Purdue University (PDF)

The Morrill Act of 1862 was also known as the Land Grant College Act. The grant was set up to establish colleges in each state for the education of all social and economic classes in agriculture, home economics, mechanics, and other useful arts. The land-grant act was introduced by Vermont Congressman Justin Smith Morrill. The bill was signed by Abraham Lincoln on July 2. This gave each state 30,000 acres of public land for each Senator and Representative. The land was to be sold and the money from the sale was to be put in an endowment fund to provide support for the colleges in each of the states. Establishing Purdue took several years. The Indiana Act that accepted the provisions of the Morrill Act was passed on January 5, 1865.

The first meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Indiana Agricultural College with Governor Oliver P. Morton presiding as the Ex Officio board president took place on October 20, 1865. The first time the phrase Purdue University appears in the Board of Trustees minutes was on December 26, 1868. Purdue University was founded on May 6, 1869 as a land-grant university when the Indiana General Assembly, taking advantage of the Morrill Act, accepted a donation of land and money from John Purdue to establish a college of science, technology, and agriculture in his name. The site of the university was chosen by the Board on June 8, 1869. The first classes were held on September 16, 1874, with three buildings, six instructors, and 39 students. The first graduating class of one student was in 1875. John Bradford Harper graduated with a degree in Chemistry. He however became a national respected civil engineer working in Colorado and New Mexico.

Purdue is not the only institution to benefit from John Purdue. He bought stock in, and then became a trustee of the Battle Ground Collegiate Institute and contributed to another institute near Crawfordsville. This certificate demonstrates that his philanthropy extended to African-Americans in the Midwest. The Northwestern Freedman's Aid Commission was one of dozens of similar mostly church based organizations, in the mid-nineteenth century, that helped ex-slaves and freedmen find homes, jobs, and education unavailable to them in traditional society. This organization confined its operation to Illinois and Iowa and existed from 1864-1866. During those years it supported about one hundred teachers and sponsored schools in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Missouri.