November 10, 2015: This is the 249th Anniversary of the Chartering of Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey and the start of the 250th Celebration. Here are 10 things about the beginning you may or may not know.
1) The royal charter was granted by King George III and presented by New Jersey Royal Governor William Franklin, an illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin (the real father of our country!) Ben tried to convince his son to join the Revolution. But he never did and wound up back in England in 1782 never returning or reconciling with his dad. It’s unclear if nearby Franklin Township is named for father or son.
2) King George III named the school after his consort, Queen Charlotte of Mecklenberg. It became the sister school to King’s College. In 1825, the school re-opened as Rutgers College thru the donation of Henry Rutgers, a graduate of King’s College in 1766. King’s College also received a name change. It is today’s Columbia University.
3) Rutgers Football had special "Charter Day" games. Ursinus shut out Rutgers 35-0 and Rutgers defeated Muhlenberg 35-5 in special November 10 games scheduled on Tuesday and Wednesday in 1908 and 1909 respectively. Originally, they were going to play Charter Day games with NYU in 1897 and Stevens in 1900 but the games were cancelled. Rutgers abandoned the games in an era where the weekday football contests were becoming impractical. Weekday games would return a century later with the advent of cable television.
4) Rutgers Football is 9-10-0 when playing on November 10 – its birthday.
5) The 1766 Charter also included the founding of the Queen's College Grammar School better known today as the Rutgers Preparatory School. The Prep school actually continued in the years Queens College had shut its doors. Even though there was no college, the Board of Trustees have continued to meet every year since the school/s started. In the 1950s, the Prep school had to be separated out of the Charter to continue on its own path. It moved from Johnston Hall (the second oldest building after Old Queens) to its current location down Easton Avenue in Somerset, NJ.
6) The Charter only grants permission to find a place to create a school, it is not the opening of one. Cities in different colonial states vied for its placement. It finally came down to New Brunswick and Hackensack. Who won? Well, nobody sings “On the Banks of the Old Hackensack” do they?
7) In its first 100 years, Rutgers was often referred to as “the old Dutch college” and later “old Rutgers.”
8) Rutgers actually celebrated its Centennial birthday at the end of the 1869-70 school year. March 20, 1770 is the date of the Charter Rutgers now possesses and its first classes were held November 12, 1771 at the Sign of the Red Lion Tavern whose stones make up a bench in the middle of today’s Voorhees Mall. But in 1895, it was discovered Rutgers was using a second charter, the first was reported on in the April 20, 1767 New York Mercury. The original charter has been lost to history.
9) The only Rutgers football uniforms sporting “1766” were begun on the 1966 uniforms celebrating the 200th anniversary of the chartering. An Old Queens crown logo embedding “1766” under an “R” with smaller “N” and “J” to the left and right of the “R” was worn on the jerseys near the shoulder. They were on the uniform only in 1966, 1967 and 1968.
10) In the Rutgers-Columbia football program of 1962, Rutgers professors John Tedrow and Dr. Fiorenzo Ugolini were seen holding up the scarlet and black Queens flag printed with the script “Q” and “1766” in Antartica at a “…celebration of Rutgers ‘night’ in the land of the midnight sun.” Ugolini later climbed an unmapped valley leading to a 7,800-foot peak and proposed the name “Rutgers” for the peak and “Queens” for the valley. In a March, 2007 article, 92-year old Tedrow went on to name “Queens College Lake” in Greenland and “Rutgers Glacier” and “Tedrow Glacier” both in Antartica.
1) The royal charter was granted by King George III and presented by New Jersey Royal Governor William Franklin, an illegitimate son of Benjamin Franklin (the real father of our country!) Ben tried to convince his son to join the Revolution. But he never did and wound up back in England in 1782 never returning or reconciling with his dad. It’s unclear if nearby Franklin Township is named for father or son.
2) King George III named the school after his consort, Queen Charlotte of Mecklenberg. It became the sister school to King’s College. In 1825, the school re-opened as Rutgers College thru the donation of Henry Rutgers, a graduate of King’s College in 1766. King’s College also received a name change. It is today’s Columbia University.
3) Rutgers Football had special "Charter Day" games. Ursinus shut out Rutgers 35-0 and Rutgers defeated Muhlenberg 35-5 in special November 10 games scheduled on Tuesday and Wednesday in 1908 and 1909 respectively. Originally, they were going to play Charter Day games with NYU in 1897 and Stevens in 1900 but the games were cancelled. Rutgers abandoned the games in an era where the weekday football contests were becoming impractical. Weekday games would return a century later with the advent of cable television.
4) Rutgers Football is 9-10-0 when playing on November 10 – its birthday.
5) The 1766 Charter also included the founding of the Queen's College Grammar School better known today as the Rutgers Preparatory School. The Prep school actually continued in the years Queens College had shut its doors. Even though there was no college, the Board of Trustees have continued to meet every year since the school/s started. In the 1950s, the Prep school had to be separated out of the Charter to continue on its own path. It moved from Johnston Hall (the second oldest building after Old Queens) to its current location down Easton Avenue in Somerset, NJ.
6) The Charter only grants permission to find a place to create a school, it is not the opening of one. Cities in different colonial states vied for its placement. It finally came down to New Brunswick and Hackensack. Who won? Well, nobody sings “On the Banks of the Old Hackensack” do they?
7) In its first 100 years, Rutgers was often referred to as “the old Dutch college” and later “old Rutgers.”
8) Rutgers actually celebrated its Centennial birthday at the end of the 1869-70 school year. March 20, 1770 is the date of the Charter Rutgers now possesses and its first classes were held November 12, 1771 at the Sign of the Red Lion Tavern whose stones make up a bench in the middle of today’s Voorhees Mall. But in 1895, it was discovered Rutgers was using a second charter, the first was reported on in the April 20, 1767 New York Mercury. The original charter has been lost to history.
9) The only Rutgers football uniforms sporting “1766” were begun on the 1966 uniforms celebrating the 200th anniversary of the chartering. An Old Queens crown logo embedding “1766” under an “R” with smaller “N” and “J” to the left and right of the “R” was worn on the jerseys near the shoulder. They were on the uniform only in 1966, 1967 and 1968.
10) In the Rutgers-Columbia football program of 1962, Rutgers professors John Tedrow and Dr. Fiorenzo Ugolini were seen holding up the scarlet and black Queens flag printed with the script “Q” and “1766” in Antartica at a “…celebration of Rutgers ‘night’ in the land of the midnight sun.” Ugolini later climbed an unmapped valley leading to a 7,800-foot peak and proposed the name “Rutgers” for the peak and “Queens” for the valley. In a March, 2007 article, 92-year old Tedrow went on to name “Queens College Lake” in Greenland and “Rutgers Glacier” and “Tedrow Glacier” both in Antartica.
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