“The ninth of May will ever be fondly cherished by every alumnus” of Lafayette College as its founding day, a recap of the college’s 1882 semi-centennial celebration reads.
Wait, what?
Between its drawn-out establishment and an “impromptu” celebration that stuck, Lafayette College has called no fewer than four different days its “founding day” over the years.
And though the college coalesced its efforts around its 1826 chartering in the past half-century, all four dates were commemorated in Lafayette’s first century of celebrations.
The Marquis de Lafayette’s tour of the United States between 1824 and 1825 received rapturous audiences nationwide, including a Philadelphia stop that roughly 200 Eastonians attended. In a Dec. 27, 1824, meeting, the residents gave Lafayette College its name, a milestone that would be commemorated 100 years later with the city’s gifting of Easton Hall to the campus.
The college’s charter lay on the commonwealth’s back burner for all of 1825, according to David Bishop Skillman’s “The Biography of a College.” Finally brought to the floor in January 1826, it survived “vigorous and stubborn opposition” through the Pennsylvania General Assembly en route to its March 9 signing by Governor John Andrew Shulze.
The college’s founding floundering was far from over, however; six years of searching for a president — a position finally filled by Philadelphian Presbyterian pastor George Junkin — ensued until the college held its first day of classes on May 9, 1832.
Not even Founders’ Day found its footing at first, with Oct. 21 originally deemed as a school holiday to commemorate the dedication of Pardee Hall. Only in 1969 did the celebration take its present March 9 form, clearing the way for a dedicated homecoming weekend to be held in the fall.
Due to the college’s scattershot celebrations over the years, however, confusion still remains.
“Whether we shall celebrate again in 1982 I leave to others to decide,” Robert Pfenning, Class of 1932, said ahead of the 1976 celebrations, per the Lafayette Alumni Quarterly. Later, a 2005 edition of the Gazette of the American Friends of Lafayette dated the college’s 175th anniversary to 2007 rather than 2001.
Answer: It’s all a matter of perspective.
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