The New Student's Reference Work/Cornell, Ezra

Cornell, Ezra, American philanthropist and founder of Cornell University, was born at Westchester Landing, N. Y., Jan. 11, 1807, and died at Ithaca, N. Y., Dec. 9, 1874. He settled in Ithaca as a mechanic and miller in 1828, and early took an active part in the construction of telegraph lines, in which, and in connection with the Western Union Telegraph Co., of which he was the founder, he amassed a fortune. Early in the sixties he was a member of the state assembly, and later was elected to the state senate. In 1865 he gave half a million dollars, afterward much augmented, to found the university at Ithaca, N. Y., which bears his name, and to which Congress made an appropriation of land. The institution opened in 1868.