Founding and early years

           Inside the years prior to the American Civil Battle of 1861-1865, the Methodist Episcopal Church South experienced been considering the creation of your regional university for the education of ministers in an area central to their congregations. Following lobbying by Nashville bishop Holland Nimmons McTyeire, the author of an essay about dark slavery whose father was "a cotton planter and a slaveholder" in Southerly Carolina, church leaders dicated to found "The Central University of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South" in Nashville in 1872. Nevertheless, insufficient funds and the ravaged state of the Reconstruction Era South postponed the opening of the college.
The next year, McTyeire stayed at the Fresh York City residence of Cornelius Vanderbilt, whose second wife was Frank Armstrong Crawford Vanderbilt (1839-1885), a cousin of McTyeire's better half, Amelia Townsend McTyeire (1827-1891); both women were from Mobile, Alabama. Indeed, the McTyeires had met at St. Francis Street Methodist Church in Mobile.[14] Cornelius Vanderbilt, who was the wealthiest man in the United Claims at the time, was considering philanthropy as this individual was at a sophisticated era. He had been going to establish an university on Staten Island, New You are able to, honoring his mother. Even so, McTyeire convinced him to donate $500, 000 to endow Central University in order to "contribute to strengthening the ties which should exist between all sections of our common country. "
The diathesis was eventually increased to $1 million (roughly $19, 973, 867 in 2015 dollars[18]) and would be only one of two philanthropic triggers financially maintained Vanderbilt. Even though he never expressed any desire that the university or college be given its name himself, McTyeire and his fellow trustee sale rechristened the school in his honor. Vanderbilt perished in 1877 without discovering the school named after him. They acquired land earlier owned by Texas Senator John Boyd (who selected to patronize the organization of Trinity University, a Presbyterian university in San Antonio, Texas instead), later inherited by his granddaughter and her husband, Confederate Congressman Henry S. Foote, who had built Aged Central, a house still standing on campus.

One of many founding trustees, Hezekiah William Foote, was a Confederate veteran and the owner of four farms in Mississippi, including Build Holly.[21] The Treasurer of the Panel of Trust from 1872 to 1875, Alexander Minor Page Green, whose symbol hangs in Kirkland Corridor,[22] was a Methodist preacher and a former slave owner. His son-in-law, Robert A. Young, was a Methodist minister who served as the Monetary Secretary on the Table of Trust from 1874 to 1882, retiring from the board in 1902.

The first building, Main Building, later known as Kirkland Hall, was designed by William Crawford Smith, a Confederate expert who also designed The Parthenon; its construction commenced in 1874. In the land of 1875, about 2 hundred students enrolled at Vanderbilt, and October the school was dedicated. Bishop McTyeire was called Chairman of the Table of Trust for life by Vanderbilt as a stipulation of his diathesis. McTyeire called Landon Garland (1810-1895), his mentor from Randolph-Macon School in Virginia and then-Chancellor of the University of Mississippi, as chancellor. Garland shaped the school's framework and hired the school's faculty, a lot of whom were renowned scholars in their respective fields. However, almost all of this teachers left after disputes with Bishop McTyeire, including over pay rates. When the first fraternity chapter, Phi Delta Theta, was established on grounds in 1876, it was close by the teachers, simply to be reestablished as a secret society in 1877. On the other hand, Old Gym, designed by Dutch-born architect Peter M. Williamson, was built in 1879-1880.[26] By simply 1883, the Board of Trust passed an answer allowing fraternities on grounds, and more chapters were established in 1884