How Fund Raisers Founded and Saved Williams

In one of the earlier acts of planned giving, Colonel Ephraim Williams, while on his way to thrash the French at Lake George, took time to make out a will. In a document dated July 22, 1755, he made provisions to found a “free school” in West Township, which at that time was the farthest outpost of Massachusetts. He put in a clause saying that, to gain access to his funds, the town must be renamed “Williamstown.”

Forty-eight days later, Colonel Williams was killed at the Battle of Lake George. Not wanting to rush into things, the school founders took their time getting the educational enterprise off the ground – 36 years, to be precise. Once they got going, however, their ambitions soared, and they proposed that the school become a college. There was only one other institution of higher education in Massachusetts (a puritanical place in Cambridge) and only six other colleges in all of New England. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts granted a charter to Williams College in 1793. Clearly, this was a time of growth opportunity for colleges.

It may have been the time, but a good many people thought that Williamstown was not the place. There was no Theatre Festival nearby, no place to get a decent cup of coffee, and no Thai restaurant. The trustees petitioned the legislature in 1819 to move the College to Northampton, but the lawmakers in their wisdom refused. Two years later, the president of Williams, Zephaniah Swift Moore, in one of the more dastardly deeds in education, absconded with half the student body – and, as legend has it, a good portion of the library – over the hills to the east, where those infidels founded a college in the town of Amherst.

This left the remaining Williams loyalists in a fix. Emory Washburn, Class of 1817, saved the day by rallying alumni, parents, and friends to save the College. To accomplish this rescue mission, Washburn founded the world’s first continuing Society of Alumni. Using techniques that still work today, Washburn and his class agents made appointments, visited prospects, and talked up the College to anyone who would listen.

Those early Williams supporters heard the call – even though they did not have telephones – and responded. The money flowed in, and by 1828 the new college president, Rev. Edward Dorr Griffin, stood in the middle of Main Street supervising construction of a handsome new building that would hold classrooms, a library, a chapel, and, eventually, his name.

And with it stands the wonderful tradition of cheerful alumni support of Williams College. When reached by letter, phone call or e-mail, graduates are both friendly and generous, and because of this the College flourishes.

And what about Amherst? Alas, due to the pedagogical perfidy connected to its founding, Amherst class agents suffer from the Curse of Zephaniah, which causes their fundraising letters to drop straight into the trash and directs all their phone calls to answering machines.