New York Central College, commonly called New York Central College, McGrawville, and simply Central College, was the first college in the United States founded on the principle that all qualified students were welcome. It was thus an abolitionist institution. It was founded by Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor and other anti-slavery Baptists in McGraw, New York (at the time called McGrawville; not modern McGrawville, New York). The sponsoring organization was the American Baptist Free Mission Society, of which Grosvenor was a vice-president. It was chartered by New York State in April 1848, laid the cornerstone of its main building on July 4, and opened in September 1849. Its "prominent features" were "Radical Anti-Slavery, and Equality of the Sexes".
It has been called a predecessor of Cornell University.
The college lasted about 10 years. As put by the author of a modern study, "A little town tried to create a place without any prejudice, and it did make a difference. It created humanitarians and heroes in a time where nothing else existed like this." While Oberlin and Oneida had accepted African-American students, and Oberlin female students, New York Central College was the first institution in the country founded to accept all students, which it did from its very first day. This was the vision of its founder, Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor.
As was common in the Antebellum period, when there were no public secondary schools anywhere in America, Central had a large preparatory, or high school, division. Students at the college level were never more than a small minority of the student body. At the first commencement in 1855, there were five graduates, with a student body of well over 100. There were some students at the primary level. Yet there was no question that Central was a college, whatever the ratio of students, and not an academy, whose studies ended at the high school level (typically including Latin and Greek).
The American Baptist Free Mission Society
Abolitionism
The American Baptist Free Mission Society broke away from its parent, the American Baptist Home Mission Society, over the issue of slavery, more specifically whether slaveowners could be members, missionaries, or donors to the society.
From the beginning, the College was to be open to all, whatever the "race" or gender. At the presentation to the citizens of McGrawville, its description begins saying that it will differ from the Hamilton Literary & Theological Institution (now Colgate University) in only one feature: "it lays down as a broad platform, the rights and privileges of all classes of citizens as of paramount importance. It will be an Institution of Learning from which no individual will be rejected." Hamilton had a reputation for not opposing slavery; Gerrit Smith resigned from their Board of Trustees "on the grounds that the school was insufficiently anti-slavery". When Hamilton students sent a petition to the New York Legislature "in behalf of the oppressed free colored citizens of the state", this made them "guilty of the awful crime of abolitionism", and the Legislature almost immediately withdrew the College's $5,000 appropriation. The President and five professors, with the support of "citizens of Oneida County", informed the legislature than an outsider (a legislator) had misled the students, who "disclaim all sympathy with abolition societies". The anti-slavery petition was unauthorized by the faculty, and "at variance with the principles of the college government, and with the judgment and feeling of every officer of the institution". The appropriation was immediately restored.
Founding of its college
The College was founded in McGrawville, "a quiet and healthy place" according to the college's advertisement in the abolitionist National Era, because of a pledge by the village of $12,000 () towards construction costs; Perry, New York, had offered $10,000. The initial community meeting in McGrawville to discuss the proposed college was held on November 22, 1847. It already had a board of trustees, with Reverend Cyrus Pitt Grosvenor of Utica, who spoke at the meeting, as President. Its location not yet determined, it was referred to as the "Baptist Free Mission Institution". Construction commenced on June 26, 1848, and the cornerstone was laid on July 4. In the cornerstone was a box with 20 items, many of them abolitionist newspapers or pamphlets. By then it was referred to as the Free Central College.
