Yale College u State House, Newhaven, Connecticut.

Title

Yale College u State House, Newhaven, Connecticut.

Description

View shows Yale College and the State House in New Haven, Connecticut.

ca. 1835

Artist

Kunstanstalt Hildburghausen (1828-1874)

The German publishing company Bibliographisches Institut was founded 1826 in Gotha by Joseph Meyer, moved 1828 to Hildburghausen and 1874 to Leipzig. Its production over the years includes such well-known titles as Meyers Lexikon.

Historical Description

In 1633, the first Englishmen arrived in the country from Massachusetts. Two years later, the settlements of Windsor and Wethersfield were founded. Thomas Hooker founded Hartford in 1636. The three settlements joined together in 1639 to form the colony of Connecticut. In the same year, the colony of New Haven was founded. In 1662, Connecticut received autonomy approved by King Charles II and its own constitution. In 1665, Connecticut and New Haven were merged. Planning for a merger with the Dominion of New England occurred in 1685. In July 1776, Connecticut declared independence from Great Britain as one of the Thirteen Colonies and became the fifth state of the United States on January 9, 1788. Yale University is the third oldest American institution of higher education, after Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. Yale's beginnings lie in the An Act for Liberty to Erect a Collegiate School resolution of the General Court of the Colony of Connecticut in 1701, whereby a collegiate school was to be established. Soon thereafter, a group of ten Congregationalists donated their materials received as Harvard students to the institution as a foundation for the library. Years earlier, Harvard University was the only institution of higher learning in North America. Yale was founded to educate leaders. Originally called the Collegiate School, the institution opened for teaching in the home of its first rector, Abraham Pierson (1646-1707), in Killingworth, now Clinton, Connecticut. In 1716, the Collegiate School moved to New Haven and was renamed Yale College in 1718 due to a substantial donation from Elihu Yale.