History of Bates College

The History of Bates College begins at its founding on March 16, 1855, in Lewiston, Maine. The university was founded by Oren Burbank Cheney and Benjamin Bates. Originating as a Free Will Baptist institution, it has since secularized and established a liberal arts curriculum.

After the mysterious 1853 burning of Parsonsfield Seminary, Cheney wanted to create another seminary in a more central part of Maine: Lewiston, a then-booming industrial economy. He met with religious and political leaders in Topsham, to discuss the formation of such a school, recruiting much of the college's first trustees, most notably Ebenezer Knowlton. After a well-received speech by Cheney, the group successfully petitioned the Maine State Legislature to establish the Maine State Seminary. At its founding it was the first coeducational university in New England. Soon after it was established, Canadian and American donors stepped forward to finance the seminary, developing the school in an affluent residential district of Lewiston. The university struggled to finance its operations after the financial crisis of 1857, requiring extra capital to remain afloat. Cheney's political activities attracted Benjamin Bates who was interested in furthering his business interests in Maine. Bates donated installments of tens of thousands of dollars to the college to usher it out of the crisis.

The school was renamed Bates College in his honor in 1863 and chartered the following year. Although much controversy was found in the source of the college's endowment (Benjamin Bates made an odd-some majority of his money from slave plantations in Alabama and Mississippi), the college sheltered run-away black slaves illegally and graduated their first African American, Henry Wilkins Chandler, in 1874. The Cobb Divinity School and the Nichols Latin School became affiliated with the college in 1866. Although very few women enrolled at the college in its early days, the first women to graduate from a New England college was Mary Mitchel. In the early 1870s, Bates began its rivalry with Bowdoin College, however this was mainly student-based as many faculty switched between the schools and the college shared trustees on occasion such as Alonzo Garcelon and William Frye. Gridley J.F. Bryant ushered in the college's architectural connection to Dartmouth College and constructed the college's first building, Hathorn Hall. During the American Civil War, Bates played an important role in advocating for the rights of African Americans and women. Many students at the college showed support for the Emancipation Proclamation, and were very vocal members in their respective communities regarding the freedom of African Americans, and general civil rights. The college went on to send one hundred and seventy-five students to the war, most famously Holman Melcher, Aaron Daggett, and James Porter. After the war, George Colby Chase became the first and only alumnus-president; he went on to establish the Outing Club, dismiss the college's first attempts at establishing secret societies, and created the Brooks Quimby Debate Council. The debate council's international success became linked with the college, contributing to its ensuing national prominence in U.S. higher education. In 1943, the V-12 Navy College Training Program was established seeing the enrollment of Robert F. Kennedy and the naming of a Victory Ship, the S.S. Bates Victory. Bates and Bowdoin joined Colby College to create the Colby-Bates-Bowdoin Consortium in 1964; this developed an already budding football and rowing rivalry. In 1970, the college completely secularized and built 22 new academic, residential and athletic facilities, including Pettengill Hall, the Residential Village, and the Bates College Coastal Center at Shortridge. In October 2002, Bates saw its first female president, Elaine Tuttle Hanson, ascend to the presidency to build "The Commons", and guide the college through the 2007-08 financial crisis and subsequent recession. Vice President of Institutional Policy of Harvard University, Clayton Spencer, assumed the presidency in 2012 and shepherded the college into a modern era by instituting new fields of study and breaking fundraising records as well as building Kalperis and Chu Hall in November 2016.

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