ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, February 23, 1996 TAG: 9602230053
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: LEXINGTON
SOURCE: ALLISON BLAKE STAFF WRITER
WASHINGTON AND LEE UNIVERSITY marks the anniversary of the donation that endowed it and changed its name.
Inside a folder stored under lock and key lies an aged sheet of linen paper blessed by a sacred signature: "George Washington."
"As far as I know, [the letter has] been here throughout its history. I'm sure from the time of its receipt, it was recognized as a treasure for the college," said Vaughan Stanley, archivist for Washington and Lee University.
Not only does this well-preserved letter hold the John Hancock of our nation's father, but it also acknowledges a hallmark in the history of the old Liberty Hall Academy. On June 17, 1798, Washington expressed his thanks to the academy trustees, who, upon winning his substantial donation over neighboring competitors, renamed the school Washington Academy.
In 1796, Washington decided to award 100 shares of James River Canal Co. to the frontier school, the forerunner of Washington and Lee University. Long known as a patriot unwilling to accept recompense for service to his country, Washington nonetheless found himself in receipt of a gift from the grateful state of Virginia. He decided to pass the stock along to a worthy institution of learning. He placed the money in trust, and heeded the advice of a friend.
Fatefully, this friend was the governor, "Light Horse Harry" Lee. The father of the future Confederate general, who would supply the second part of the school's modern name, suggested that the money go to a "college ... to be placed at Staunton; there or Lexington certainly."
Seven schools applied for the money. Lexington-based Liberty Hall, known for training Presbyterian ministers, won.
"To promote literature in this rising Empire, and to encourage the Arts, have ever been amongst the warmest wishes of my heart," the commander-in-chief wrote from Mount Vernon less than two years before he died.
"And if the donation which the generosity of the Legislature of the Commonwealth of Virginia has enabled me to bestow on Liberty Hall - now by your politeness called, Washington Academy, is likely to prove a means to accomplish this, it will contribute to the gratification of my desires."
Over the next year, Washington and Lee will celebrate the bicentennial of the gift, which was transferred to the school's coffers near the end of 1798.
The lag between the time Washington bestowed the gift and when he acknowledged his new namesake was because of an extended battle between the independent-minded school and the state.
"The state took over, reasoning that it was $50,000 worth of money from the commonwealth of Virginia, so it ought to be a state school," said Farris Hotchkiss, W&L's development director.
But the scrappy backers of the school, who'd supported it financially from the start, won the post-Revolutionary battle for the academy's charter.
W&L generally credits the Washington gift and two others given in the early 19th century with seeing it through the Civil War and beyond. It was lucky. By 1930, 80 percent of all schools founded before the Civil War were defunct.
The proceeds of the stock followed the fate of the James River Canal, part of a system that was to open the West - then Ohio - to the East. In 1823, the canal company ran into trouble, and was taken over by the state. But construction pressed on.
"By 1850, it had reached Rockbridge County," Taylor Sanders, professor of history and university historian, said in an interview. "It caused a boom. Just look at the church architecture, the homes in Lexington."
For the next three decades, grain, whiskey and iron were shipped east from the small town. But then came the railroads. The canals died. The stock languished until 1892, when the General Assembly passed an act to surrender and cancel its shares in return for a 6 percent certificate of indebtedness. The Washington gift was commuted at $50,000, wrote Sanders.
One can't help but wonder where in W&L's $300 million endowment lies the Washington gift.
"Who knows?" said Hotchkiss. "It's embedded somewhere, invisible in our endowment."
It's generally accepted around W&L's campus that the gift from our founding father still generates $11,000 a year. That spreads out to $5.50 per student. - just about the cost of 11 all-nighter cans of caffeinated cola.
A forebear to the college fund-raising that now finds Virginia Tech and the University of Virginia in search of a combined $1 billion for capital campaigns, early Liberty Hall Academy raised its own donations. Unlike other schools, it received no church or government money. And now, only months after the end of a campaign that drew $147 million in gifts, the university's director of development sees the Washington gift as a link.
"I hope this doesn't sound sappy, but that's how we started," said Hotchkiss. And the lectures and exhibits that will begin later this spring give the university a chance to pay its due.
"We have more than a tendency at Washington and Lee to emphasize Robert E. Lee," admitted Hotchkiss. "There wouldn't have been a school for Lee to come to without George Washington."
W&L name changes
1749-1776 Augusta Academy
1776-1798 Liberty Hall Academy
1798-1813 Washington Academy
1813-1871 Washington College
1871-present Washington and Lee University
LENGTH: Long : 108 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: CINDY PINKSTON/Staff. Washington and Lee historianby CNBTaylor Sanders (left) and archivist Vaughan Stanley pose with a
wooden statue of George Washington at the university library.
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