The first colleges in the region were organs of church extension programs, built in the hope of improving the morals and economy of small frontier towns.  In 1859, United States Senator Justin Morrill of Vermont proposed federal funding of new state universities, run for the benefit of all citizens; President James Buchanan vetoed the measure as spendthrift. Three years later, Morrill’s project gained new life, and President Abraham Lincoln signed it into law in June 1862.

The Morrill Act provided an endowment to any state wishing to participate, by setting aside federal land in an amount proportional to the state’s population. Sale of the land would fund an endowment dedicated to any college, “where the leading object shall be, without excluding scientific and other classical studies and including military tactics, to teach such branches of learning as are related to agriculture and the mechanic arts […] in order to promote the liberal and practical education of the industrial classes in the several pursuits and professions of life.” The institutions envisioned thus had four targets: farmers, laborers, scholars and soldiers.

In Ohio

Ohio’s legislature did not accept the terms of the Morrill Act until February 9, 1864. By that time, nineteen other states had accepted the act. The Ohio General Assembly created a state commission to begin to sell land in April 1865 at 80 cents an acre, but quickly allowed the mandated price to drop as low as 12 cents. Within a year, the entire allotment was sold, 90 percent of it in the hands of three men. The state had raised little more than $430,000, averaging 60 cents an acre.

Observers at the time thought the fund would not cover the cost of the new college. The Cleveland Herald typified public anxiety about the fund, arguing that it “might as well have been cast into Lake Erie or the Ohio River. We make the prophecy that time will prove the College to be a failure and the fund to have been wasted.” Despite such disappointment, the new college’s endowment was fully one-and-a-half times larger than that of any other Ohio college.

Opinion was divided as to how to allocate the new funds. Miami and Ohio Universities advocated spreading the funds across the state, allowing existing colleges to beef up their agricultural and mechanical programs. However, the farming interests in the state insisted that a new college be opened that focused on agriculture rather than simply being added to an existing institution. 

Cannon Act

The Cannon Act of March 22, 1870, chartered a single, centrally located institution, to be named the Ohio Agricultural and Mechanical College. The college would admit Ohio youths at least 14 years old, and would represent all Ohio counties. Its site would be central, accessible by rail, and at least 100 acres in size.

Four counties – Franklin, Montgomery, Champaign and Clark – soon emerged as candidates.  The people of Franklin County were persuaded to participate by Joseph Sullivant, a prominent resident of Columbus whose father surveyed Franklin County.

On the eve of a state address by Governor Rutherford B. Hayes on the topic of the new college, Sullivant called to the people of Franklin County: “Shall we, by indifference or supineness, neglect this opportunity and permit the superior liberality and enterprise of another county to carry away a prize which we can and ought to preserve for ourselves?” The county offered $328,000 in railroad company donations and municipal bonds, and won.

Choosing Neil Farm

Work now turned to identifying a site within the county. The Board of Trustees briefly considered part of the Miner family’s land, which spanned both sides of the Scioto for miles, and which included the fashionable Greenlawn Cemetery. In the end, they sited the campus on Neil Farm, between the Olentangy and the Worthington Road, at that point far north of the city of Columbus.

An apocryphal story has it that trustee Daniel Keller, drinking from a spring on the farm, arose and said, “Gentlemen, it’s hard to get a Dutchman away from a spring like that.” Convenient to water, far from what was seen as the corrupting influence of the city, Neil Farm was suitably pastoral. Barns and other buildings on the site were soon repaired and painted, and an unspecified grain crop was raised to feed the College’s livestock.  Work began on the first college building and on a small dormitory for students, hoping to be ready to open the College in 1873.