Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 August 2011
Yale College was founded in the year 1700, sixty-five years after the erection of the first house in the Colony of Connecticut. Ten of the principal ministers, nominated by general consent of the clergy, met at New Haven, and formed themselves into a society, the object of which was to found a college in the colony. At their next meeting each brought a number of books, and presented them for the library, and the following year the Legislature granted them a charter, constituting them “Trustees of a Collegiate School in his Majesty's Colony of Connecticut.”
The principal benefactor of the infant institution was the Hon. Elihu Yale, of London, Governor of the East India Company. This gentleman was descended from a family in Wales, which for many generations held the manor of Plas Grannow, near Rexon. His father, Thomas Yale, Esq., came from England with the first colonists of New Haven. In this town, Elihu, the subsequent benefactor of the College, was born, and at ten years of age he was sent to England. Thence he went to Hindostan, and after twenty years' residence, was made Governor of Madras. He returned to London with an immense fortune, was chosen Governor of the East India Company, and died at Rexon in 1721.
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