provide for its
maintenance. Rev. Philotas Dean, the only white teacher connected with
this institution, was its first principal. He served until 1856 when
he was succeeded by his assistant, M.H. Freeman, who in 1863 was
succeeded by George B. Vashon. Miss Emma J. Woodson was an assistant
in the institution from 1856 to 1867. After the din of the Civil War
had ceased the institution took on new life, electing a new corps of
teachers, who placed the work on a higher plane. Among these were Rev.
H.H. Garnett, president, B.K. Sampson, Harriet C. Johnson, and Clara
G. Toop.[2]

[Footnote 1: _African Repository_, vol. xxxiv., p. 156.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the U.S. Com. of Ed._, 1871, p. 381.]

It was due also to the successful forces at work in Pennsylvania that
the Ashmun Institute, now Lincoln University, was established in that
State. The need of higher education having come to the attention of
the Presbytery of New Castle, that body decided to establish within
its limits an institution for the "scientific, classical, and
theological education of the colored youth of the male sex." In 1853
the Synod approved the plans of the founders and provided that the
institution should be under the supervision and control of the
Presbytery or Synod within whose bounds it might be located. A
committee to solicit funds, find a site, and secure a charter for the
school was appointed. They selected for the location Hensonville,
Chester County, Pennsylvania.[1] The legislature incorporated the
institution in 1854 with John M. Dickey, Alfred Hamilton, Robert P.
DuBois, James Latta, John B. Spottswood, James Crowell, Samuel J.
Dickey, Alfred Hamilton, John M. Kelton, and William Wilson as
trustees. Sufficient buildings and equipment having been provided by
1856, the doors of this institution were opened to young colored men
seeking preparation for work in this country and Liberia.[2]

[Footnote 1: Baird, _A Collection_, etc., p. 819.]

[Footnote 2: _Special Report of the United States Com. of Ed._, 1871,
p. 382.]

An equally successful plan of workers in the West resulted in the
founding of the first higher institution to be controlled by Negroes.
Having for some years believed that the colored people needed a
college for the preparation of teachers and preachers, the Cincinnati
Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in session in 1855
appointed Rev. John F. Wright as general agent to execute this design.
Addressi