On Monday, 13 November, 1749, nineteen of the Trustees had assembled for due organization, but of the place of their meeting we are not told. The first Minute recites:
On the thirteenth day of November in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred forty and nine, the following persons, to wit, Thomas Lawrence, William Allen, John Inglis, Tench Francis, William Masters, Lloyd Zachary, Samuel M'Call, Junr, Joseph Turner, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Leech, William Shippen, Robert Strettell, Philip Syng, Charles Willing, Phineas Bond, Richard Peters, Abraham Taylor, Thomas Bond, and Thomas Hopkinson, met, and having read and approved of the foregoing Constitutions, signed them with their names, and thereby took upon themselves the execution of the Trusts in those Constitutions expressed.
Whereupon Mr Benjamin Franklin was elected President and Mr William Coleman Treasurer for the ensuing year.
The five remaining Trustees, namely James Logan, William Plumsted, Joshua Maddox, Thomas White, and William Coleman, appeared at the next meeting, which did not occur until 26 December, and signed the Constitutions. This was the only meeting of the Trustees attended by James Logan, although he remained a Trustee until his death two years later; his absences, before referred to, were due to declining years and ill health and not from want of interest in a work whose character he was in sympathy with and whose propounder he warmly supported. Here we can quote Proud's reference to the two greater or public seminaries of Philadelphia, at this time, as follows:
Besides the numerous private Schools, for the education of youth, in this city, there are two public seminaries of learning, incorporated by charter, and provided with funds; the. first, in order of time, is that of the Quakers, already mentioned in another place, incorporated by the first Proprietor, William Penn; * * * * * The second is the College and Academy of Philadelphia, of a much later standing, and not existing as such, before the year 1749; but greatly improved of late years; and is likely, if its present prudent management be continued, to become hereafter, the most considerable of the kind, perhaps, in British America: the corporation consists of twenty four members, called Trustees; they have a large commodious building, on the West Side of Fourth Street, near Mulberry Street, where the different branches of learning and science are taught, in the various parts of the institution.[1]
- ↑ History of Pennsylvania, ii. 281. 1st edition, 1797.
