Case Western Reserve University

Owen Brown was a noted abolitionist who secured the location for the college. The abolitionist John Brown, who would lead the 1859 raid on Harpers Ferry, grew up in Hudson and was the son of co-founder Owen Brown. Hudson was a major stop on the Underground Railroad.
With Presbyterian influences of its founding, the school's origins were strongly though briefly associated with the pre-Civil War abolitionist movement; the abolition of slavery was the dominant topic on campus in 1831. The trustees were unhappy with the situation. The college's chaplain and Bible professor, Beriah Green, gave four sermons on the topic and then resigned, expecting that he would be fired. President Charles Backus Storrs took a leave of absence for health, and soon died. One of the two remaining professors, Elizur Wright, soon left to head the American Anti-Slavery Society.
Western Reserve was the first college west of the Appalachian Mountains to enroll (1832) and graduate (1836) an African-American student, John Sykes Fayette. Frederick …