d Reeder Smith.

The first meeting of the Board was to have been held in Fond du Lac,
June 30, 1847, but as there was not a quorum present, the meeting was
adjourned to Sept. 3d. At this meeting the Board was duly organized by
the election of the following officers: Hon. M.C. Darling, President;
Hon. N.P. Talmadge, First Vice President; H.S. Baird, Esq., Second Vice
President; Rev. Wm. H. Sampson, Secretary, and Hon. Morgan L. Martin,
Treasurer. Rev. Reeder Smith was appointed Agent.

Geo. W. Law, Esq., and Hon. John F. Mead now offered a donation of
thirty-one acres of land each, on condition that the Institute should be
located at Grand Chute. The offer was accepted, and the location was
made, the name of the place being soon after changed to Appleton. In due
time the Law Tract was conveyed to the Trustees, but, by some strange
mismanagement, to say the least, on the part of the Agent, the Mead land
was conveyed to another party, and it was lost to the Institute.

At the Conference of 1848, Brother Sampson was appointed Principal, and
was expected to serve as Agent until the building to be erected was
ready for occupancy. In pursuance of this arrangement he left Fond du
Lac, Sept. 7th, to enter upon his new field of operations. He took the
steamer to Neenah, and then obtained an Indian "Dug-out" for the balance
of the journey. As the craft carried no sail, he was compelled to put
her before the "white ash breeze" across Lake Butte des Morts, and down
the river to the point of destination, his craft being nearly swamped by
a gale on the Lake.

On the 8th of September he began to cut a road to the grounds and clear
the brush from the campus, thereby making the beginning of both the
Institute and the city of Appleton. The lumber for the building of the
Preparatory Department was purchased of Hon. M.L. Martin, and was
delivered at Duck Creek. The timber was furnished by Col. H.L. Blood.
Through the indomitable energy of Col. Blood and the co-operation of the
agents, the building, seventy by thirty feet in size, and three stories
high, was ready to receive students on the 12th day of November, 1849.

The Faculty with which the school opened were Rev. Wm. H. Sampson,
Principal, Rev. R.O. Kellogg, Professor of Ancient Languages, Mr. James
M. Phinney, Professor of Mathematics, and Miss Emeline M. Crooker,
Preceptress. The first catalogue, published in the fall of 1850, showed
a list of one hundred and five students, which