In early 1865, Ezra Cornell, as a wealthy senator in the New York Legislature, continued to lay the foundation for founding a new institution of higher learning.

On Jan. 15, 1865, he wrote to Judge F.M. Finch:

"You will recv. an invitation to attend a meeting of eminent men, friends of education, at Albany ... to inaugurate the movement for our Agricultural College, and a University at Ithaca ...

"I have modified my proposition so that it proposes to donate $500,000, for the erection of a college at Ithaca on condition that the state will endow the institution with the entire land grant fund ..."

On Jan 27, 1865, Cornell wrote again to Finch:

"The enterprise expands from an Agricultural College, to a University of the first magnitude -- such as we have to go to Europe now to find. Agriculture and mechanic arts being among its leading objects. The annual income of our strongest (Columbia) College is $65,000, from that our other colleges in this state have incomes of $20,000. $10,000. $8,000, and down to $5,000 per ann. If our plans are successful, I feel confidence in being able to lay a financial basis which will give us an anual permenant [sic] income of $100,000. That to be expended at Ithaca yearly for all time to come is the material question to which our citizens are supremely indifferent, cant attend a public meeting when invited to promote such an object. May the Lord be merciful to them and grant them future prosperity and happiness.

"If my life is spared, and prosperity continues I shall be able to make a broad mark on the future prosperity of Ithaca. I shall promise less than I shall perform. If we secure this congressional college fund I am confident that we can make Ithaca the seat of learning in America..."

On Feb. 1, Cornell wrote to his son Alonzo: "College matter looks more hopeful, but I shall not go into fits to induce the state to accept $500,000 of my money."

On Feb. 7, 1865, Andrew D. White introduced into the New York State Senate a bill to establish Cornell University as an institution for "the cultivation of the arts and sciences and of literature, and the instruction in agriculture, the mechanic arts and military tactics, and in all knowledge."

-- Adapted by Susan S. Lang from the Web site "Invention and Enterprise: Ezra Cornell, a Nineteenth-Century Life."