SUNDAY, JUNE 29 MARKS 165TH ANNIVERSARY OF FIRST COMMENCEMENT AT ISU
Ten Students Received Degrees That Day
By Tom Emery
Commencement at Illinois State University is one of the busiest days of the year, as thousands of graduates earn degrees on various levels. The first Commencement in university history, however, was a much different affair.
June 29 marks the 165th anniversary of the first-ever graduation ceremony at Illinois State. On that day in 1860, ten students – four women and six men – earned degrees.
That first Commencement was one of the initial activities held in “Old Main,” the first permanent building on campus. Though “the Normal University,” as it was often called back then, was much smaller, there was plenty of anticipation for the first Commencement.
The event included a public examination for the graduating students, and the community was welcome to attend. On June 28, the Bloomington Pantagraph ran a notice that “strangers and citizens need hardly be told that the examination in the Normal University begins this morning at nine o’clock, and that the exercises are public. All will be welcome.”
That harrowing experience was followed by Commencement the next day, which was a Friday. In that era, the event was an hours-long affair, packed with speeches, programs, and music.
Still, around a thousand people attended the event, which was indeed a substantial number. That year, the census in Bloomington numbered only 7,075 residents.
The ceremony was delayed by rain, but once it began, there was a heavy schedule. Music and prayer were followed by addresses from each of the ten graduates on such wide-ranging topics as the life of educator Horace Mann, fine arts in schools, agriculture, poverty, and past worship practices.
Music was played after every two or three addresses. The graduating class then performed a song before receiving their diplomas from Samuel Moulton, the sitting President of the Illinois State Board of Education, which governed ISU in its earliest years.
Following the ceremony, the Pantagraph reported that “the crowd then adjourned to another room” for a variety of entertainment courtesy of “the ladies of Bloomington.” Thirteen toasts, a staple of early-to-mid-nineteenth-century gatherings in the United States (the number represented the original colonies in the American Revolution) were offered, with a formal response to each.
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Several “voluntary toasts” were also given, including for the university president, the contractor of the construction of “Old Main,” the mechanics (tradesmen) who worked on the building, and the Model School.
The ten graduates of that first ISU class went on to successful professional lives. Interestingly, the group produced a pair of married couples, as four of them wed one another.
One of those was Enoch Gastman, who is considered the first student in ISU history. He wed a classmate, Frances A. Peterson, on July 25, 1862, two years after their graduation.
By then, both were teaching in Decatur, where Enoch would enjoy a remarkable 47-year career, mostly as high school principal and superintendent. Sadly, Frances Gastman died seven months after their marriage, on Feb. 27, 1863.
Another of the Class of 1860, John Hull, later served as president of Southern Illinois University-Carbondale in 1892-93, followed by a stint as president of the University of Wisconsin-River Falls.
A former Bloomington teacher and principal, as well as McLean County school superintendent, he also married a classmate, Mary Washburn, on April 3, 1862. She died in 1882.
The majority of the men in the first ISU class later served in the Civil War. One, Joseph Howell, was killed at the battle of Fort Donelson on Feb. 15, 1862.
Edwin Philbrook taught in the Decatur area, then became a pension attorney before his death in 1890. He was one of several of the original graduates who underwent a career change, including Peter Harper, who later settled in Louisiana and served as both a state legislator and parish judge before his death in 1887.
Silas Hayes taught school for eight years, then farmed in various locales around Illinois before moving to Los Angeles in 1888. There, he was in the laundry business before his death in 1907.
Many women gave up their careers for marriage, and it seems that Sarah M. Dunn did the same, teaching for five years before her wedding. She later lived, and died, in the Philadelphia area.
Another was Elizabeth Mitchell, who taught in Bloomington and Decatur before her marriage. She then became a respected member of the Bloomington community, residing at 509 East Front Street, where she had also lived as a child, for forty years until her death on Nov. 22, 1923, the last remaining member of the Illinois State University Class of 1860,
Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Ill. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.
