09/28/2026
In December 1880, at the Farmer's Convention of the Connecticut Board of Agriculture, E.H. Hyde, vice-president of the board, announced an offer of 170 acres of land with buildings and $5,000 in cash for the establishment of a school of agriculture. The gifts were made by Augustus Storrs and his brother Charles, businessmen who were born in Mansfield.
By an act approved on April 21, 1881, the Connecticut General Assembly accepted the offer and established the Storrs Agricultural School on property that was formerly an orphanage for the children of soldiers who perished in the Civil War.
The doors of the school opened on September 28, 1881, and twelve young men were accepted as students. Their principal curriculum was agricultural practice, agricultural science, carpentry and smithing, and the basics of reading, speaking, arithmetic and geometry.
One hundred and forty-five years later, the University of Connecticut offers 125 undergraduate majors plus options to design a custom individualized major. There is still ample opportunity to learn any variant of agricultural science a student cares to study. They probably won't find smithing, though.
Here we see the Class of 1887 at their graduation and at their 40th reunion.
