{"id":5,"date":"2010-03-22T18:20:58","date_gmt":"2010-03-22T18:20:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hub-dev.bates.edu\/150years\/a-brief-history\/"},"modified":"2023-07-18T14:31:26","modified_gmt":"2023-07-18T18:31:26","slug":"history","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/history\/","title":{"rendered":"A Brief Founding History"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Bates campus in 1906.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

In the mid-19th century, Oren B. Cheney, a minister of the Freewill Baptist denomination in Maine, conceived the idea of founding a new school. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school was to be a seminary \u2014 a 19th-century term suggesting a “fitting school\u201d for college \u2014 and received its charter from the Maine Legislature on March 16, 1855.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1857<\/strong>. The Maine State Seminary opens on Sept. 1 with 115 students and six teachers. Enrollment totals 137 by term\u2019s end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1861:<\/strong> Fifteen students petition for college instruction. Later, in 1862, another group of students, \u201csome with tears in their eyes,\u201d according to The Life-Story of O.B. Cheney<\/em>, come before the trustees to lobby for a college course.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1862:<\/strong> Cheney and the trustees push for college instruction, and the Maine Legislature amends the seminary charter, giving the school the authority to \u201cestablish a collegiate department in connection within said Seminary.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1863:<\/strong> The seminary offers college instruction to 22 students. Eight go on to become, in 1867, the first graduating class of Bates College.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1864:<\/strong> The Maine Legislature changes the school\u2019s name from \u201cPresident and Trustees of Maine State Seminary\u201d to \u201cPresident and Trustees of Bates College,” in honor of Benjamin E. Bates, one of many Boston-based entrepreneurs who had invested in Lewiston textile manufacturing and begun to financially support the seminary. Bates accumulated wealth in the antebellum years from the labor of enslaved people who grew the cotton<\/a> that was spun and woven in his mills.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

1867<\/strong>: Bates College holds its first Commencement on July 31, 1867. The first graduating class numbers seven men.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the mid-19th century, Oren B. Cheney, a minister of the Freewill…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":3,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"_hide_ai_chatbot":false,"_ai_chatbot_style":"","associated_faculty":[],"_Page_Specific_Css":"","_bates_restrict_mod":false,"_table_of_contents_display":false,"_table_of_contents_location":"","_table_of_contents_disableSticky":false,"_is_featured":false,"footnotes":"","_bates_seo_meta_description":"","_bates_seo_block_robots":false,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_id":0,"_bates_seo_sharing_image_twitter_id":0,"_bates_seo_share_title":"","_bates_seo_canonical_overwrite":"","_bates_seo_twitter_template":""},"class_list":["post-5","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2291,"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/5\/revisions\/2291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bates.edu\/150-years\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}