New York Central
College
Before the Civil War, There Was New York Central College.
The First. The Forgotten. The Fearless.
In 1849, in McGrawville, New York, a small abolitionist college opened with a radical promise: qualified students would be welcomed without distinction of race or sex. In its classrooms, Black and white students, women and men, studied together — and Black professors stood at the head of integrated classes.
“God hath made of one blood all nations of men.”
A College Founded on Principle
New York Central College was not simply another antebellum school. It was founded by abolitionist Free Mission Baptists who believed education was part of the fight against slavery, racial caste, and the exclusion of women from serious study. Its short life lasted barely more than a decade, but its faculty and students carried its influence into Black education, Reconstruction politics, art, science, and civil rights.
The Founder. The Pioneer. The Controversy. The Legacy.
No single person can carry the story of New York Central College. Its history lives through founders, professors, students, and figures whose lives carried the McGrawville experiment far beyond its short existence.
Abolitionist minister, founder, and first president of New York Central College. Grosvenor helped shape the school's radical commitment to equal education without distinction of race or sex.
Appointed in 1849, Reason is widely recognized as the first African American professor at a predominantly white American college.
A Black professor, writer, and abolitionist whose engagement to Mary E. King provoked the Allen–King Affair, one of the college's most famous controversies.
A student of African American and Native American heritage who later became an internationally recognized sculptor in Rome.
This project draws on surviving college catalogs, newspaper accounts, abolitionist writings, local historical records, and archival collections connected to McGrawville, Cortland County, Syracuse University, Cornell University, New York Heritage, and the Cortland County Historical Society.