34 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
of the town from east to west. There were fifteen public 
schools with some eight hundred scholars. Dickinson 
College was granted a charter in 1783, and named after 
John Dickinson, President of the Supreme Executive 
Council of Pennsylvania, who was among those who 
contributed liberally toward its establishment. It was 
organized in the following year under the presidency of 
the Rev. Dr. Charles Nisbet of Montrose, Scotland, and 
a faculty of three professors. After various experiences 
of success and defeat the college was transferred in 1833 
to the control and direction of the Baltimore, Philadelphia, 
and New Jersey conferences of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church. Under these new auspices the college took a 
fresh start, and a preparatory, or Grammar School, was 
established. 
This school, attended by the young Bairds, was situ- 
ated on the west side of the town separated from the 
college building by High Street. In 1840 the name had 
been changed to the ‘Dickinson Institute,” and was 
attended by sixty pupils, while the number of students 
in the college had risen to one hundred and eighteen. 
A log cabin church had been built by the Presbyterians 
of the county, about 1740, of which no vestige except 
the burying ground remains. By 1834 there were two 
congregations of this denomination, one each of the so- 
called “Old” and “New Lights.” 
As an evidence of the tolerant spirit of Mr. Samuel 
Baird it may be noted that, while very constant in his 
attendance at service, usually twice on Sunday, Pro- 
fessor Baird’s early journal shows that he frequented 
both churches though apparently attending most often 
at the Second Church. Sometimes he visited the Epis- 
copal or the Lutheran, and on at least one occasion the 
