NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Vanderbilt University will celebrate the 132nd
anniversary of its founding on Thursday, March 17, with a 10 a.m.
ceremony at the statue of Cornelius Vanderbilt, located at the entrance
of the Kirkland Hall esplanade off West End Avenue. Wreaths will be
placed at the statue and at the campus gravesite of Bishop Holland
McTyeire and his wife, Amelia. The ceremony will conclude at 11 a.m.
with cake and coffee in Kirkland Hall. Members of the Vanderbilt
community and the public are invited to attend.
The university was established in 1873 through a gift from Commodore
Cornelius Vanderbilt, a railroad magnate who amassed one of the largest
fortunes in America following the Civil War. Vanderbilt‘s young second
wife, Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt, was a cousin of Amelia
McTyeire, whose husband, Bishop Holland McTyeire, was leading a
movement within the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to establish an
institution of higher learning in Nashville.
During a trip to New York in early 1873, Bishop McTyeire stayed with
the Vanderbilts and by the time of his departure had won the
Commodore‘s admiration. Vanderbilt gave the bishop $1 million to build
and endow the university. It was the wealthy financier‘s only major act
of philanthropy in his lifetime.
Bishop McTyeire chose the site for the university, oversaw the planning
and construction of the buildings and personally planted many of the
trees on the original 75-acre campus. He also served as the first
president of the Board of Trust from the university‘s inception until
his death in 1889. McTyeire is buried — along with his wife, the first
chancellor Landon Garland, and two other Methodist bishops — in a plot
near the Divinity School.
Public parking for the Founder‘s Day celebration is suggested in the
Terrace Place Garage off 21st Avenue South. For more history on the
university, visit http://www.library.vanderbilt.edu/speccol/refquest.shtml on the Vanderbilt website.
Media contact: Kara Furlong, (615) 322-2706
kara.c.furlong@vanderbilt.edu