Ripon College campus, Ripon, Fond du Lac County 

Incorporated January 29, 1851. The first college building, East Hall, was staked out that spring by Ripon city founders David Mapes and Alvan Bovay. Chartered as Brockway College, it was renamed Ripon College in 1864 and graduated its first class, four women, in 1867. Although private and nonsectarian, it was given sup-port by the Winnebago convention of Presbyterian and Congregational churches until 1868. A regiment of the 1st Wisconsin Cavalry was mobilized here during the Civil War. The three original buildings are still in use.

View a related article at Wisconsin Magazine of History Archives.

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[Source: McBride, Sarah Davis. History Just Ahead (Madison:WHS, 1999).]