Matthew Vassar
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Matthew Vassar (April 29, 1792 – June 23, 1868) was an English-American
brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...
,
merchant A merchant is a person who trades in goods produced by other people, especially one who trades with foreign countries. Merchants have been known for as long as humans have engaged in trade and commerce. Merchants and merchant networks operated i ...
, and philanthropist. He founded
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...
, a women’s college, in 1861. He was a cousin of John Ellison Vassar. The city of Vassar, Michigan, is named after him.


Early life

Matthew Vassar was born on April 29, 1792, in East Dereham,
Norfolk Norfolk ( ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in England, located in East Anglia and officially part of the East of England region. It borders Lincolnshire and The Wash to the north-west, the North Sea to the north and eas ...
,
England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...
, to James and Ann Bennett Vassar, farmers of
French Huguenot The Huguenots ( , ; ) are a Religious denomination, religious group of French people, French Protestants who held to the Reformed (Calvinist) tradition of Protestantism. The term, which may be derived from the name of a Swiss political leader, ...
ancestry (Vasseur) who emigrated from England. In 1796, they arrived in
New York State New York, also called New York State, is a state in the northeastern United States. Bordered by New England to the east, Canada to the north, and Pennsylvania and New Jersey to the south, its territory extends into both the Atlantic Ocean and ...
and settled on a farm along Wappinger's Creek on land that had been part of the 1685 Rondout Patent near Manchester Bridge in Dutchess County. While the farmhouse was being built, the family lived on the Filkintown Road, at what is now the intersection of Main and Church Streets. In 1801, James Vassar brewed ale with barley grown from seeds his brother Thomas brought from Norfolk. Demand for the ale was such that, in 1801, James 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. When Vassar was 14 years old, his parents had him apprenticed to a tanner."Matthew Vassar", Vassar Encyclopedia
/ref>


Business career

In 1806, one day before he was to begin his apprenticeship, he ran away and crossing the Hudson River on the ferry at High Point made his way to Balm Town, just north of
Newburgh, New York Newburgh is a City (New York), city in Orange County, New York, United States. With a population of 28,856 as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is a principal city of the Kiryas Joel–Poughkeepsie–Newburgh metropolitan area. ...
. There he found a job working in a store. He 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. By this time the family had most of the brewing trade in the river towns from Newburgh to Hudson. In 1811, a malt-dust explosion destroyed the family brewery on Vassar Street. His elder brother John died in the explosion, and his father was devastated by the loss. Matthew, then only 18, took over management of the business which was then conducted out of part of an old dye house belonging to George Booth, husband of Vassar's sister Maria. Booth, an immigrant from Yorkshire, England, was the first manufacturer of woolen cloth in Dutchess County.Daniels, Elizabeth Adams. "More Than a Brewer", Vassar Encyclopedia, 2011
/ref> During the
War of 1812 The War of 1812 was fought by the United States and its allies against the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, United Kingdom and its allies in North America. It began when the United States United States declaration of war on the Uni ...
, Vassar joined the local fusilier's company as a sergeant, but saw little action. He 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. In 1813, he married Catherine Valentine of Fishkill. In 1814, Vassar opened M. Vassar & Company and rebuilt the brewery on Vassar Street across the street from the family townhouse. At the time, it was the largest brewery of its kind in the United States. He served as a Poughkeepsie village trustee in 1819. He spent the winter of 1822 in
New Orleans New Orleans (commonly known as NOLA or The Big Easy among other nicknames) is a Consolidated city-county, consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the U.S. state of Louisiana. With a population of 383,997 at the 2020 ...
. In September 1824, he was among those welcoming the
Marquis de Lafayette Marie-Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier de La Fayette, Marquis de La Fayette (; 6 September 1757 – 20 May 1834), known in the United States as Lafayette (), was a French military officer and politician who volunteered to join the Conti ...
to Poughkeepsie on the occasion of the General's visit to the United States. In 1831, 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. In 1836, he built a larger brick brewery on the waterfront just above the Main Street Landing. The waterfront facility had a brewing capacity of 60,000 barrels annually. Both the malt and the hops were produced locally. M. Vassar & Co. owned a fleet of sloops to transport its ale to market. The company expanded to include two facilities in Poughkeepsie, one in New York City, and one in Lansingburgh, near
Troy, New York Troy is a city in and the county seat of Rensselaer County, New York, United States. It is located on the western edge of the county, on the eastern bank of the Hudson River just northeast of the capital city of Albany, New York, Albany. At the ...
. He brought John Guy Vassar and Matthew Vassar Jr., sons of his deceased brother John, into the business, who later founded Vassar Brothers Hospital in Poughkeepsie. In 1837, he took over the bankrupt brickyard of his brother Charles, which made bricks at what later came to be known as Brickyard Hill on the east side of town. He 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. In the 1850s, Vassar was president of the Poughkeepsie Lyceum of Literature, Science and the Mechanical Arts. He opened the 1852 season with the presentation of an address by
Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, minister, abolitionism, abolitionist, and poet who led the Transcendentalism, Transcendentalist movement of th ...
. Bruno, Maryann and Daniels, Elizabeth A., ''Vassar College'', Arcadia Publishing, 2001
In 1851, John A. Bolding, a fugitive slave from South Carolina was working as a tailor on Main Street, when he was seized by a U.S. Marshall under the terms of the
Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers. The Act was one ...
. When members of the
Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes and safe houses used by freedom seekers to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada. Enslaved Africans and African Americans escaped from slavery ...
fell short of the amount necessary to buy Bolding's freedom, Matthew Vassar was among those who made up the difference. Matthew Vassar died in his seventy-seventh year on June 23, 1868, while delivering his farewell address to the Vassar College Board of Trustees. His funeral was held in the Baptist Church on Lafayette Place. Vassar had donated the land and half the cost of erecting the church. He was buried in the Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery.


Legacy


Springside

Springside was the estate of Matthew Vassar, located just off US 9 on Academy Street in Poughkeepsie. It lay across the road from "Woodside", the estate of retired manufacturer G.C. Burnap.
Andrew Jackson Downing Andrew Jackson Downing (October 31, 1815 – July 28, 1852) was an American landscape designer, horticulturist, writer, prominent advocate of the Gothic Revival in the United States, and editor of ''The Horticulturist'' magazine (1846–1852). ...
designed the grounds, and with
Calvert Vaux Calvert Vaux Fellow of the American Institute of Architects, FAIA (; December 20, 1824 – November 19, 1895) was an English-American architect and landscape architect, landscape designer. He and his protégé Frederick Law Olmsted designed park ...
, the main house, which was never built. Springside was designated a
National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...
in 1969 and is listed on the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP).


Vassar, Michigan

Vassar, Michigan, was founded on the Cass River in 1849 by James M. Edmunds. Its main industry was lumbering. Edmunds was a nephew of Matthew Vassar. Edmunds named the settlement after his uncle, who put up the seed money for the project.


Vassar College

Vassar's niece, Lydia Booth, a teacher who ran the "Cottage Hill Seminary" out of a building Vassar owned on Garden Street, encouraged him to establish a
women's college Women's colleges in higher education are undergraduate, bachelor's degree-granting institutions, often liberal arts colleges, whose student populations are composed exclusively or almost exclusively of women. Some women's colleges admit male st ...
in Poughkeepsie. In January 1861, the
New York Legislature The New York State Legislature consists of the two houses that act as the state legislature of the U.S. state of New York: the New York State Senate and the New York State Assembly. The Constitution of New York does not designate an offici ...
passed an act to incorporate
Vassar College Vassar College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Poughkeepsie, New York, United States. Founded in 1861 by Matthew Vassar, it was the second degree-granting institution of higher education for women in the United States. The college be ...
, one of the first women's colleges in the U.S. On 26 February 1861, at the Hotel Gregory in Poughkeepsie, Matthew Vassar presented the college's
Board of Trustees A board of directors is a governing body that supervises the activities of a business, a nonprofit organization, or a government agency. The powers, duties, and responsibilities of a board of directors are determined by government regulatio ...
with a tin box containing half of his fortune, $408,000 (approximately $9,700,000 in 2008 dollars) and a deed of conveyance for of land to establish the campus. In 1864, Vassar purchased the art collection of Elias Lyman Magoon, a noted collector of
Hudson River School The Hudson River School was a mid-19th-century American art movement embodied by a group of landscape painters whose aesthetic vision was influenced by Romanticism. Early on, the paintings typically depicted the Hudson River Valley and the sur ...
paintings. Vassar's diary entry for June 16, 1865 states, "Sick and tired of College business, no one to help me Except "Scow", Doct Raymond and Swan." In a bill enacted on 15 July 1870, the U.S. Congress waived any tax claim(s) to the donation to the college.


USS ''Matthew Vassar''

The USS ''Matthew Vassar'' was a wooden centerboard schooner. It was purchased by the U.S. Navy in New York in September 1861 and commissioned in January 1862. The ship was assigned to a Mortar Flotilla guarding the approaches to New Orleans. In November 1864, it was assigned to the East Coast Blockading Squadron. After the war the ship was decommissioned and sold at auction.Mooney, James L., "Matthew Vassar", ''Dictionary of Dictionary of American Naval Fighting Ships'', Volume 1, Government Printing Office, 1970


Vassar Home for Aged Men

In 1880, Matthew Vassar's nephews, John Guy Vassar and Matthew Vassar Jr., converted the site of their uncle's mansion at 9 Vassar Street into the Vassar Home for Aged Men. It remained a senior citizen's home through much of the 20th century. The Vassar Home was added to the NRHP in 1972.


Vassar Institute

In 1882, Vassar's nephews converted the site of the old brewery at 12 Vassar Street into the Vassar Institute. The first floor contained a natural history museum and the second a library, as well as offices for the Poughkeepsie Literary Society and Poughkeepsie Society of Natural Sciences. Vassar Institute was added to the NRHP in 1972.


Vassar Hospital

Vassar Brothers Hospital was endowed by John Guy Vassar and Matthew Vassar Jr., sons of Mathew Vassar's deceased elder brother, whom he helped to prosperity by bringing them into his thriving brewing business.


References


Sources

* Gregg Smith, ''Beer in America: The Early Years—1587-1840'' (Boulder, CO: Siris Books, 1998) *


Further reading


Vassar, Matthew. ''The Autobiography and Letters of Matthew Vassar'', (Elizabeth Hazelton Haight, ed.), Oxford University Press, 1916

Lossing, Benson J., ''Vassar College and its Founder'', C. A. Alvord, New York, 1867
* Linner, Edward R., ''Vassar: The Remarkable Growth of a Man and His College, 1855 - 1865'' (Elizabetth A. Daniels, ed.), Vassar College, 1984


External links


"Vassar Triad", ''Life'', December 30, 1940 - distant relatives of Matthew Vassar flee war torn Europe for safety at Vassar College
{{DEFAULTSORT:Vassar, Matthew 1792 births 1868 deaths American brewers English emigrants to the United States People from Dereham Businesspeople from Poughkeepsie, New York Vassar College people University and college founders Educators from New York (state) 19th-century American businesspeople 19th-century American educators Burials at Poughkeepsie Rural Cemetery