The signature of Massachusetts Governor Samuel Adams on the charter of Bowdoin College

On this day in 1794, the charter for a new college in Maine was adopted by an Act of the General Court of Massachusetts-the District of Maine being a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts in those days. The charter was signed by a gunpowder-producing merchant and founder of Phillips Academy (President of the Senate Samuel Phillips, Jr.), by the great-great-grandfather of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Speaker of the House Edward Hutchinson Robbins), and by a brewer turned rabble-rousing patriot and Founding Father of America (Governor Samuel Adams).

Exactly 216 years later, the timeline of Bowdoin College is a fascinating journey through the history of America and American higher education.