Matthew Vassar

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Matthew Vassar (April 29, 1792–June 23, 1868) was a U.S. (English-born) brewer and merchant. He was the founder and eponym of Vassar College in 1861.

He was born in East Dereham, Tuddenham Parish, Norfolk, England. In 1796 Vassar's family emigrated to the U.S. state of New York and settled on a farm near Poughkeepsie, N. Y. When Vassar was 14 years old, his parents had him apprenticed to a tanner. One day before he was to begin his apprenticeship, he ran away to a town near Newburgh, New York. He subsequently entered the brewing business, taking over his family's small brewery at the age of eighteen. Over the next several decades he developed his Poughkeepsie brewery into one of the country's largest, by the 1830s becoming perhaps the first to achieve nationwide distribution to every state and amassing a sizable personal fortune in the process.

Inspired by his niece, Vassar decided to start one of the first women's colleges in New York. In January 1861, the New York Legislature passed an act to incorporate Vassar College. On February 26, 1861, Vassar presented the college's Board of Trustees with a small tin box, containing half of his fortune, $408,000 (approximately $8,400,000 in 2005 dollars), and a deed of conveyance for 200 acres of land to establish the campus.

On June 23, 1868, Vassar delivered his farewell address to the Vassar College Board of Trustees; he died in the middle of delivering the eleventh page of the speech. Ironically, Vassar's speech included a portion where he said the college was fortunate not to have had a death or serious illness among the board or the student body since the opening of the college. He was a cousin of Uncle John Vassar.[1]