Matthew Vassar was an English-born American brewer, merchant and philanthropist.
21 Facts About Matthew Vassar
2.
Matthew Vassar founded Vassar College, a women's college, in 1861.
3.
In 1801, James Vassar brewed ale with barley grown from seeds his brother Thomas brought from Norfolk.
4.
Demand for the ale was such that, in 1801, James Matthew Vassar sold the farm and bought a lot between Main and Mill Streets in the village of Poughkeepsie from Baltus Van Kleeck to build a brewery.
5.
When Matthew Vassar was 14 years old, his parents had him apprenticed to a tanner.
6.
Matthew Vassar subsequently took a better paying job with another local merchant before returning to Poughkeepsie in 1810, where he joined the family brewing business as bookkeeper and collector.
7.
Matthew Vassar spent his days at the brewery and his evenings working at an oyster saloon and restaurant he had opened in the basement of the county courthouse.
8.
Matthew Vassar served as a Poughkeepsie village trustee in 1819.
9.
Matthew Vassar spent the winter of 1822 in New Orleans.
10.
In 1831, Matthew Vassar took an active part in the incorporation of the Poughkeepsie Saving Bank and the following year became a shareholder in the Poughkeepsie Whaling Company, for which he built a large dock.
11.
Matthew Vassar expanded to include two facilities in Poughkeepsie, one in New York City, and one in Lansingburgh, near Troy, New York.
12.
Matthew Vassar brought John Guy Vassar and Matthew Vassar Jr.
13.
Matthew Vassar joined the board of the Farmers and Manufacturers National Bank and, in 1835, was elected president of the village of Poughkeepsie on the "Improvement" ticket.
14.
Matthew Vassar opened the 1852 season with the presentation of an address by Ralph Waldo Emerson.
15.
When members of the Underground Railroad fell short of the amount necessary to buy Bolding's freedom, Matthew Vassar was among those who made up the difference.
16.
Matthew Vassar died in his seventy-seventh year on June 23,1868, while delivering his farewell address to the Vassar College Board of Trustees.
17.
Matthew Vassar's funeral was held in the Baptist Church on Lafayette Place.
18.
Matthew Vassar had donated the land and half the cost of erecting the church.
19.
Springside was the estate of Matthew Vassar, located just off US 9 on Academy Street in Poughkeepsie.
20.
In January 1861, the New York Legislature passed an act to incorporate Vassar College, one of the first women's colleges in the US On 26 February 1861, at the Hotel Gregory in Poughkeepsie, Matthew Vassar presented the college's Board of Trustees with a tin box containing half of his fortune, $408,000 and a deed of conveyance for 200 acres of land to establish the campus.
21.
In 1864, Matthew Vassar purchased the art collection of Elias Lyman Magoon, a noted collector of Hudson River School paintings.