The first meeting of the university's board of trustees was held in Augusta, Georgia, on February 13, 1786. The meeting installed Baldwin as the university's first president.
For the first 16 years of the school's history, the University of Georgia only existed on paper. By the new century, a committee was appointed to find suitable land to establish a campus. Committee member John Milledge purchased 633 acres of land on the west bank of the Oconee River and immediately gave it to the university. This tract of land, now a part of the consolidated city–county of Athens-Clarke County, Georgia, was then part of Jackson County. As of 2013, 37 acres of that land remained as part of the North Campus.
Because Baldwin was elected to the U.S. Senate, the school needed a new president. Baldwin chose his former student and fellow professor at Yale, Josiah Meigs, as his replacement. Meigs became the school's president, as well as the first and only professor. After traveling the state to recruit a few students, Meigs opened …
