University of Georgia. International Student Life Office

The University of Georgia (UGA) is the largest institution of higher learning in the state of Georgia. Located in Athens, Georgia, approximately 70 miles northeast of Atlanta, it was the first state-chartered university in the United States. In 2005 U.S. News & World Report magazine ranked UGA 19th in its list of the top 50 public universities for a sixth year in a row. UGA also ranks 58th overall (public and private) in the nation. Today, it is the largest university of the University System of Georgia, with an enrollment of approximately 33,000 students. From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Of_Georgia

At the end of his life in 1854, Dr. William Terrell, a prosperous planter from Hancock County, gave the University $20,000 in bonds to establish an endowed fund, interest from which would pay the salary of a new professor of "Agriculture as a Science." This gift is acknowledged as the genesis of what is today our College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences. Seventy-two years later Dr. Terrell's grandson, William Terrell Dawson, died leaving the remainder of his estate as a bequest - in memory of his father Edgar Gilmer Dawson, an 1849 graduate - to support agricultural education at the University. Today, the Edgar Gilmer Dawson Fund stands at more than three-quarters of a million dollars, providing scholarships for outstanding students of agriculture and for other CAES activities on campus and around the state. UGA Division of External Affairs - Gift and Estate Planning http://www.plan.gs/Article.do;jsessionid=C99405E8310E9164D3697944FFBD2C6D?orgId=5035&articleId=6734 (Retrieved November 30, 2010)

John Irvine Stoddard (ca. 1843-1924) was a general insurance agent in Savannah, Georgia. He was active in several social and religious organizations. He spent the last twenty-five years of his life. A "John Stoddard" is referred to as an honorary member of the Confederate States of America Organization of Savannah Artillery and Roster, February 1861.

Benjamin F. Ward (1801-1885) of Jackson, Georgia, was a lawyer and planter who graduated from the University of Georgia in 1822. -- Catalogue of the Trustees, Officers, Alumni and Matriculates of the University of Georgia at Athens, Georgia, 1785-1906.

The University of Georgia (UGA) is the largest institution of higher learning in the state of Georgia. Located in Athens, Georgia, approximately 70 miles northeast of Atlanta, it was the first state-chartered university in the United States. -- From: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_Of_Georgia

These are the consultants' reports referred to in Final Report - University of Georgia Study by A. J. Brumbaugh and Morris W. H. Collins, Jr. (1958)

In February 1784, just after the close of the Revolutionary War, the General Assembly of Georgia earmarked 40,000 acres of land to endow "a college or seminary of learning." The following year, Abraham Baldwin, a lawyer and minister educated at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, who had settled in Georgia in 1783, wrote the charter that created the University of Georgia. Reflecting the exuberance of newfound freedom sweeping through the colonies, Baldwin created a populist document that departed sharply from conventional notions about higher education. The charter asserted that an educated citizenry is essential to a free government, that government has a responsibility to see that its citizens receive an education, and that all people - not just the wealthy and privileged - have a right to education. The legislature's approval of the charter on January 27, 1785, made UGA the first university established by a state government and provided the framework for what would become the American system of publicly supported colleges and universities. For the next sixteen years the university existed only on paper, as Georgia's leaders, occupied with the more pressing business of creating a state, used the land designated for a college for other purposes. In 1801 interest in the university revived, and John Milledge, a lawyer and legislator, bought 633 acres along the frontier on the Oconee River and donated the land as a site for the school. Josiah Meigs, another Yale graduate, was appointed president and sole faculty member and in September 1801 taught the first university classes. The first permanent university building, a three-story brick structure, was completed in 1806 and named Franklin College in honor of Benjamin Franklin. It was the only university building until 1821, and for many years the university was commonly known as Franklin College, though its official name was the University of Georgia. As the school grew, a division for classes in the liberal arts and basic sciences emerged and was named the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences. The young school struggled financially in its early years, and only the College of Arts and Sciences existed until 1859, when the School of Law was started. Closed for two years during the Civil War (1861-65), the university escaped possible bankruptcy in 1872 when it was designated a land-grant institution under the Morrill Act. This legislation, and later companion laws, formalized the university's public service mission. Schools of pharmacy, forestry, education, business, journalism, and home economics and a graduate school were started in the early twentieth century, and in 1918 women were admitted as regular students. The creation of the University System of Georgia in 1932 brought the university and the state's twenty-five other public colleges together under the centralized administrative control of the Board of Regents and spun off several university branch campuses as separate institutions. The State College of Agriculture and the State Teachers College were merged with the university. New Georgia Encyclopedia - University of Georgia http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-1059 (Retrieved December 6, 2010)

The University of Georgia is first university in America to be created by a state government. The legislature's approval of the charter on January 27, 1785, made the University of Georgia the first university established by a state government and provided the framework for what would become the American system of publicly supported colleges and universities.

Captain Thomas Mickeberry Merritt was the son of Jane Brown and Mickleberry Merritt. He was born on January 28, 1836 in Monroe County, Georgia. He graduated at old Franklin College, Athens, Georgia, where Alonzo Church, D. D. was president. Merritt was the editor of the college magazine and graduated in the class of 1857. After his marriage on November 25, 1857 to Anna Hamlin Lewis (b. September 4, 1834, d. February 28, 1877 in Sumter County, Georgia), he moved to Marion County, Georgia to join his two older brothers. From this county he entered the Confederate service. He died in 1892.

Alonzo S. Church (born April 9, 1793, Brattleboro, VT; died May 18, 1862, Athens, GA) was president of the University of Georgia 1829-1859. He received his B.A. from Middlebury College (1816) and came to Putnam Co., GA as a schoolmaster. While a Presbyterian minister, he joined the faculty at UGA as Professor of Mathematics. Following his resignation in 1859, he retired to the country.