Philip Spiess
This historical essay is for Bruce Fette.
HOW MANY COLLEGES ON COLLEGE HILL?
Let me begin by asserting that the suburb of Cincinnati now known as “College Hill” was not always known as that: there were no colleges there. Platted by William Cary (father of Freeman G. Cary and Samuel F. Cary [see below]) and Jabez Tunis in 1820, it was originally known as “Pleasant Hill,” no doubt because of the healthful breezes that blew over the hilltops, six miles distant from the smoke and miasmas of downtown Cincinnati. Northward beyond it on the hilltops, if you traveled along Hamilton Pike (formerly “Huston Road”), once an Indian trail and then the road connecting the pioneer forts of the Old Northwest Territory built by Generals St. Clair, Harmar, Wayne, and the like, eventually you came to the community of Mount Healthy, no doubt even more pleasant – and healthy.
Pleasant Hill Academy (a.k.a. Cary’s Academy): To this pleasant hill came Freeman G. Cary in 1833, himself an 1832 graduate of Miami University (Ohio’s first institution of higher learning). In that year Cary opened a high school for boys in his own residence on Pleasant Hill; it had four pupils. This modest school grew rapidly, and soon it required larger accommodations. Thereupon Cary built a small two-story building near the center of a large triangular lot at the junction of Hamilton Pike and the Colerain Road. Even this shortly proved inadequate as enrollment kept increasing, and so Cary built a larger and more imposing brick structure of fourteen rooms (for some reason, the boys called it the “Pork House”); additional frame buildings on the grounds served as dormitories.
For over twelve years Cary conducted this school as his own private enterprise, and its success was achieved. The four students grew to twenty-eight, then forty in the second year, fifty-eight in the third year, and eventually the yearly average of students was one hundred twenty. Students came from the West and South (though chiefly from Ohio), receiving a liberal education well advanced in the classics and higher mathematics. In later years, the academy required additional instructors, including ones in Ancient Languages and Physical Science; among these instructors were Dr. Robert H. Bishop, former President of Miami University, and the Rev. John W. Scott, formerly a professor at Miami University. Cary had invested $10,000 in the Academy building and apparatus, but by 1845 he found the facilities inadequate.
Farmers’ College of Hamilton County: Thus Freeman Cary conceived the project of transforming his Academy into a college. A meeting of Cary’s friends and business neighbors throughout Hamilton County was held in the Academy’s Chapel in 1845, subscriptions to the project were raised, and a stock Company of fifteen directors was organized to erect a building “especially suited to the wants of the agricultural and business community,” to manage the financial concerns of the Company, and to petition the Ohio State Legislature for an act of incorporation. Thus in February, 1846, the Ohio legislature incorporated the “Farmers’ College of Hamilton County” to “establish a course of studies, and . . . grant certificates or diplomas . . . to such students as they may deem worthy of such honor”; over 400 subscribers had contributed to the Company and four acres of land for the new college were purchased west of the academy (across the road).
How came the name, “Farmers’ College”? Answer: Partly because the patrons and purchasers of stock in the enterprise were mostly farmers (as was typical of the time and place), and partly because the course of study adopted by Mr. Cary was especially adapted to those who wished to pursue industrial and scientific occupations (in the 1840s, science and industry were still largely concerned with agricultural interests and economy). As the Rev. Dr. Robert Bishop put it while laying the corner-stone, “I dedicate this structure . . . for the promotion of the best interests of the human family in the development of mind, in the investigation of the infinite varieties of the natural productions of the land, and the water, and the atmosphere belonging to this globe. . . .” Or, as the Rev. Dr. Scott put it in further remarks on this occasion, the institution was designed “to raise up another and better, because a more educated and intelligent kind of agriculturists, mechanics, and business men, than the present or any former generation.”
Work went forward on both raising funds for the college and on building appropriate structures for the college; the College building was completed by September 1, 1847, costing $12,498.24, including furniture. The building, a substantial brick structure 120 feet in front by 48 feet in depth and three stories high, with twenty-seven rooms, stood on four acres of land, with level grounds in front planted with maple and evergreen trees. (This building, known as Cary Hall, served as a stop on the Underground Railroad before the Civil War.) At said completion, the students of the former Academy (all boys) automatically became students of the new College, many later becoming alumni.
The new Board of Directors of the College met in Philomathean Hall to hire Professor Freeman G. Cary as President; he also served as Professor of Moral Philosophy and Rhetoric, as well as Superintendent of Buildings, Grounds, and Finance. The following were the rest of the “Board of Instruction” (faculty): Robert Bishop, Professor of History and Political Economy; John Scott, Professor of Chemistry and Its Application to Agriculture and the Arts; John Silsby, Professor of Mathematics, Natural Philosophy [what today we would call “Science”], and Astronomy; Joseph Wilson, Professor of Ancient and Modern Languages; and George Ormsby, Teacher of the Primary Department.
Soon there were over two hundred students in attendance, and the college’s first commencement was held in its chapel on September 23, 1847. If this date seems a little premature to you, since the college building was completed on September 1 of the same year, understand that this first graduating class, a class of five receiving the degree of “American Scholar” (S.A. degree – under its charter the college could grant certificates or diplomas, but not the B.A. or M.A. degrees), was of students who had come from the old Academy. Only later, in 1855, when the appropriate state legislation had been passed, could the College confer B.A. or M.A. degrees. The largest graduating class in the College’s history was 16 – that of the Class of 1849, mostly of former Academy boys.
You may see a bit of foreshadowing here – that the College, which was to continue to develop expansive plans but to suffer perennial financial difficulties – was going to have a rocky road of ups and downs. Suffice it to say that it started out well: President Cary announced his theory of governing the students, which proved successful: “The government will be mild, but firm – essentially parental in its character. Private advice, warning, and expostulation will ever precede public censure and reproof. It will be taken for granted that every youth and young man is honest – that he has entered the institution to improve, and the last thing questioned will be his integrity.” Two literary societies flourished, the “Burritt” and the “Philomathean,” each with its library and meeting hall in the College building.
However, as the situation existed, President Cary was sustaining the college largely through his initial investment, and the professors’ salaries were obtained through tuition fees alone. Thus in 1850 the Board instituted an elective method of study, whereby a minimum course of study (or its equivalent) was prescribed, which had to be thoroughly mastered before a student could receive the Diploma of the College. It gave students to right of selection to thus adapt their studies to their prospective pursuits in life. In this period also the Board converted all original stock in the College into the form of scholarships, as it sought to establish a Permanent Endowment Fund, being reorganized by legislation in 1852, and paying Cary for all of the College’s property (his original investment), which now became property of the Board (i.e., corporation).
Thus, for the nonce, Farmers’ College was able to expand. In 1852 an additional building was erected for dormitory purposes; it was a brick building of three stories and twenty-one rooms named “Excelsior.” There was also constructed a brick building of eight rooms called “Brick Row” – although the boys called it “Rat Row.” The College had a large refractor telescope, equatorially mounted, which was second only to Harvard’s in size. And the College continued to advertise that its course of instruction “cause our youth to form habits of thinking for themselves” [this is just another way of saying “We teach critical thinking” – the universal claim of all present-day schools]. Further, Mr. Taylor, the fund-raising agent for the college, recommended that an “Experimental Farm” be established, which would thoroughly teach the science and practice of agriculture and horticulture, that being the suggestion of those from whom he was seeking funds for the College.
Therefore, at the beginning of 1853, the Board determined “to secure a farm and establish an Agri-cultural Professorship and Department of practical Agriculture and Horticulture” – thus making it a real “Farmers’ College.” The committee assigned to prepare a subscription for funds reminded all and sundry that “it was the original design” to set up a farm for “scientific and practical experiments . . . including the analysis of soils and fertilizers and their adaptations to the various products of the earth . . . [and] furnished with ample facilities for applying the principles of science to husbandry and the mechanic arts. . . .” President Cary, who resigned the College’s presidency to become “Superintendent of the Department for the Promotion of Scientific Agriculture and Horticulture” (i.e., President of the Farm Department), recommended purchase of fifty to seventy-five acres near the College for a “small model, experimental farm and gardens.” This department was to be optional with the students and to be equivalent to the Lingual Department, and it was to emphasize practical instruction in the field.
Thereupon Isaac J. Allen became president of Farmers’ College, which by this time had 321 students. The Collegiate Department now comprised a four-year course, and the Preparatory Department comprised a two-year course. It was during this period that Charles McMicken joined the Board and gave $10,000 to establish a professorship of Agricultural Chemistry. Subsequently, professorships were established in Scientific and Practical Agriculture and Horticulture, Geology and Agricultural Chemistry, and botany and Vegetable Physiology. And in September, 1854, a national convention of persons interested in or involved in Industrial University Education was held on the grounds of the farm.
In 1855-1856, the Board built Polytechnic Hall, a brick laboratory with nineteen rooms; it stood in the Botanic Garden opposite the junction of Linden Avenue with the Hamilton Pike. This Botanic Garden was for fruit and for flowers and had both a lawn and a lake. As the college continued to have financial problems, in the 1858-1859 school year five young ladies were admitted to study Languages, and a Normal Department was established to prepare students to become teachers, receiving on completion of their studies a Teacher’s Diploma. And during 1858-1859 the college sought to have the Cincinnati Observatory (Ormsby McKnight Mitchel’s project, dedicated by former President John Quincy Adams) removed to College Hill (industrial pollution from downtown was obscuring the Observatory’s viewing the skies from Mount Adams); four acres of ground were offered for the site, but the Astronomical Society declined the offer, eventually moving to Mount Lookout.
In 1861, at the beginning of the Civil War, we find the first suggestion of changing the name of the college; this was proposed by the alumni, with another such proposal occurring in 1867. Needless to say, enrollment fell dramatically during the Civil War years – particularly of students from the South – although in 1864 the college (rather belatedly) established a Department of Military Tactics. Indeed, by the end of the Civil War in 1865, the college had reached such financial straits that the college courses were suspended and Farmers’ College returned to the rank of an Academy. These troubles continued through 1873, necessitating the sale of the “Model Farm,” which was to have been the centerpiece of a true “Farmers’ College,” as well as other college lands, which were subdivided into Cedar and Maple Streets (College Hill). In these years (1868) the old Academy building was torn down, and the Episcopal Church erected on its site. Also in 1868 Dr. John A. Warder became Cary Professor of Theoretical and Practical Agriculture, a position he retained until 1876; he later became a nationally known arborist in Cincinnati and Chicago. In 1869 an attempt to join the Western Military Institute [founded in 1847 in Georgetown, Kentucky] with Farmers’ College failed.
In 1873 there was an attempt to liquidate the college, but the college reorganized and reopened in the fall, with Professor J. S. Lowe, president, and with a plan of co-education, i.e., admitting girls; this plan included the first female teacher, who took charge of the Preparatory Department. The number of boy and girl students stayed nearly equal for some years, and therefore new courses were added in French, Literature, Drawing, Elocution, and Music. In 1877 the first graduation since 1865 that conferred degrees occurred and a reunion of alumni was held. In this year, too, a female filled the position of Professor of Botany, Geology, and Natural Science. In 1878 a club-house was started for boarding students.
Bishop College: In 1879 Philip Van Ness Myers became president, and once again a change in the college’s name was proposed. In December a letter was received from Dr. W. C. Gray proposing that the institution be called Bishop College, which would honor the oldest educator in the West and which would appeal to the alumni of Farmers’ College and that of Miami University. Gray’s letter was read to the Board and filed, but no action was ever taken on it, although the Board began to make inquiries as to what steps were necessary to effect a change of name.
Garfield College: In September of 1881 Mr. Coy of the Board moved to change the name of the College to Garfield College, in honor of the 20th President of the United States, who had just died from being assassinated. The motion was referred to a Special Committee, whose only action was to report on the statutory requirements for changing the College’s name. Nothing further was done.
The Southern Ohio College: In 1882 a committee of three was appointed to recommend a new name for Farmers’ College; the committee consisted of President Myers, Mr. Coy, and Mr. Simpson. Several weeks later, this committee recommended renaming the college The Southern Ohio College. The committee’s report was referred to the law committee to determine the power of the Board in this matter of changing the College’s name. That committee, in turn, recommended referring the question to the owners of Scholarships [essentially stockholders in the College]. When this group met, it proposed that the Board of Directors apply to the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas for a change of name according to the law. Said resolution was voted 7-7, and thus declared lost. Thus again nothing was done.
Belmont College: At the end of 1883, a new committee recommended reorganization of the college under a new name and reorganization of its financial system from certificates of scholarship to a permanent endowment plan. The new name proposed was Belmont College; a resolution to that effect was adopted in early 1884 and approved by the Court of Common Pleas. Trustees of the College were chosen by the Alumni. All of these changes were intended to bring new life to the venerable institution, but inevitably the expenses exceeded the income and the college continued in a downhill direction.
Cincinnati University?: At a Board meeting in December, 1885, the project was discussed of incorporating Belmont College with “the Cincinnati University” [University of Cincinnati], and moving the university to College Hill; the Board unanimously thought this move to be highly desirable. Another committee was appointed to confer with any committee that the University might appoint – but as the University did not meet nor merge with Belmont College, nor even move to College Hill, the question became moot.
Belmont Academy or High School: In 1887, Belmont College’s faculty and president, now somewhat desperate as its endowment fund lacked any growth potential, unanimously recommended that the Collegiate classes be gradually dropped and that the institution name be changed to Belmont Academy or Belmont High School. One result of this was that the College’s course of study was reduced from six years to four years, and that its professors were reduced to four. The College’s Annual Catalogue for 1889-1889 (the last issued by Belmont College) announced that “The classes of the Collegiate Department have been temporarily suspended, and two years added to each of the several courses of the Preparatory Department.”
The Ohio Military Institute (OMI): Thus in May of 1889 a special committee of the Board recommended that the college be made into a Military Academy, and that the change be made by September of 1890. Accordingly, in 1890 the newly organized Ohio Military Institute took over the Belmont College site. As a school for boys in the primary, intermediate, and college preparatory grades, its military organization and routine were designed to meet the physical training and disciplinary needs of future members of the armed services, but its primary purpose was to offer an academic education in preparation for advanced work in college and university, West Point, and Annapolis. Thus the cannon was fired promptly at 6:00 a.m. every morning to arouse the students from bed (and, incidentally, the neighbors as well).
OMI’s 10-acre campus included Cary Hall (laboratories and recitation rooms), Belmont Hall (housing for the younger cadets, administration offices, the hospital, library, and the dining room), Bishop Hall (the dormitory for upper school cadets), and Perry Gymnasium. Behind Perry Gymnasium was Bishop Mound, the grave of Dr. and Mrs. Robert Hamilton Bishop; he was the first president of Miami University and one of the first teachers at Farmers’ College. This particular form of grave was requested by Dr. Bishop, who wanted his remains interred on the school grounds and covered with alternate layers of earth and sand, following a Scottish burial custom; the plot was enclosed by an iron fence. When OMI closed in 1958, the Bishop graves were moved to Oxford, Ohio, to the Miami University Conrad Formal Gardens [northeast corner of East Withrow Street and North Patterson Avenue]. By 1943 OMI’s student body numbered about 125 and the faculty 11, and so eventually the school closed in 1958.
Ohio Female College: Founded circa 1846 to 1849 (according to different sources) by the Rev. John Covert, and reorganized in 1852, the Ohio Female College was the fifth college in the country to offer a liberal education for women; its college course degree was Mistress of Arts [!], although it also had a preparatory academy. Among the courses offered were writing, chemistry, and geography. John McLean, who later became a U. S. Supreme Court Justice, was the first president of the board of trustees (he also was a director of Farmers’ College), and Samuel F. Cary, candidate for Vice President of the United States on the Greenback ticket in 1876, was its secretary. Housing more than 250 women at its peak, the original campus had three buildings and a horse stable, and fifteen acres of gardens and woods. The gardens included flower gardens and a vegetable garden, fruit orchards, and a 2-acre lake fed by a natural spring; rowing was available in summer and ice-skating in winter. The location was claimed to be “central, accessible, elevated and healthy . . . sufficiently far from the city to be free from its temptations and dissipating tendencies, yet near enough to enjoy its privileges.”
The College’s main building was rebuilt after a fire in 1868; its unique ventilating system was considered one of the first forms of modern air conditioning. But after being reorganized in 1865 under Cary’s leadership, the college languished and closed its doors in 1873. Its buildings and grounds were sold that year to the Cincinnati Sanitarium, which became one of the largest psychiatric hospitals west of the Alleghenies; in addition to mental illness, it treated alcohol and opium addictions as well. The hospital complex had the main hospital, four two-story cottages, an amusement hall (including billiards), a conservatory for flowers, an ice house, the physical plant, and a station for the Cincinnati Northwestern Railroad. The grounds consisted of a 30-acre park with fruit trees, shrubs, flowers, gravel walks, a vegetable garden, an artificial lake, and a living spring. In 1956, it was renamed the Emerson A. North Hospital after a prominent pioneer in clinical psychiatry at the University of Cincinnati. This facility eventually became part of the Cincinnati Mental Health Institute in the late 1960s; a new hospital was built on the grounds in 1988, but this hospital closed in 1994 when its services moved to Providence Hospital in Mount Airy. It was replaced on the site by Phoenix International, which conducted clinical trials of drugs for the pharmaceutical industry. Phoenix left in 2000, and the Cincinnati Children’s [Hospital] College Hill Campus was established on the site in 2002 with funds from the Convalescent Hospital for Children. The College Hill Campus provides extended hospitalization treatment for children and adolescents who suffer from chronic mental illness and impaired functioning. An in-patient program is also offered.
Aiken High School: Opened in 1962 on the site of the Ohio Military Institute as part of the Cincinnati Public Schools system, Aiken High School has two educational programs: the Aiken College and Career High School, and the Aiken University High School. Students had the option to learn a trade program, such as nursing, cosmetology, welding, and so on. Starting with the 1995-1996 school year, a pilot program kept student classes together from the 9th grade through the 10th grade in order to retain more 9th-grade students. More recently, the school was rebuilt and re-opened in 2014 as the Aiken New Tech High School, partnering with New Tech Network to promote project-based learning which encourages student “self-regulation” [whatever that may be]. Although still serving grades 7-12, Project-Based Learning (PBL) focuses on five areas: agency, oral communication, collaboration, written communication, and knowledge and thinking skills, all to improve students’ technological skills.

Cary's Academy, 1836.

Farmers' College, 1847.

Polytechnic Hall, 1855-1856.

Ohio Military Institute, circa 1905, Belmont Hall on the left, Cary Hall on the right.

Ohio Female College, circa 1860.

Emerson A. North Hospital.
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