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Dartmouth University

Dartmouth University
Active 1817–1819
Location New Hampshire
Language English

Dartmouth University is a defunct institution in New Hampshire which existed from 1817 to 1819. It was the result of a thwarted attempt by the state legislature to make Dartmouth College, a private college, into a public university. The United States Supreme Court case that settled the matter, Dartmouth College v. Woodward, is considered a landmark.

Dartmouth University operated in Hanover, New Hampshire, on the campus of Dartmouth College. The University was established by the New Hampshire Legislature in an act of June 27, 1816. The College Trustees had dismissed President John Wheelock, and his allies in Concord sought to reinstate him through legislation. The act ostensibly modified the existing Charter rather than establishing a new institution: it attempted to change the name to Dartmouth University, to increase the number of Trustees from twelve to twenty-one, and to create a board of twenty-five Overseers including, ex officio, the Governor and Council, the President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House, and the Governor and Lieutenant-Governor of Vermont.

The Legislature had some reason to see the existing school as a state charity. Dartmouth used the terms "college" and "university" almost interchangeably in its early years. It accepted state grants of land and money, including the Second College Grant and state funding for the construction of its medical school in 1811. It included in its first board of Trustees the Governor, the President of Governor's Council, two Council members, the Speaker of the New Hampshire House, and an Assistant of the Colony of Connecticut.

Many of Dartmouth's existing Trustees refused to obey the Legislature's act, however, and the Trustees of Dartmouth University failed to obtain a quorum to conduct any business. In response, the Legislature voted on December 18, 1816, that the Governor had the power to fill the vacancies left by the Trustees who would not submit (eight known as "the Octagon") and decided to reduce the number required for a quorum. The University Trustees met and brought the University into being during 1817. John Wheelock was named President, but upon his death in 1817 was replaced by his son-in-law, William Allen.


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