Messenger - Vol. 2, No. 2, Page 16 Winter 1993 Rediscovered 200-year-old Documents add to UD past Not all buried treasures are found on uncharted tropical islands, marked by mysterious maps. Some are discovered buried in forgotten boxes on closet shelves. That's how an exciting discovery was made recently, and the "treasure" is a new collection of documents dating back to the time when the University of Delaware was known as the Academy of New-Ark in the pre-Revolutionary period. According to Jean Brown, director of records management and archival services, Anna Perera of Kennett Square, Pa., was going through the papers of her late sister, Ruth Cooch, when she came across some family letters that had belonged to their father, J. Edgar Rhoads. A Newark family, the Rhoadses had owned J. Edgar Rhoads & Sons, a company that made belts for machinery and was, at one time, one of the oldest corporations in America with ownership by the same family. In the bottom of a dress box containing the family letters, Perera discovered old documents and letters pertaining to the Academy of New-Ark. No one knows how the documents were acquired, although her father was known to be a collector of memorabilia. She told a friend who had worked at Winterthur Museum about her find, and the friend recommended calling the University archives. Perera and her husband, George, later showed the documents to Brown, who was very excited about their significance, and Perera generously donated them to the University. "Although we knew about some of the activities carried out by the academy, we had no solid documentation. These papers give us specific information about such things as a trip by Dr. Hugh Williamson (an academy trustee) to Jamaica to raise funds for the academy," Brown says. John A. Munroe, H. Rodney Sharp Professor Emeritus of History and author of The University of Delaware: A History, has examined the papers and calls them an extraordinary find. Dr. Williamson, a trustee, physician and preacher who never preached and who later became one of the founding fathers of the fledgling United States, traveled extensively on the academy's behalf. The newly obtained documents detail his trip to Jamaica to appeal for funds from rich British planters on the island. Later, with John Ewing, he visited the other colonies, England and Scotland for funds, even receiving a gift from the king. According to Munroe, the trustees of the Academy of New-Ark wanted college status for their school, but this was denied by the Penn Proprietaries, especially Thomas Penn, because it was thought the College of Philadelphia, later to become the University of Pennsylvania, was sufficient. Although not chartered as a college, the academy in pre-Revolutionary times offered a classical college curriculum, Munroe said. The academy did not become a college until 1831, and it was chartered by the state in 1833. The Academy of New-Ark papers, donated by Perera, show that fundraising was a concern of institutions of learning even in the mid-1700s, and the discovered papers center around efforts to raise money for the academy. Two similar documents are broadsheets, describing the Academy of New-Ark, listing donors and the amounts they gave. One is dated Feb. 2, 1772, and the other is undated. In their plea for public funding, the trustees wrote about the advantages of the New-Ark location, being only "five miles from the Navigable Waters of Christiana River, and seven Miles from those of the Elk." They also pointed out that the "Situation of the Town is healthy. There have been very few Instances of Sickness, not one Instance of Mortality among the numerous Youth, who have been educated in this Town." In describing New-ark, the trustees pointed out that it,"generally inhabited by sober industrious People, affords no public Amusement, nor any remarkable Instances of Profligacy, or Vice, which generally draw the Attention of Youth." Moving on to the faculty and administrators, the trustees stated their determination that "no Rector, Professor, or Tutor, shall ever be supported there, who is not a Man of decent Deportment and approved Virtue, as well as accurate Learning." The solicitation ended by saying, "The Trustees have only to add, that whatever Sums of Money may be put into their Hands for the Use of the Academy of New-Ark, shall be managed with utmost Care and Frugality." Other documents give insights into the operation of the Academy of New-Ark. One was a mortgage held on the property of James Stewart, a waterman in Philadelphia, and his wife, another means of income for the school. A letter, dated Sept. 30, 1771, to Dr. Francis Alison, founder of the academy when it was in New London, Pa., and trustee of the school, is thought to have been written by a James Popham. Apparently, Alison had been in Newark, and the visit was not entirely successful. In the letter, Popham wrote that he was "sincerely sorry that you were treated so disrespectfully here" and not to "condemn the innocent with the guilty." The letter may have mollified Alison with an offer of two acres upon which to erect academy buildings. There are some records of Dr. Williamson's trip to Jamaica in 1771, including a speech, as recorded in the Kingston Journal, a record of his expenses and the funds he generated for the academy. The last document is a letter to Williamson from Joseph V. and Eliph Fitch of Kingston, advising him that they were unable to collect some of the money that was pledged to the academy but were sending nine puncheons, or large casks, of rum. "These papers are significant," Brown says, "because they are primary sources, documenting information we have from secondary sources about the early days of the University. It is amazing that they turned up more than 200 years later." -Sue Swyers Moncure