A ground breaking ceremony is held in 1968 to celebrate the start of construction on a new $600,000 library at Oxford College. From left area Dean Bond Fleming of Oxford College, Emory University President Sanford Atwood and Emory Board Chairman Henry Bowden. Archives | The Covington News
Oxford College origin dates back to 1830s By TAYLOR BECK
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tbeck@covnews.com
xford College of Emory University is nearly as old as Newton County. Oxford College’s origin dates back to the early 1830s — when Andrew Jackson was president and the population of the newly formed Newton County was only 11,000. The Methodist Episcopal Church first founded what was originally known as Emory College after receiving a charter for the liberal arts institution in 1836. In addition to the school, the city of Oxford was also established. The city was named for Oxford University in England (the alma mater of Methodism’s founders), and the school for John Emory, a bishop. The college’s early leaders included Ignatius Alphonso Few, Alexander Means, Augustus Baldwin Longstreet and George Foster Pierce. Few was the col38 BICENTENNIAL EDITION
Pictured is the first administration building of Emory College. It was torn down in 1872. Archives | Oxford College
lege’s first president. From 1861-1866, Emory College closed its doors as the Civil War was underway. The campus was actually commandeered to house Confederate soldiers wounded in the Battle of Atlanta and is later occupied by Union troops.
Roughly 16 years after the college reopened, George Seney, who was a Methodist layman from Brooklyn, New York, made a sizable donation that funded the construction of what is known today as Seney Hall — the college’s most iconic building on campus. Historians say Seney made the donation after he was inspired by a sermon from former Emory President Atticus Haygood entitled, “The New South.” In 1915, Emory’s Board of Trustees voted to relocate Emory College to a 75-acre tract of land in Atlanta. Four years later, the new campus — now a university — was completed. What did that mean for Oxford? The original campus at Oxford became home to a variety of educational formats over the next 40 years, which included a college preparatory academy, a junior college, and a four-year high school/college combinaTHE COVINGTON NEWS
