McGrawville's Radical College
New York
The village of McGraw in Cortland County takes its name from Samuel McGraw, who settled here in eighteen oh five. But the community's most remarkable chapter came in eighteen forty-nine, when abolitionist Free Baptists opened New-York Central College in what they called McGrawville. It was among the first colleges in the United States explicitly founded on the principle that any qualified student could attend regardless of race.
Black students made up an estimated half of the enrollment. The college also hired three Black professors, including Charles Reason, widely regarded as the first Black faculty member at an American college. Financial troubles and a smallpox outbreak closed the college by eighteen sixty.
