, Select Greek Tragedies, and Spherical
Trigonometry. As Juniors, Differential and Integral Calculus,
Natural Philosophy, including Mechanics, Tacitus' History, Logic,
and Rhetoric. As Seniors, Constitutional Law, Intellectual Philosophy,
Chemistry, Natural Theology, Municipal Law, and Civil Engineering.
The curriculum has changed over the years and is much less heavily
weighted toward the classics. In form it matches that of other
contemporary liberal srts colleges except for the recent addition
of nursing and hotel management, two programs added in an effort
to increase enrollment. |
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