States Hospital, west of the Chattanooga depot, which was about to be sold as no longer needed for the use of the army. xfter due consultation the ground on which the building stood was purchased for $16,000. General Fisk secured the transfer of the hospital buildings from the Department of War to the Freedmen's Bureau and placed them at the disposal of the societies for school purposes.
January 6, 1866, the Fisk School was opened with appropriate public exercises and was placed under the joint charge of Professor John Ogden, of the Western Freedmen's Aid Commission, and Rev. E. M. Cravath, of the American Missionary Association.
Three years later the former society transferred its interest to the American Missionary Association. The school was named in honor of General Clinton B. Fisk, who had both personally and officially aided in every practicable way in its establishment.
As there were then no public schools in Nashville for colored children the number in attendance upon Fisk University the first year was over twelve hundred. Fisk University was incorporated under the laws of Tennessee, August 22, 1867, with a board of nine trustees, and opened for advanced pupils, the city of Nashville having started school for colored children.
The first normal class of twelve was organized in November of the same year. Early in the year 1868 $7,000 was received from the government, and repairs were made in the buildings so as to accomuiodate boarding students.
