1919-1920 Academic Catalog

HISTORY OF THE COLLEGE At the meeting of the General Synod of the Reformed Pres– byterian Church in North America, in Duancsburgh, N. Y., May 24, 1879, the Rev. J. F. Morton, D. D., presented a paper which inaugurated the movement in the church for a collegiate institution. This paper was unanimously adopted and a com– mittee, of which Dr. Morton was chairman, was appointed to carry out the project. At a later meeting of the Synod, Rev. ~~i 11 a:~~~ri;1J'~~~~e 0 :d~J~~~e~afs~::~ ::~~ '$~{),o88~i 1~11 :~b~;~~= tions and cash throughout the church during the following year. At the meeting of the Synod in Cincinnati, Ohio, the Rev. David Steele, D. D., on May 26, 1885, offered a resolution that the college be started as soon as possible and located in or near Cedarville, Ohio. This motion was passed unanimously. The following committee was appointed to secure the site: Rev. J. F. Morton, D. D., Messrs. Thomas Gibson, R. Park, Hugh McCollum, Jr., and H. 1-L Mdlillan. On January 20, 1887, the committee became incorporated under the laws of Ohio and on the 26th day of January, 1887, they obtained a charter for "The Cedarville College." On March 11, 1887, the incorporators met in Cedarville and elected themselves the first Board of Trustees of Cedarville College, with 1fr. Thomas Xt:~~ 1 • i~::t~;'~f s~~osJri~eii~~~ 1 ;887~ t~~i fu1 ~~~~iiln:i;:r~~~l~ were added to this first Board of Trustees: Robert Abbott, James Patterson, Alexander Kerr, and Ephraim Young. The enterprise then slumbered until the meeting of Synod in Cedarville in 1892, when the Ohio Presbytery reported that William Gibson, Esq., of Cincinnati, an elder in the Presby– terian Church of that city, had left $25,000 for the college in memory of his father, Peter Gibson, an cider of the Reformed Presbyterian congregation of Cincinnati for a long period of years. Again the Board of Trustees took up the work and at ~~: :f1~~~gw~~ r:~ 1 i:1t~d ~~~ 1 \t,~~:~ 11 eR;t• i3~vrJa{r~t~~:: D. D., as president, who served in that capacity for twenty-one