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4
MEDICAL DEPARTMENT,
of Congress, and was approved by Presi
dent Andrew Johnson, March 2, 1867.
Thus Howard University came into actual
existence, at least on paper. The incor
porators were seventeen in number, viz :
Samuel C. Pomeroy, Oliver O. Howard,
Charles H. Howard, Henry A. Brewster,
Danforth B. Nichols, Hiram Barber, W.
F. Bascom, Silas L. Loomis, Charles B.
Boynton, Burton C. Cooke, James B.
Hutchinson, Benjamin F. Morris, Wil
liam G. Finney, E. M. Cushman, E. W.
Robinson, R. H. Stevens and Janies B.
Johnson. [For the Act of Incorporation,
see Appendix A. ]
The first meeting of incorporators was
held at Mr. Brewster’s, where a Board of
eighteen Trustees was chosen that in
cluded the incorporators and also General
G. W. Balloch. Balloch was there se
lected for Treasurer.
The Normal and Preparatory depart
ments began May 1 with five students.
The first session was held in the old frame
building already mentioned, east of Sev
enth street road, south of the present
Pomeroy street, which had just before
this time been used for a beer saloon and
dance house. The first pupils who came
were young ladies, the daughters of Rev
erends Nichols and Robinson. On April
13, 1868, the Medical Department came
into being. It was a success from the first,
the white students and the colored largely
forgetting prejudice in the fine opportuni
ties which that department afforded for
medical attainments, theoretical and prac
tical. On September 21 following, the
Collegiate Department had its beginning,
and has had a slow but steady develop
ment ever since. The 12th of October of
the same year we opened a Law Depart
ment, which almost immediately became
popular. It was not, strange to say, till
August, 1870, after a lengthy correspond
ence with various denominational so
cieties, that the Theological Department
was organized, although it was the one
thing had in mind by the projectors in
the original plan. I had asked the differ
ent societies to establish a professorship,
each for itself in a Union Seminary ; all
politely declined except the American
Missionary Association, which generously
nominated a Presbyterian for its first
Dean. [General Howard is still a Trus
tee of the University.]
D. B. Nichols, M. D., D. D., was one
of the Incorporators and first Board of
Trustees of the University, a member
of the Executive Committee for several
years, and a graduate in medicine in the
class of 1871. The editor had asked him
to write a contribution to the history of
the Medical Department, and just as the
work was going to press there was re
ceived from him a short sketch of
THE RISE OF THE MEDICAL DEPART-
MENT; BY AN ACTIVE PARTICIPANT
IN THE BEGINNING.
He says :
The day of small beginnings is not
to be despised ; this is on the authority
of Divine revelation and human history.
Three men [Rev. Drs. Boynton, Morris
and Nichols], at a missionary concert at
the Columbian Law Building, opposite
Judiciary Square, Washington, I). C.,
nearly a third of a century ago, were in
vited to the house of a Mr. Brewster, to
help organize a great missionary society
like the American Board of Foreign
Missions. These three by appointment
had a half hour’s preliminary conference
in the bow window of the minister’s [Dr.
Boynton] residence on Vermont avenue
opposite Dr. Butler’s church.
The proposition brought forward by
the host was soon disposed of as impracti
cable. Instead of a missionary society it
was decided to have an institution for the
education of ministers to labor among the
people made free by the emancipation
proclamation. At an adjourned meeting
the purpose of the school was enlarged to
include a normal training school and the
restriction which confined the school to
colored persons was removed, throwing
the doors wide open, and, irrespective of
color or race, offering an education to
all, bidding all a welcome to its advant
ages. Finally the broad lines of a Uni
versity were given to the enterprise.
The three men above mentioned con
stituted the committee appointed to draw